Topic 3 Assignment

1. Write down the highlights of Topic 3 Planning.

- Planning is process of setting goals, establishing strategies to accomplish set
goals, and developing specific actions to achieve said goals.
- Planning provides direction and focus, reduces uncertainty, and minimizes
wasted time, effort, and resources
- Goals are targets to be achieved. Plans are actions to be used to achieve goals
and can be described by their comprehensiveness, time frame, specificity, and
frequency of use.
- The steps in planning are:
1. Setting goals and current standing from the goal
2. Setting premise/parameter for future conditions
3. Analyzing and choosing alternative actions
4. Implementing the plan
5. Evaluating results to identify corrective actions
- The different types of planning are:
a. Strategic – analyzes the internal and external factors. Typically spans for 3-5
years. It will dramatically impact the entire organization’s survival and
success.
b. Tactical – translates the large strategic plan into specific goals for specific
parts of the organizations such as a single business within the organization
or individual departments. It has a shorter time frame of 1-2 years.
c. Operational – translates tactical plans into specific goals for small units in
the organization. They only affect the department/unit the plan was for.
They are only short term, usually 12 months or less.
d. Long Term – strategic in nature and ranges for 3-5 years. They encompass
all the functional areas of the organization and are affected by existing and
long-term framework and factors.
e. Short Term – made for only 1 year. They for sustaining the organization’s
production and distribution of current products and/or services to existing
markets.
f. Directional
g. Specific
h. Single Use – they are only relevant for a specified time. After the date,
another plan is formulated. They deal with problems that will probably not
happen again in the future. Examples are projects, budgets, and targets
i. Standing Plan – they are used again and again over a long period of time.
They are used for routine matters with pre-determined and consistent
manner. Examples are organization missions and long term strategies,
policies, and procedures.
- Planning at different levels:
a. Corporate level – most corporations have corporate headquarters with
heads who are typically senior executives of headquarters and corporate
groups such as finance, human resources, marketing, etc. Corporate-level
executives focus on the following questions:
• What industries should we get into?
• What markets should the firm be in?
• In which business should the corporation invest in?
• What resources should be allocated to each business?
b. Business level – managers focus on determining how the business is going to
compete effectively in the market. The questions they address are:
• Who are our direct competitors?
• What are their strengths and weaknesses?
• What are our strengths and weaknesses?
• What advantages do we have over our competitors?
c. Functional level – managers who are often heads of departments such as
finance, marketing, human resources or product development focus on how
to facilitate the achievement of the competitive plan of the business. These
managers may be responsible for businesses within a specific region or just
specific retail stores. The questions the address are:
• What activities does my unit need to perform well in order to meet
customer expectations?
• What information about competitors does my unit need in order to help
the business compete effectively?
- Decision Making Rational – a type of decision making in which choices are
logical and consistent and maximize value. A rational decision maker is fully
objective and logical. He/she has a clear and specific goal and knows all the
possible alternatives and consequences that maximizes the likelihood of
achieving the goal and will best interest the organization.
- Rationality is a realistic approach. Managers make decision rationally but are
bounded by their ability to process information on all alternatives so they accept
the solution that are good enough.
- Intuition based decisions are based on cognition, experience, feelings, judgment,
value, ethics, or subconscious mental processing.
- Decision making thinking styles:
a. Linear thinking style is characterized by using external data and facts and
processing information through rational thinking to guide decisions and
actions.
b. Non-linear thinking style is characterized by using internal sources of
information and processing information through internal insights, feelings,
and hunches to guide decisions and actions.
- Errors and biases in decision making:
 a. Immediate Gratification – decision makers who tend to want immediate
rewards and avoid immediate cost. They choose decision choices that
provide quick payoffs over those that may payoff in the future.
b. Anchoring Effect – a situation where decision makers fixate on initial
information as a starting point but fail to adequately adjust for subsequent
information. First impressions, ideas, prices, and estimates carry unwanted
weight relative to the information received later.
c. Selective Perception Bias – this is when decision makers selectively organize
and interpret events based on their biased perception. This influences the
information they pay attention to, the problems they identify, and the
alternatives they develop.
d. Confirmation Bias – decision makers seek out the information that reaffirms
their past choices and ignore critical information that contradict their past
judgments and preconceived ideas.
e. Availability Bias – causes decision makers to remember events that are most
recent and vivid in their memory. This distorts the ability to recall events
objectively which results in distorted judgments and probability estimates.
f. Representation Bias – decision makers assess the likelihood of an event
based on how closely it resembles other events even though the similarity
doesn’t exist.
g. Randomness – occurs when decision makers create meaning out of random
events.
h. Sunk Cost Errors – decision makers forget that current choices can’t correct
the past. They incorrectly fixate on past expenditures of time, money or
effort in assessing their choice.
i. Self-Serving Bias – decision makers who are quick to take credit for their
success and blame failure on outside factors.
j. Hindsight Bias – the tendency for decision makers to falsely believe, after
the outcome is known, that they could have accurately predicted the
outcome of the event.
- Steps in decision making:
1. Identifying the problem
2. Identifying the decision criteria
3. Allocation of weights to the decision criteria
4. The development of alternatives
5. The analysis of alternatives
6. Selection of an alternative
7. Implementation of the chosen alternative
8. Evaluation of the decision effectiveness
2. Compare and contrast the different types of planning.
a. Strategic planning focuses on the broad future of 3-5 years. It analyzes both
external and internal factors. It will impact dramatically the survival and success
of the whole organization. The top management creates strategic plans.
b. Tactical planning narrows the strategic plans into specific goals and actions for
specific parts of the organization such as a single business or department. They
have a shorter time span of 1-2 years. They make sure that the different
departments commit and contribute to the larger strategic plan.
c. Operational planning narrows the tactical plans into specific goals and actions
for small units in the organization. They have a short-term span of 12 months or
less. They are less complex than strategic and tactical plans, and only affect the
unit for which the operational plan was developed.
d. Long-term planning is strategic in nature and spans for a long period of 3-5
years. They encompass all functional areas of the business and are affected by
existing and long-term framework and factors.
e. Short-term planning is a plan for only 1 year. They are for sustaining the
organization’s production and distribution of current products and/or services to
existing markets. They affect functional groups such as production, marketing,
and finance.
f. Standing plans are used again and again over a long period of time until they are
modified or abandoned. They help managers with routine matters in a pre-
determined and consistent manner.
g. Single use plans are only relevant for a specified time and after it elapses,
another plan is formulated. They deal with problems that will probably not be
repeated in the future. They are generally derived from standing plans.

