Planning and then more planning

Imagine building a hotel, a house, or anything of size without a plan. Also image working in a large company in which it never worries about productivity by its personnel or its facilities. Now image running a government that is composed of about 5,000 employees with a budget of over $220,000,000 and exercising control over 65,000 people without a clear set of plans and no accountability for productivity! Is it any wonder that the CNMI is wavering and floundering as a ship buffeted by winds and waves with no sight of a port of refugee.

When we educate children or adults, one of the first things we teach them is to plan their work. Some of them learn and some never learn to understand two very important words for achieving results. One is: plan which means a previously thought out method or manner to achieve an end or goal. It entails a detailed formulation of a program of action. It tries to predict the future thereby warding off adversity and achieving optimum results. The other is productivity which we will discuss tomorrow.

Planning is the most basic of all management functions since it involves selection from among alternative courses of actions for any enterprise as a whole and for every department and person in it. Because planning does not take place in a vacuum, good planning must consider the nature of the future in which planning decisions and actions are intended to operate.

Plans must be made on several levels and then all levels are joined harmoniously together forming the Master Plan. In government, it is the plan handed down from the governor to his secretaries, who then develop their own plans elaborating what they received. In turn, they direct their subordinates to further refine the plans until all plans are synchronized.

A plan always involves a mental conception and if necessary graphic representation. It also encompasses imaginative scope and vision. Part of the plan includes the personnel who are going to implement and be responsible for the plan. Resources are located and allocated. A time frame is set in which to achieve the goal. The goal is be clear and realistic.

A good plan will also include alternative methods that may be necessary to implement should the original plan begin to go astray. Monitoring is necessary to chart the course of the plan.The monitor must have the power to adjust or amend the plan if obstacles beset it.

I can mention scores of plans that have been written over the years. But after the theoretical efforts and time was exerted to produce the plan, it was immediately shelved to gather dust. To mention several, recall the exhaustive Master Plan for the CNMI that was drawn up several years ago at great expense and time. So many departments and private companies were involved. What happened to it?
What dusty shelf is it rotting on? May it RIP.

Last year many of the top department heads, including me, sat through laborious planning sessions and spent countless hours planning needed vital capital improvement programs involving millions of dollars to be spent throughout the CNMI. We were assured that this plan would be little tampered with and would expedite all CIP projects. Hum! Guess what? It is limping around constantly being dickered with by the Legislature at their whim. The original plan is sadly lost on someone’s shelf. RIP also, my friend.

We continue our planning, planning, planning–but somehow we still end up in a state of planlessness. Unless we plan, goals will never be achieved. Nothing solid can be built without a good set of plans.