Professional Planning Artur Victoria Definition The planning process is the tool that people and organizations use to manage their relationships with the future. It is a specific application of the decision-making process. Decisions that seek to influence the future, or that will be put into practice in the future, are planning decisions. Based on this basic concept, the planning process can be defined in several ways: Plan: - It is to define objectives or results to be achieved; - It is to define means to enable results to be achieved. - It is to interfere in reality to move from a known situation to the desired situation within a defined interval of time. - It is to make decisions that affect the future in order to reduce its uncertainty. The process of making planning decisions has a marked presence in the activities of the administrators of organizations. The creation of any organization begins with interdependent internal and external planning decisions. External planning decisions are those that define the objectives of the organization. Internal planning decisions are those that encompass the choice of means (or resources) to achieve the objectives. With the passage of time, the circumstances that determine the choice of a goal change. The goal then needs to be changed, or the means applied in its realization, or both. To maintain its efficiency and effectiveness, an organization needs to dedicate energy to the process of drawing up plans and putting them into practice. This need increases as the environment becomes more complex and dynamic, with a large number of interfaces with the organization and the accelerated rate of change. The more complex is the environment, the greater the need for planning. There are several explanations for fluctuations in companies' ability to respond to external and internal challenges. One is the attitude of managers toward the future: the attitude can be proactive or reactive. Depending on the predominant attitude of managers, the organization will be more or less affected by the events and more or less effective. Balance of forces In all organizations, the two types of forces are present and necessary. Proactive attitude is important for growth and change; reactive behaviour is important to maintain balance and