What, When, Where, How, Who?
Planning
Introduction, Important Definitions and Related Concepts:
Planning in organizations and public policy is both the organizational process of creating and maintaining a plan; and the psychological process of thinking about the activities required to create a desired future on some scale. As such, it is a fundamental property of intelligent behaviour. This thought process is essential to the creation and refinement of a plan, or integration of it with other plans, that is, it combines forecasting of developments with the prepararation of scenarios of how to react to them. The term is also used to describe the formal procedures used in such an endeavor, such as the creation of documents, diagrams, or meetings to discuss the important issues to be addressed, the objectives to be met, and the strategy to be followed. Beyond this, planning has a different meaning depending on the political or economic context in which it is used. An organization (or organisation — see spelling differences) is a social arrangement which pursues collective goals, which controls its own performance, and which has a boundary separating it from its environment. The word itself is derived from the Greek word ὄργανον (organon) meaning tool. The term is used in both daily and scientific English in multiple ways.
In the social sciences, organizations are studied by researchers from several disciplines, the most common of which are sociology, economics, political science, psychology, management, and organizational communication. The broad area is commonly referred to as organizational studies, organizational behavior or organization analysis. Therefore, a number of different theories and perspectives exist, some of which are compatible, and others that are competing. Organization – process-related: an entity is being (re-)organized (organization as task or action). Organization – functional: organization as a function of how entities like businesses or state authorities are used (organization as a permanent structure). Organization – institutional: an entity is an organization (organization as an actual purposeful structure within a social context). Public is about the what of belonging to the people; relating to, or affecting, a nation, state, or community; opposed to private; as, the public treasury, a road or lake. Public is also defined as the people of a nation not affiliated with the government of that nation. Public to the general body of mankind, or of a nation, state, or community; the people, indefinitely; as, the public; also, a particular body or aggretion of people; as, an author's public. "public Network" means a network that is regulated as a common carrier. Aggens (1983), in the paper titled "Identifying different levels of public interest in participation" states: "There is no single public, but different levels of public based on differing levels of interest and ability". A policy is a deliberate plan of action to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome(s). The term may apply to government, private sector organizations and groups, and individuals. Presidential executive orders, corporate privacy policies, and parliamentary rules of order are all examples of policy. Policy differs from rules or law. While law can compel or prohibit behaviors (e.g. a law requiring the payment of taxes on income) policy merely guides actions toward those that are most likely to achieve a desired outcome. Policy or policy study may also refer to the process of making important organizational decisions, including the identification of different alternatives such as programs or spending priorities, and choosing among them on the basis of the impact they will have. Policies can be understood as political, management, financial, and administrative mechanisms arranged to reach explicit goals.
Informal or ad-hoc plans are created by individuals in all of their pursuits. Structured and formal plans, used by multiple people, are more likely to occur in projects, diplomacy, careers, economic development, military campaigns, combat, or in the conduct of other business.
It is common for less formal plans to be created as abstract ideas, and remain in that form as they are maintained and put to use. More formal plans as used for business and military purposes, while initially created with and as an abstract thought, are likely to be written down, drawn up or otherwise stored in a form that is accessible to multiple people across time and space. This allows more reliable collaboration in the execution of the plan. Thought and thinking are mental forms and processes, respectively ("thought" is both.) Thinking allows beings to model the world and to deal with it effectively according to their objectives, plans, ends and desires. Words referring to similar concepts and processes include cognition, sentience, consciousness, idea, and imagination. Thinking involves the cerebral manipulation of information, as when we form concepts, engage in problem solving, reason and make decisions. Thinking is a higher cognitive function and the analysis of thinking processes is part of cognitive psychology. The future is commonly understood to contain all events that have yet to occur. It is the opposite of the past, and is the time subsequent to the present. Organized efforts to predict or forecast the future may have derived from observations by early man of heavenly objects. In physics, which uses a linear conception of time, the future is the portion of the projected time line that is anticipated to occur. In special relativity the future is considered as absolute future or the future light cone. In physics, time is considered to be a fourth dimension. In the philosophy of time, presentism is the belief that only the present exists and the future and the past are unreal. Religions consider the future when they address issues such as karma, life after death, and eschatologies that study what the end of time and the end of the world will be. Religious figures have claimed to see into the future, such as prophets and diviners. Future studies or futurology is the science, art and practice of postulating possible futures. Modern practitioners stress the importance of alternative and plural futures, rather than one monolithic future, and the limitations of prediction and probability, versus the creation of possible and preferable futures. In art and culture, the future was explored in several art movements and genres. The futurism art movement at the beginning of the 20th century explored every medium of art, including painting, sculpture, poetry, theatre, music, architecture and even gastronomy. Futurists had passionate loathing of ideas from the past, especially political and artistic traditions. Instead, they espoused a love of speed, technology, and violence. Futuristic music involved homage to, inclusion of, or imitation of machines. Futurism expanded to encompass other artistic domains and ultimately included industrial design, textiles, and architecture. Science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein defines sci-fi as " realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method."[1] More generally, science fiction is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology. Main Entry:
-
in·tel·li·gent
- Pronunciation:
- \in-ˈte-lə-jənt\
- Function:
- adjective
- Etymology:
- Latin intelligent-, intelligens, present participle of intelligere, intellegere to understand, from inter- + legere to gather, select — more at legend
- Date:
- 1509
\-ˌte-lə-ˈjen(t)-shəl\
adjective —
in·tel·li·gent·ly
\-ˈte-lə-jənt-lē\
adverb synonyms
intelligent,
clever,
alert,
quick-witted mean mentally keen or quick.
