Interactive planning

Interactive planning is a concept developed by Russell L. Ackoff, an American theorist, early proponent of the field of operations research and recognized as the pioneer in systems thinking. Interactive planning forwards the idea that in order to arrive at a desirable future, one has to create a desirable present and create ways and means to resemble it. One of its unique features is that development should be ideal-oriented.[1] Interactive planning is unlike other types of planning such as reactive planning, inactive planning, and preactive planning.

This is because interactive planning is focused on systems thinking and is "based on the belief that an organization's future depends at least as much on what it does between now and then, as on what is done to it."[2][self-published source?] The organization will then create its future by continuously closing the gap between its current state and its desirable current state. The overall result of a case-based approach conducted by Haftor suggests that IP is a powerful methodology in guiding organizational development.[1]

Interactive planning (IP) is a procedure that prescribes how to develop and manage social systems, e.g. organizations, whether they are business or any other kind. Ackoff (1981) expresses the intention of IP in the following terms: "The objective of interactive planning is an effective pursuit of an idealized state. The state is formulated as a design of that system with which the current system's stakeholders would replace it if they were free to do so. Such a system should be technologically feasible and operationally viable, and it should provide the system with an ability to learn and adapt quickly and effectively."[This quote needs a citation]

Interactive planning promotes democratic control by allowing and facilitating the active participation of various stakeholders in the conceptualization and formulation of programs, projects, strategies and techniques. This empowering shift affords the stakeholders to become committed, engaged and grounded decision-makers. Interactive planning, therefore, according to Zeynep Ocak, "expands participants’ conception of what is possible and reveals that the biggest obstructions to achieving the future most desired are often self-imposed constraints”"[3]

Interactive planning also promotes ownership and hence enables the active engagement of stakeholders. It helps map the organization's current standing vis-à-vis its desired future state. As such, interactive planning enables the organization and its members to be reflexive and self-critical in its process of unfolding and becoming. This “interactive and interpretative process” is the essence of “collaborative planning”.[4]

This method makes the plan itself an indispensable resource of the organization because of its groundedness and correspondence with the organization's building blocks, namely its policies, human capital, technologies and financial resources, among others. As a living document, it serves as a built-in mechanism to forge dialogue and discussion among the internal and external stakeholders of the organization. Interactive planning seeks to “facilitate exchange of knowledge between stakeholders, consensus building among them, and group-learning processes.”[4]

This collaborative approach in planning apprehends problems as interrelated realities and hence are not viewed as mutually exclusive. Considering the strong Systems Thinking influence in interactive planning, problems are viewed in their totality and in the context of their specific details in relation to the social environment where they are situated.[3]

Interactive planning has three unique characteristics:[5]

  1. Interactive planning works backwards from where an organization wants to be now to where it is now.
  2. Interactive planning is continuous; it does not start and stop.
  3. Interactive planning lets the organization's stakeholders to be involved in the planning process.

Interactive planning has six phases, divided into two parts: Idealization and Realization.

  1. ^ a b Haftor, Darek M. (1 August 2011). "An Evaluation of R.L. Ackoff's Interactive Planning: A Case-based Approach". Systemic Practice and Action Research. 24 (4): 355–377. doi:10.1007/s11213-010-9188-y. S2CID 110229978.
  2. ^ Ackoff, Russell L. (31 May 2001). "A brief guide to interactive planning and idealized design" (PDF).
  3. ^ a b Ocak, Zeynep (March 2015). Application of Interactive Planning Methodology to Multi-Project Environment (PDF). International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management. p. 1634. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  4. ^ a b Flacke, Johannes (January 2020). "Strengthening Participation using Interactive Planning Support Systems: A Systematic Review". ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information. 9 (1): 49. Bibcode:2020IJGI....9...49F. doi:10.3390/ijgi9010049.
  5. ^ Ackoff, Russell L. Re-creating the corporation: A design of organizations for the 21st century. New York:Oxford University Press, 1999.[page needed]