Think about yourself worthy to be called as IT professional, how do you see yourself 10 years from now, what are your strategies to get there?
When I first heard that question my mind was really blank, I really cant picture at what will be my future after 10 years, but two things I know for sure I’m a graduate of BSIT that time hehehe and I'm working hard because its pay back time for all the hard work of my parents.Ten years from now I’m 30 years old. But before that, I want to imagine first the things I probably did until I reached 30. I’ll be having my diploma when I’m 21 years old, after graduation I want to work as an IT Educator. Aside from that if there are opportunities I also want to be a Programmer or Web designer or an analyst or a database developer to have an experience. I’m also planning to accept part-time work or make a forum in helping people having a hard time fixing there computer and also students who have problems in their projects to enhance my skills. For me IT professional covers a lot of different jobs, and to be worthy called as an IT professional I must have an experience or knowledge on how to program, web design, and develop software.
Planning is one of the most important project management and time management techniques. Planning is preparing a sequence of action steps to achieve some specific goal. If you do it effectively, you can reduce much the necessary time and effort of achieving the goal.
According to Time-Management-Guide.com, a plan is like a map. When following a plan, you can always see how much you have progressed towards your project goal and how far you are from your destination. Knowing where you are is essential for making good decisions on where to go or what to do next. One more reason why you need planning is again the 80/20 Rule. It is well established that for unstructured activities 80 percent of the effort give less than 20 percent of the valuable outcome. You either spend much time on deciding what to do next, or you are taking many unnecessary, unfocused, and inefficient steps. Planning is also crucial for meeting your needs during each action step with your time, money, or other resources. With careful planning you often can see if at some point you are likely to face a problem. It is much easier to adjust your plan to avoid or smoothen a coming crisis, rather than to deal with the crisis when it comes unexpected.
According to wikipedia.org
Overview
Planning is a process for accomplishing purpose. It is blue print of business growth and a road map of development. It helps in deciding objectives both in quantitative and qualitative terms. It is setting of goals on the basis of objectives and keeping in view the resources.
What should a plan be?
A plan should be a realistic view of the expectations. Depending upon the activities, a plan can be long range, intermediate range or short range. It is the framework within which it must operate. For management seeking external support, the plan is the most important document and key to growth. Preparation of a comprehensive plan will not guarantee success, but lack of a sound plan will almost certainly ensure failure.
Purpose of Plan
There are no two organizations are alike, so also their plans. It is therefore important to prepare a plan keeping in view the necessities of the enterprise. A plan is an important aspect of business. It serves the following three critical functions:
- Helps management to clarify, focus, and research their business's or project's development and prospects.
- Provides a considered and logical framework within which a business can develop and pursue business strategies over the next three to five years.
- Offers a benchmark against which actual performance can be measured and reviewed.
Importance of the planning Process
A plan can play a vital role in helping to avoid mistakes or recognize hidden opportunities. Preparing a satisfactory plan of the organization is essential. The planning process enables management to understand more clearly what they want to achieve, and how and when they can do it. A well-prepared business plan demonstrates that the managers know the business and that they have thought through its development in terms of products, management, finances, and most importantly, markets and competition. Planning helps in forecasting the future makes the future visible to some extent. It bridges between where we are and where we want to go. Planning is looking ahead.
Planning basics
Essentials of planning
Planning is not done off hand. It is prepared after careful and extensive research. For a comprehensive business plan, management has to
- Clearly define the target / goal in writing.
- A person having authority should set it.
- The goal should be realistic.
- It should be specific.
- Acceptability
- Easily measurable
- Identify all the main issues that need to be addressed.
- Review past performance.
- Decide budgetary requirement.
- Focus on matters of strategic importance.
- What are requirements and how will they be met?
- What will be the likely length of the plan and its structure?
- Identify shortcomings in the concept and gaps.
- Strategies for implementation.
- Review periodically.
Applications
In organizations
Planning is also a management process, concerned with defining goals for future organizational performance and deciding on the tasks and resources to be used in order to attain those goals. To meet the goals, managers may develop plans such as a business plan or a marketing plan. Planning always has a purpose. The purpose may be achievement of certain goals or targets. The planning helps to achieve these goals or target by using the available time and resources. To minimize the timing and resources also require proper planning.
In public policy
Planning refers to the practice and the profession associated with the idea of planning an idea you, (land use planning, urban planning or spatial planning). In many countries, the operation of a town and country planning system is often referred to as 'planning' and the professionals who operate the system are known as 'planners‘...
