Bringing planning systems to the manager

This article reports the results of a corporate planning survey involving 15 U.K. companies and an experimental pilot planning system developed as a research tool to investigate aspects of interactive planning. The preliminary findings indicate that such systems can be of considerable benefit to managers, planners, and the organization, and that the design of the system from the users point of view will determine whether or not it will be accepted as a decision making aid. Some of the essential features are then described.