3. How can you apply the steps in decision making in your daily life as a student in the
ODL program? Please site an example.
- I can apply the steps in decision making in my daily life as a student in the ODL
program by helping my decide rationally what activities or subjects I will
prioritize and how I will do them. This will help me know what activities are
important and urgent, and those who are less important and less urgent. For
example, by applying the steps of rational decision making, I will choose to do
my 20-point essay first in English that is due tomorrow over my alternative
choice which is a 3-point Jamboard recitation entrée in Araling Panlipunan that
is due next week.
1. Identifying the problem. My problem is I have two activities to do and I need
to choose what to do first.
2. Identifying the decision criteria. My criteria are urgency and worth (i.e., how
many points).
3. Allocation of weights to the decision criteria. I prioritize what is more urgent
if the activity that is worth a large number of points has a due date that is still
far.
4. Development of alternatives. My alternatives are doing English or AP first.
5. The analysis of alternatives. The English activity is worth 20 points and is
already due tomorrow while the AP activity is only worth 3 points and is only
due next week.
6. Selection of alternatives. I decided to do the English activity first.
7. Implementation of the alternative chosen. I forget about the AP activity and
focused on doing my English activity until tomorrow.
8. Evaluation of decision effectiveness. After finishing and submitting my
English activity, I realized that I did the right decision because I was able to
pass it on time and it really was worth a lot of points, and I still have plenty of
time to finish the AP activity.