Report on the Mintzberg's article in the Harvard Business Review about the fall and the rise of strategic planning.

Mintzberg provides one of the best--albeit cynical--views of planning in American organizations. His cynicism may be well directed, however, in that he presents ample evidence that most organizations and organizational planners enter into planning with little understanding of the definitions and various purposes of planning. He provides a range--from broad to narrow--of definitions for planning, including; (1) planning is future thinking; (2) planning is controlling the future; (3) planning is decision making; (4) planning is integrated decision making; (5) planning …

…planning. It can sometimes blur the image for the managers which rely too much on the planning. It is impossible to predict most of the events in the following months, weeks or even days so it is almost impossible to plan specific actions based on the information gathered at the time the plan was created. Of course strategic planning is important but only to some degree and managers should use it in a limited manner.