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Planning is often viewed as a problem solving activity, as something applied to a series of conceptually distinct problems to yield solutions to those problems. This paper takes a different view of planning, as an ongoing perceptual process which helps an organization understand and cope with its environment on a continuing basis. What the planners do, in this view, is not to "solve" the problems they address as much as to come to understand those problems and to communicate that understanding to decisionmakers and others in the organizations whose performance can be improved by it. The role of the planners' and decisionmakers' nonverbal internal understanding of those problems and of the environment which surrounds them is examined, and some of the implications of this view for the conduct and management of strategic planning are discussed.
This report is part of the RAND Corporation Paper series. The paper was a product of the RAND Corporation from 1948 to 2003 that captured speeches, memorials, and derivative research, usually prepared on authors' own time and meant to be the scholarly or scientific contribution of individual authors to their professional fields. Papers were less formal than reports and did not require rigorous peer review.
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