Planning and controlling

The essentials

Planning and controlling are closely related and are often called the inseparable twins of management. Planning sets the objectives and standards; controlling checks whether performance matches these standards and takes corrective action. Planning without controlling is meaningless, because no one would know whether plans are being achieved. Controlling without planning is blind, because there would be no standards to check against.

Key points

• Planning is a prerequisite for controlling: it provides the standards.
• Controlling helps improve future planning by giving information gathered from past performance.
• Planning is often called looking ahead and controlling looking back. This is only partly correct: plans are based on past experience, so planning also looks back; and controlling aims to improve the future, so it also looks ahead.
• Planning is an intellectual process involving thinking and decision-making; controlling checks whether decisions have been carried out.
• Both are continuous functions and together form a cycle: plan, act, control, re-plan.

Exam tips

• Be ready to explain 'planning without controlling is meaningless and controlling without planning is blind' with an example.
• Remember both functions are forward-looking as well as backward-looking.

Common mistakes

• Treating planning and controlling as completely separate functions.
• Saying controlling is only backward-looking.