Planning Under Pressure [Paperback]

This book looks a bit intimidating on first approach, and it is certainly long, comprehensive and detailed. However, there is an excellent 'quick access guide' immediately before the first chapter.

On taking the plunge, its good qualities rapidly become apparent. Anyone with an interest in planning, including senior managers, should at least read the Quick Access Guide and the first Chapter, Foundations. Many will be tempted to move forward, partly by the exceptionally useful diagrams which brilliantly illustrate the authors' underlying frameworks for planning. Planning specialists will find the whole book a valuable reference and guide to process.

There are innumerable books about business planning, most of which are concerned with short and long run profitability and competitive positioning as a major objective. There are far fewer that address the universals of strategic choice, whether the objective is to build a business, develop a community or plan a town precinct. This is one of the few books on strategic planning that really fit public sector organisations without heavy 'translation'. It is in fact an excellent description of sound processes for policy creation. At the same time, it is also valuable in providing useful conceptual and process rigour in support of conventional private sector strategic planning.

It is, above all, a guide to strategic thinking and interaction, seen as a continuous process of making choices in an understanding of the connectedness of issues and the dynamic nature of the environment. In style it is reminiscent of Weisbord, Marvin R, et al. Discovering Common Ground: How future search conferences bring people together. and Weisbord, Marvin R and Janoff, Future Search on future search, with their emphasis on extensive use of working drawings in the text and a process that depends heavily on open interaction.

In many ways it is complementary to the literature of future search. Future search tends to concentrate on the human dynamics involved in gaining consent, with less attention given to the, often very complex, underlying analysis that is needed to identify solutions that will work in practice. Planning under Pressure, on the other hand, has a sharp focus on a set of processes for arriving at sound decisions through time in conditions of complexity. It does not give much overt attention to who should take part (other than that the processes should be participative) or how to encourage the human process of working through our hopes, fears and mental models to arrive at decisions which people can embrace, although it does emphasize four important shifts from 'classical' planning:

* from routine procedures towards a continuous learning process

* from expert techniques towards open technology with a focus on decisions

* from individual working to interactive participation across all 'boundaries'

* from 'problem solving' to incremental progress towards strategic products

The underlying theme is the continuing need to make strategic choices through 'creative management of multiple uncertainties'.

The authors work through four modes of operation that are fundamental to the process:

* shaping mode is concerned with structuring a complex problem in terms of a set of decision areas, some of which are connected through decision links (this process is similar to the Ackoff, Russell L. Creating the Corporate Future: Plan or be Planned for concept of 'formulating the mess')

* in designing mode a set of decision options is identified for each decision area and feasible decision schemes are developed

* in comparing mode, comparison areas are formulated and relative assessments made

* in choosing mode uncertainties are developed and explored and a 'commitment package' is developed

These 'modes' are not used in a rigid cycle, but flexibly and iteratively. Skills in each mode are addressed in depth in a chapter of its own (Chapters 5-8)

The remaining chapters are addressed primarily to those who will be responsible for managing the process, being concerned with 'Practicalities', the use of electronic tools to support the process and extensions of the techniques to policy work, project management and developing common ground. (It is unfortunate that the second edition has not made any reference to Weisbord's work, which is highly complementary to this.)

It is also unfortunate that there is not more reference to systems dynamics, particularly to 'soft systems' technologies. This too is a complementary body of theory and practice. In many situations its use would add richness and robustness to the four 'modes of working', particularly through its capacity to highlight delay and the impact of unintended consequences.

Planning under Pressure offers a useful analytical alternative to 'classical' strategic planning approaches; it offers an invaluable analytical tool for all forms of planning such as policy planning that are not business based; and it provides a complementary body of analytical tools to support participative approaches to developing preferred futures and community building activities.

› Go to Amazon.com to see the review  5.0 out of 5 stars