intelligent stresses success in coping with new
situations and solving problems <an
intelligent person could assemble it fast>.
clever implies native ability or aptness and
sometimes suggests a lack of more substantial
qualities <clever with
words>.
alert stresses quickness in perceiving and
understanding <alert to
new technology>.
quick-witted implies promptness in finding
answers in debate or in devising expedients in
moments of danger or challenge <no
match for his quick-witted opponent>.Behavior or behaviour (see spelling differences) refers to the actions or reactions of an organism, usually in relation to the environment. Behavior can be conscious or unconscious, overt or covert, and voluntary or involuntary. In animals, behavior is controlled by the endocrine system and the nervous system. The complexity of the behavior of an organism is related to the complexity of its nervous system. Generally, organisms with complex nervous systems have a greater capacity to learn new responses and thus adjust their behavior. Human behavior (and that of other organisms and mechanisms) can be common, unusual, acceptable, or unacceptable. Humans evaluate the acceptability of behavior using social norms and regulate behavior by means of social control. Animal behavior is studied in comparative psychology, ethology, behavioral ecology and sociobiology. Ronald J. Konopka and Seymour Benzer of Caltech were the first to establish the genetic basis of behavior, when they isolated three circadian rhythm mutants in Drosophila melanogaster which were later mapped to a single gene Period[1], [2]. Ethograms are used for studies on behavior. Forecasting is the process of estimation in unknown situations. Prediction is a similar, but more general term. Both can refer to estimation of time series, cross-sectional or longitudinal data. Usage can differ between areas of application: for example in hydrology, the terms "forecast" and "forecasting" are sometimes reserved for estimates of values at certain specific future times, while the term "prediction" is used for more general estimates, such as the number of times floods will occur over a long period. Risk and uncertainty are central to forecasting and prediction. Forecasting is used in the practice of Customer Demand Planning in every day business forecasting for manufacturing companies. The discipline of demand planning, also sometimes referred to as supply chain forecasting, embraces both statistical forecasting and a consensus process. Forecasting is commonly used in discussion of time-series data. Spelling is the writing of a word or words with all necessary letters and diacritics present in an accepted standard order. It is one of the elements of orthography and a prescriptive element of language. Most spellings attempt to approximate a transcribing of the sounds of the language into alphabetic letters; however, completely phonetic spellings are often the exception, due to drifts in pronunciations over time and irregular spellings adopted through common usage.[1] Difference is the contrary of equality, in particular of objects. Differences can only be stated on the basis of a comparison or categorization. Since a complete comparison of objects or things is seldom possible in practice, only relevant or defining attributes are used for stating equality or difference. Similar objects are only different with respect to attributes of minor discriminative value. In order for something to be different, you must have something to compare it to. In particular, difference can refer to: In Philosophy, Differance In mathematics, difference always means the result of subtraction
difference in set theory: see complement and symmetric difference
-
inequality Difference in
computing: see
delta encoding Difference on a
coat of arms: see
heraldry
Different (song), a song by
Acceptance.
Sociology (from Latin: socius, "companion"; and the suffix -ology, "the study of", from Greek λόγος, lógos, "knowledge" [1]) is the scientific or systematic study of society, including patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and culture[2]. Areas studied in sociology can range from the analysis of brief contacts between anonymous individuals on the street to the study of global social interaction. Numerous fields within the discipline concentrate on how and why people are organized in society, either as individuals or as members of associations, groups, and institutions. Sociology is considered a branch of social science. Sociological research provides educators, planners, lawmakers, administrators, developers, business leaders, and people interested in resolving social problems and formulating public policy with rationales for the actions that they take. Economics is the branch of social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Greek for oikos (house) and nomos (custom or law), hence "rules of the house(hold)."[1] Modern economics developed out of the broader field of political economy in the late 19th century, owing to a desire to use an empirical approach more akin to the physical sciences.[2] A definition that captures much of modern economics is that of Lionel Robbins in a 1932 essay: "the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses."[3] Scarcity means that available resources are insufficient to satisfy all wants and needs. Absent scarcity and alternative uses of available resources, there is no economic problem. The subject thus defined involves the study of choices as they are affected by incentives and resources. Areas of economics may be divided or classified into various types, including:
- microeconomics and macroeconomics positive economics ("what is") and normative economics ("what ought to be") mainstream economics and heterodox economics fields and broader categories within economics.
One of the uses of economics is to explain how economies, as economic systems, work and what the relations are between economic players (agents) in the larger society. Methods of economic analysis have been increasingly applied to fields that involve people (officials included) making choices in a social context, such as crime,[4] education,[5] the family, health, law, politics, religion,[6] social institutions, and war.[7] Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions.
Politics consists of "social relations involving authority or power"[1] and refers to the regulation of a political unit, [2] and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy.[3] Political science (also political studies) is the study of political behavior and examines the acquisition and application of power. Related areas of study include political philosophy, which seeks a rationale for politics and an ethic of public behavior, and public administration, which examines the practices of governance. Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is the effort to discover, understand, or to understand better, how the physical world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding. It is done through observation of existing phenomena, and/or through experimentation that tries to simulate phenomena under controlled conditions. Psychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the analytic and scientific study of mental processes and behavior. Psychologists study such phenomena as perception, cognition, emotion, personality, behavior, and interpersonal relationships.