PLANNING SOURCE

"Planning: Universal Process", Melville C. Branch
Published by Greenwood Publishing Group, 1990

"Planning is an integral part of everyday life in the home, in personal, occupational, and cultural affairs, in the conduct of business, military operations, and civil government." p.ix

"Identification of the knowledge needed for effective planning accompanied its evolution as a successful operational activity. Until recently this consisted of knowledge borrowed from traditional academic disciplines. Planning is now emerging as a distinctive field of knowledge with its own area of intellectual considerations, methods of utilizing information, analysis, projection, reaching conclusions, presentation, and means and methods of implementation." p.x - xi

"Related fields of knowledge such as economics, political and social science, engineering, architecture, and law - regard some aspect of planning as their special competence, and other professions consider some part of its effectuation as their operational responsibility." p.xi

"Depending on many factors, planning is institutionalized in different ways in different applications, cultures, and nations." p.xi - xii

"Planning may be intuitive and automatic, or conscious and deliberate. The latter includes many types and applications of planning. Whereas the specific objectives of most planning programs are subject to differences in opinion, the process of attaining a necessary or desirable result is accepted as an essential part of human endeavor." p.xii

"The objectives, methods, and potentialities of planning vary greatly among countries, cultures, political and social systems, and stages of economic development. Nonetheless, there are common characteristics of the process wherever and whenever applied. And certain considerations are commonly taken into account in successful planning." p.xii