It is a conscious as well as sub-conscious activity. It is “an anticipatory decision making process ” that helps in coping with complexities. It is deciding future course of action from amongst alternatives. It is a process that involves making and evaluating each set of interrelated decisions. It is selection of missions, objectives and “ translation of knowledge into action.” A planned performance brings better results compared to unplanned one. A Managers’ job is planning, monitoring and controlling. Planning and goal setting are important traits of an organization. It is done at all levels of the organization. Planning includes the plan, the thought process, action, and implementation. Planning gives more power over the future. Planning is deciding in advance what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and who should do it. It bridges the gap from where the organization is to where it wants to be. The planning function involves establishing goals and arranging them in logical order.
Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. Various business analysis techniques can be used in strategic planning, including SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats ), PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological), STEER analysis (Socio-cultural, Technological, Economic, Ecological, and Regulatory factors), and EPISTEL (Environment, Political, Informatic, Social, Technological, Economic and Legal).
Strategic planning is the formal consideration of an organization's future course. All strategic planning deals with at least one of three key questions:
- "What do we do?"
- "For whom do we do it?"
- "How do we excel?"
In business strategic planning, the third question is better phrased "How can we beat or avoid competition?". (Bradford and Duncan, page 1).
In many organizations, this is viewed as a process for determining where an organization is going over the next year or more -typically 3 to 5 years, although some extend their vision to 20 years.
In order to determine where it is going, the organization needs to know exactly where it stands, then determine where it wants to go and how it will get there. The resulting document is called the "strategic plan."
It is also true that strategic planning may be a tool for effectively plotting the direction of a company; however, strategic planning itself cannot foretell exactly how the market will evolve and what issues will surface in the coming days in order to plan your organizational strategy. Therefore, strategic innovation and tinkering with the 'strategic plan' have to be a cornerstone strategy for an organization to survive the turbulent business climate.
Vision, mission and values
Vision: Defines the desired or intended future state of an organization or enterprise in terms of its fundamental objective and/or strategic direction. Vision is a long term view, sometimes describing a view of how the organization would like the world in which it operates to be. For example a charity working with the poor might have a vision statement which read "A world without poverty"
Mission: Defines the fundamental purpose of an organization or an enterprise, basically describing why it exists and what it does to achieve its Vision. A corporate Mission can last for many years, or for the life of the organization. It is not an objective with a timeline, but rather the overall goal that is accomplished over the years as objectives are achieved that are aligned with the corporate mission.
Values: Beliefs that are shared among the stakeholders of an organization. Values drive an organization's culture and priorities.
Methodologies
There are many approaches to strategic planning but typically a three-step process may be used:
- Situation - evaluate the current situation and how it came about.
- Target - define goals and/or objectives (sometimes called ideal state)
- Path - map a possible route to the goals/objectives
One alternative approach is called Draw-See-Think
- Draw - what is the ideal image or the desired end state?
- See - what is today's situation? What is the gap from ideal and why?
- Think - what specific actions must be taken to close the gap between today's situation and the ideal state?
- Plan - what resources are required to execute the activities?
An alternative to the Draw-See-Think approach is called See-Think-Draw
- See - what is today's situation?
- Think - define goals/objectives
- Draw - map a route to achieving the goals/objectives
In other terms strategic planning can be as follows:
- Vision - Define the vision and set a mission statement with hierarchy of goals and objectives
- SWOT - Analysis conducted according to the desired goals
- Formulate - Formulate actions and processes to be taken to attain these goals
- Implement - Implementation of the agreed upon processes
- Control - Monitor and get feedback from implemented processes to fully control the operation
Situational analysis
When developing strategies, analysis of the organization and its environment as it is at the moment and how it may develop in the future, is important. The analysis has to be executed at an internal level as well as an external level to identify all opportunities and threats of the external environment as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the organizations.
There are several factors to assess in the external situation analysis:
- Markets (customers)
- Competition
- Technology
- Supplier markets
- Labor markets
- The economy
- The regulatory environment
It is rare to find all seven of these factors having critical importance. It is also uncommon to find that the first two - markets and competition - are not of critical importance. (Bradford "External Situation - What to Consider")
Analysis of the external environment normally focuses on the customer. Management should be visionary in formulating customer strategy, and should do so by thinking about market environment shifts, how these could impact customer sets, and whether those customer sets are the ones the company wishes to serve.
Analysis of the competitive environment is also performed, many times based on the framework suggested by Michael Porter.
Goals, objectives and targets
Strategic planning is a very important business activity. It is also important in the public sector areas such as education. It is practiced widely informally and formally. Strategic planning and decision processes should end with objectives and a roadmap of ways to achieve those objectives.
The following terms have been used in strategic planning: desired end states, plans, policies, goals, objectives, strategies, tactics and actions. Definitions vary, overlap and fail to achieve clarity. The most common of these concepts are specific, time bound statements of intended future results and general and continuing statements of intended future results, which most models refer to as either goals or objectives (sometimes interchangeably).
