A planning task force is often formed when the organization requires addressing special circumstances. It is preferable and more efficient than maintaining a different planning staff or department. The planning task force comprises professional planning staff, higher management, consultants, and key employees.
Organizations sometimes use a planning task force to help develop plans. Such a task force includes line managers with a special interest in the relevant area of planning. The task force may also have members from other departments of the organization.
Who can be Planning Task Force Members?
Whether at the top or lower level of the organization, every manager plans.
By definition, every executive in charge of his department is the manager and every one of the plans. The importance and magnitude of the plan will depend upon the level at which it is performed.
Planning at the top level of the managerial hierarchy is fundamental, broad, far-reaching, and basic. The various subordinate managers plan within their particular area of authority.
The scope of participation in the planning process tends to decrease as we descend towards the lower levels of management and approach the point of execution of the plan. Hence all managers plan regardless of their rank in the managerial hierarchy.
For any organization, goal attainment can be done only when there is an appropriate plan. The main responsibility of the planning process goes to a particular department or a group of people in the organization.
Planning Task Force is made up of but not limited to;
Planning Staff
Many large organizations have a professional planning staff or department for creating a better and more comprehensive plan for all the departments in the company. Organize might use a planning staff for various reasons.
One, in particular, planning staff can reduce the workload of individual managers and help coordinate the planning activities of individual managers.
Solving a particular problem with many different tools and techniques and considering the whole organization, not just a project or a department.
However, having a separate department of employees could be a financial and bureaucratic burden.
Read: Strategic Planning Process: Nine Steps of Setting Proper Strategic Plan
Board of Directors
The board of directors establishes the corporate mission and strategy.
In many companies, the board takes an active role in the planning process, especially in a new and medium-sized company. However, as the company gets larger, power and authority are decentralized.
CEO (Chief Executive Officer)
CEO (Chief executive officer) is the president, the chair of the board of directors. The CEO plays a major role in the complete planning process and is responsible for implementing the strategy. In any organization’s planning process, the CEO is the single most important individual.
The board and CEO, then, shoulder direct roles in planning. The other organizational players involved in the planning process have more of an advisory or a consulting role.
Read: Why Leaders are Born, but Managers are Made
Executive Committee
The executive committee is a collection or group made of the top executives in the organization. Executive Committee members usually meet regularly to set goals, objectives, and strategies.
Members of the executive committee are assigned to various departments or staff to maintain them and identify any possibilities that might challenge the entire organization at some time in the future.
Read: Managers Must be a Leader: Leadership Qualities Every Project Manager Should Possess
Line Management
Line management is the final component of most organizations’ planning activities. They play an important role in an organization’s planning process for two reasons;
- They provide valuable inside information for other top-level managers about formulated and implemented plans.
- The line managers at the middle and lower levels of the organization, which is why they must execute the plans developed by top management.
Line management identifies, analyzes, recommends program alternates, develops budgets and submits them for approval, and finally sets the plans in motion. All managers engage in the planning process to some degree.
The larger an organization becomes, the more the primary planning activities become associated with groups of managers rather than individual managers.