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Why people fail to plan Working out what needs to be done

The Planning Cycle

Planning is best thought of as a cycle, not a straight-through process: once a plan has been devised it should be evaluated. This evaluation may be cost or number based, or may use other analytical tools. This analysis may show that the plan specified may cause unwanted consequences, may cost too much, or may simply not work.

In this case the planning process will have to cycle back to an earlier stage, or the plan may have to be abandoned altogether - the outcome of your planning may simply be that it is best to do nothing!

The stages of the planning cycle that will be explained below are:

Once we have examined the planning cycle we will look at managing change and completing projects.

NB: Many of the tools contained elsewhere within Mind Tools are extremely useful during stages of the planning process. Links to these will be provided appropriately. Where you have used one of these links, click the Back button on your navigator to return to this series of articles.

Why people fail to plan Working out what needs to be done

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