One model of organizing objectives uses hierarchies. The items listed above may be organized in a hierarchy of means and ends and numbered as follows: Top Rank Objective (TRO), Second Rank Objective, Third Rank Objective, etc. From any rank, the objective in a lower rank answers to the question "How?" and the objective in a higher rank answers to the question "Why?" The exception is the Top Rank Objective (TRO): there is no answer to the "Why?" question. That is how the TRO is defined.
People typically have several goals at the same time. "Goal congruency" refers to how well the goals combine with each other. Does goal A appear compatible with goal B? Do they fit together to form a unified strategy? "Goal hierarchy" consists of the nesting of one or more goals within other goal(s).
One approach recommends having short-term goals, medium-term goals, and long-term goals. In this model, one can expect to attain short-term goals fairly easily: they stand just slightly above one's reach. At the other extreme, long-term goals appear very difficult, almost impossible to attain. Strategic management jargon sometimes refers to "Big Hairy Audacious Goals" (BHAGs) in this context. Using one goal as a stepping-stone to the next involves goal sequencing. A person or group starts by attaining the easy short-term goals, then steps up to the medium-term, then to the long-term goals. Goal sequencing can create a "goal stairway". In an organizational setting, the organization may co-ordinate goals so that they do not conflict with each other. The goals of one part of the organization should mesh compatibly with those of other parts of the organization.
Mission statements and vision statements
Organizations sometimes summarize goals and objectives into a mission statement and/or a vision statement Others begin with a vision and mission and use them to formulate goals and objectives.
While the existence of a shared mission is extremely useful, many strategy specialists question the requirement for a written mission statement. However, there are many models of strategic planning that start with mission statements, so it is useful to examine them here.
- A Mission statement tells you the fundamental purpose of the organization. It defines the customer and the critical processes. It informs you of the desired level of performance.
- A Vision statement outlines what the organization wants to be, or how it wants the world in which it operates to be. It concentrates on the future. It is a source of inspiration. It provides clear decision-making criteria.
An advantage of having a statement is that it creates value for those who get exposed to the statement, and those prospects are managers, employees and sometimes even customers. Statements create a sense of direction and opportunity. They both are an essential part of the strategy-making process.
Many people mistake vision statement for mission statement, and sometimes one is simply used as a longer term version of the other. The Vision should describe why it is important to achieve the Mission. A Vision statement defines the purpose or broader goal for being in existence or in the business and can remain the same for decades if crafted well. A Mission statement is more specific to what the enterprise can achieve itself. Vision should describe what will be achieved in the wider sphere if the organization and others are successful in achieving their individual missions.
A mission statement can resemble a vision statement in a few companies, but that can be a grave mistake. It can confuse people. The mission statement can galvanize the people to achieve defined objectives, even if they are stretch objectives, provided it can be elucidated in SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound) terms. A mission statement provides a path to realize the vision in line with its values. These statements have a direct bearing on the bottom line and success of the organization.
Which comes first? The mission statement or the vision statement? That depends. If you have a new start up business, new program or plan to re engineer your current services, then the vision will guide the mission statement and the rest of the strategic plan. If you have an established business where the mission is established, then many times, the mission guides the vision statement and the rest of the strategic plan. Either way, you need to know your fundamental purpose - the mission, your current situation in terms of internal resources and capabilities (strengths and/or weaknesses) and external conditions (opportunities and/or threats), and where you want to go - the vision for the future. It's important that you keep the end or desired result in sight from the start.[citation needed] .
Features of an effective vision statement include:
- Clarity and lack of ambiguity
- Vivid and clear picture
- Description of a bright future
- Memorable and engaging wording
- Realistic aspirations
- Alignment with organizational values and culture
To become really effective, an organizational vision statement must (the theory states) become assimilated into the organization's culture. Leaders have the responsibility of communicating the vision regularly, creating narratives that illustrate the vision, acting as role-models by embodying the vision, creating short-term objectives compatible with the vision, and encouraging others to craft their own personal vision compatible with the organization's overall vision. In addition, mission statements need to be subjected to an internal assessment and an external assessment. The internal assessment should focus on how members inside the organization interpret their mission statement. The external assessment — which includes all of the businesses stakeholders — is valuable since it offers a different perspective. These discrepancies between these two assessments can give insight on the organization's mission statement effectiveness.
Another approach to defining Vision and Mission is to pose two questions. Firstly, "What aspirations does the organization have for the world in which it operates and has some influence over?", and following on from this, "What can (and /or does) the organization do or contribute to fulfill those aspirations?". The succinct answer to the first question provides the basis of the Vision Statement. The answer to the second question determines the Mission Statement.
Ten years from now probably I have own a company, an outsourcing company. Aside from that I am also teaching online.
Resources:
http://www.time-management-guide.com/planning.html
