PLANNING DEFINED
      •  Defining the organization’s objectives or goals
      •  Establishing an overall strategy for achieving those goals
      •  Developing  a  comprehensive  hierarchy  of  plans  to 
         integrate             and            coordinate              activities
         Planning  is  concerned  with  ends  (what  is  to  be 
         done) as well as with means (how it is to be done).
  • Planning  is  the  first  managerial  function  to  be 
               
   performed. It is concerned with deciding in advance 
   what is to be done in future, when, where and by 
   whom it is to be done. It is a process of thinking 
   before doing. 
  • “Without the activities determined by planning, there 
   would be nothing to organize, no one to activate and 
   no need to control”. 
         George R. Terry 
      •  Planning is a technical managerial function that enables 
                                            
         organizations to deal with the present and anticipate the 
         future. 
      •  It  is  the  first  and  fundamental function of management 
         because all other management functions are dependent 
         on it.
      •   Planning is deciding what is to be done, when it is to be 
         done, how it is to be done and who is to do it. 
      •  It  is  an  orderly  process  that  gives  organizational 
         direction.
      •    Planning  is  the  process  of  determining  how  the 
         organization can get where it wants to go.
      •  Planning is the process of determining exactly what the 
                                            
         organization will do to accomplish its objectives. 
      •  In more formal terms, planning has been defined as ‘the 
         systematic development of action programmes aimed at 
         reaching agreed objectives by the process of analyzing, 
         evaluating and selecting among the opportunities which 
         are foreseen.”
                         NATURE OF PLANNING
      •  Planning is a comprehensive term & involves choosing a 
         course  of  action  from  all  available  alternatives  for 
         accomplishing the desired results which are economical 
         & certain.
      •  Planning sketches a complete mental picture of things 
         yet to happen in the enterprise through the process of 
         looking ahead.
      •  Planning is a rational, dynamic and integration process.
      •  Planning cannot be haphazard or improvised.
      •  It is never the result of chance or unconscious effort.
      •  Planning  is  a  process  involving  conceptual  &  analytic 
         skills,  critical  thinking,  decision  making  &  problem 
         solving.