For many years I did not know the difference between planning and forward planning, even thinking there probably wasn’t any difference. In training sessions and team meetings when we would discuss planning, I would often ask what the difference was, and rarely if ever I would get an answer, never a satisfactory answer.
However, I still suspected that there was something that made forward planning different to plain old planning. So, I did some internet research and actually much of the discussion out there on the internet tubes also didn’t know what forward planning was.
One definition that I saw said, forward planning involves organising steps chronologically from the present to the future.
I had to ask isn’t this just planning?
Another source said chronological steps made it forward planning, whereas planning was done by looking at the end goal and working out the end goal and working backwards to see what steps were needed to achieve the end goal.
To me, that is pretty much the same thing. You have a end goal, to achieve it you will break it down into a series of tasks and organise them chronologically. Whether you work forwards or backwards, it’s still pretty much the same, it’s just plain old planning.
I then started to see a pattern in my research.
Planning was about achieving an end goal.
Forward planning was less about where you wanted to be, but planning for an unknown future. It was about anticipating future needs, potential risks, long term developments, economic change, societal change; so you are forward planning to be responsive to whatever the changes the future holds. Forward planning is specifically designed to minimise future uncertainties, less about planning for a specific goal.
I am not saying I am right, but I now have the basis for a future discussion about planning and forward planning.
