Saturday, September 6, 2008

Interactive Planning


Interactive Planning and Idealized Design


As can be seen in the picture above there are four types of planning postures. Among these various planning postures the one which is very effective and deals with uncertainties at the greatest level is interactive planning. Interactive planning is the most comprehensive and hence complicated to implement. Interactive planning differs hugely from reactive and pre-active types of planning which are commonly used in business organizations. Human beings by nature are rebellious against the uncertain things. They love to either stay in the past of which are certain or at most in the present where uncertainties are not as much as they are in the future.

Reactive planning involves more of a laggard approach in which we identify the inefficiencies in our organization and try to remove them. Pre-active planning is more strategic in nature. It tries to predict future with certain amount of accuracy and then prepares the organization for that situation. It involves planning ‘for’ the future rather than planning the future for itself. Since future is unpredictable it makes no sense to prepare for it. So logically what should be done is try to create a desired future for the organization. This is precisely what interactive planning does.

Interactive planning, in nut shell, is a process of identifying a desired future scenario. Then projecting where the organization will reach if it continues doing what it is doing. This will give the planning gap, that is, the gap between ideal future and reference scenario. Interactive planning tries to bridge this planning gap.

Interactive planning has two parts: idealization and realization. These two are further divided into six interrelated phases like: (1) formulating the mess (2) ends planning (3) means planning (4) resource planning (5) design of implementation and (6) design of controls.

Idealization:

1) Formulation of mess: Every organization faces certain threats and opportunities, all interacting to form a set of interacting problems called mess. This phase helps in identifying the situation that an organization will get into if it allows itself to work in the present way. So we look at the ways in which such undesirable future can be avoided. Mess formulation involves a system analysis, an obstruction analysis, reference projections, and a reference scenario.

2) Ends planning: In this phases organization tries to see what it wants to be right now so that it can be what it wants to be in the future. Remaining of this planning process is just an effort to remove this gap between what you are and what you want to be.


Realization:

3) Means Planning: During this step we determine the course of action to reduce the gap identified in ends planning. We try to look at various actions, practices, programs and policies that need to be undertaken to achieve organization’s idealized redesign.

4) Resource planning: In this step we try to identify how much of resources in terms of facilities, equipments, materials, energy, money and personnel is required to achieve our idealized redesign by our selected means. Then we try to assess how mush of these resources will be available with us in the given scenario and then what we can do about the shortage or excesses identified.

5) Design of implementation: This phase is just like master scheduling in operations activities. In this stage we plan as to who will do what, when and where. Basically we assign responsibilities of the implementation stage.

6) Design of controls: This is the stage when the real work begins. Here we plan the monitoring and control mechanism. We decide on how to monitor the implementation phase and decide on how to handle failures and what to do when the desired results are not obtained.

All process in interactive planning is to be carried on simultaneously and interactively. At every stage the outputs obtained are to be revised and compared with our ideal future.

An important concept in interactive planning is Idealized design. Idealized design is the design of a system which can be a vehicle to take the organization towards its preferred future. It is not an ideal system, rather “an ideal seeking system”. Idealized design needs to be different from existing design. This is the design that the stakeholders will like to implement immediately in place of existing one. An idealized design should be technologically feasible, operationally viable and must have the ability to learn, adapt and develop.

The idealized design process has three parts:
(1) the formulation of a mission statement
(2) specification of the properties the designers want the designed organization to have, and
(3) design of an organization that has these properties.


Conclusion:

Once the action of formulating an idealized design is completed, this should be distributed for comments, criticism, and suggestions to various stakeholders. There feedback should be taken and continuous improvement of design should be carried on using their suggestions.
Interactive planning is most comprehensive of all kinds of planning. It involves huge effort from the organizations to implement this planning process. It has huge scope in terms of being carried on and helping organizations to achieve success in this ever changing business environment.




Reference: A BRIEF GUIDE TO INTERACTIVE PLANNING AND IDEALIZED DESIGN: By Russell L. Ackoff

1 comment:

Gaurav.... said...

Interactive planning is about making an ideal future and then working towards it. Until now most of us thought how to be prepared for future uncertainties and in the process never thought what exactly we want to get in the future. Interactive planning tries to address this problem.