The lost art of planning

The purpose of this article is to present and illustrate planning as a generic and highly skilled activity. Central to this approach is a clear understanding of the objective of planning as reflected in the definition of the problem to be dealt with. It is the ability to make this essential judgement of ends and means that constitutes the ‘lost art’ of planning. Four distinct types of problems are identified: simple problems, compound problems, complex problems and meta-problems. This typology is used to show how the nature of what is to be planned determines how far planning can be expected to help and how best to go about doing it. A detailed example is provided to illustrate how a problem can be made more or less ‘manageable’ and the advantages and disadvantages that this entails. Finally, four different strategies are outlined for dealing with each of the four types of problems.