Planning Models

Martin K. Starr
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Martin K. Starr: Columbia University

Management Science, 1966, vol. 13, issue 4, B115-B141

Abstract: At present, the term planning has many meanings and little substance. It is an omnibus word or a dressing gown under which a variety of management matters masquerade. So many management activities are described as planning that the significance of the term may have succumbed to generality. The planning function appears to be a status generator, presumably because planning is closely associated with top managements' interests. It is surrounded with emotional issues furthermore, that help to obscure the difference between what we say we are doing (i.e., planning) and what we are doing (?). Although planning models are the subject of this paper, from the viewpoint of consistent terminology and unambiguous definition they don't exist. On the other hand, as judged by common usage, most management science models qualify as planning models. At the uppermost entrepreneurial levels planning is almost exclusively an intuitional affair. But characteristically these domains are dramatically unstable. No maps exist for traveling in such regions. Usually, even the fundamental dimensions are unknown. What planning models have been built to cope with these real and vital top-management problems? Search and survey answers, none. Consequently, a paper about planning models can either continue as in present practice to ignore critical issues, or can begin with simple classification--more or less as Linnaeus started back in the 1700's. We have chosen the latter course and begin this paper by attempting to develop a workable taxonomy.

Date: 1966
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