Planning

Planning is defined as the act of organising activities or tasks for a future date. Once a plan is made, it has to be maintained taking into account anything that may happen at future dates. In a group collaboration, planning requires determining the cost of the project, time for construction and does it meet the requirements of the client or brief. Plans should be reviewed periodically to make sure everything is on schedule and changed if needed.


In our specific UT3 Project, we have a time constraint, that is, our project due date. We have an outline or brief of what is to be designed so we can plan out what is to be done.

Planning as shown in the diagram above can be broken down into smaller parts such as design, selection, communication, monitor, information and analysis. All parts influence and affect the others down the track and its a constant repetition of these parts in an endless cycle until the final outcome is produced.

Information could be regarded as what needs to be done or required, analysis can be described as the breakdown of the information and an in-depth look into the problem, design would be looking into possible solutions to the problem, selection would be selecting the specific solution to use in the situation. Communication would require group collaboration between workmates and/or clients to discuss whether the chosen solution is the best solution to the problem and the final stage of monitoring would involve putting the plan into action and observing what the outcome is and gathering more information. The cycle then restarts and if the proposed solution was no satisfactory then the problem could be re-analysed and another solution could be planned out again.



References
Planning diagram
Wikipedia - Planning