TYPES OF PLANS

Keeping in mind that a plan encompasses any course of future action, we can see that plans are varied.
Plans are classifier here as:
• PURPOSES OR MISSIONS: Every kind of organized operation has - or at least should have, if it is to be meaningful - purposes or missions. For example the purpose of a university is teaching and research; the purpose of courts is interpretation of laws. In 1960, the mission of NASA was to send a person to the moon even before the Russians can do that. People some times think that the mission of business is to make profit.
• OBJECTIVES: Objectives are the ends toward which activity is aimed. They represent not only the end point of planning but also the end towards which organizing, staffing, leading and controlling are aimed. Enterprise objectives are the basic plans of the firm; a department may also have its own objectives.
• STRATEGIES: These are special kind of plans based on anticipated/projected action of the competitor. Competitors are two persons/forms coming for the same objective under same conditions. Both develop their own strategies keeping in view the competitor’s plan.
• POLICIES: They are plans, which are general statements or understandings, which guide in decision making. Policy is not a rule and can be changed. For example a manufacturer decides to pack products without carton; this is a policy.
• PROCEDURES: These are plans that establish a required method of handling future activities. These are specific course of action to do step by step to achieve objectives. Procedures are found in every part of an organization.
• RULES: Rules are unlike procedures in that they guide action without specifying a time sequence. Rules spell out specific required action or non-action allowing no desertion. They are codes of a discipline within which workers have to work.
• PROGRAMS: Programs are a complex of goals, policies, procedures, rules, task assignment, steps to be taken, resources to be employed, supported by budget to achieve goal. A primary program may call for many supporting programs.
• BUDGETS: A budget is a forecast of expected results expressed in numerical value or a certain definite period. It may include finance, man, machine, hours, and production units. Budgets are plans, which are very effective for controlling the things.