Summary of the Planning School Model

January 21, 2010

Summary of the Planning School Model

The Planning School

The Foundation of the planning school is based off of the SWOT model.  It goes into much more detail then the SWOT model and includes lots of checklists and techniques.  The most influential book of the planning school is Corporate Strategy, by H. Igor Ansoff.

The main steps to this model are:

1. the objective setting stage
2. the external audit stage
3. the internal audit stage
4. strategy evaluation stage
5. strategy operationalization stage
6. scheduling the whole process

The premises of the model are:

1. Strategies result from a controlled, conscious process of formal planning, decomposed into distinct steps, each delineated by checklists and supported by techniques.
2. Responsibility for that overall process rests with the chief executive principle; responsibility for its execution rests with staff planners in practice.
3. Strategies appear from this process full blown, to be made explicit so that they can then be implemented through detailed attention to objectives, budges, programs, and operating plans of various kinds.

Because the organization cannot predict the course of its environment the planning school does not promote flexibility.  The planning strategy insists upon forecasting the future.  The planning school weighs heavily on systems and processing information, instead of people who are capable of internalizing, comprehending and synthesizing.  The major fallacy of strategic planning is in the name.  It should be called strategic programming because of vast amount of planning instead of implementing new strategies.

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