Shaping the Future: A Holistic Approach to Planning: Fid-Bau Portal

Shaping the Future: A Holistic Approach to Planning

W. M. Hall

Planning provides the means to cope with complexity and the bewilderment of rapid change. But the question remains: Can our country's leaders and planners overcome the numbing effects of complexity and the themes rapid change brings and actually shape the world by muddling along. As members of societal organizations, our past methods of planning arguably resulted in tremendous advances in technology and standards of living. Our planning forte has been short-term, analysis-driven, reactive planning. We haven't done as well in long-term, synthesis-driven, active planning. The complex environment and the demands of change suggest modification of current methods of planning. To cope with complexity and change, plans must seek relationship, relevance, and synergy. Plans must also relate to the future. Since some types of planning have been successful, we need to retain successful methods and combine them with a synthesis-driven, holistic approach to planning. Holistic planning's precepts avoid paralysis and eschews muddling along. Holistic planning provides a path to shape the future. Holistic planning is nothing new; it approaches reality in a slightly different way than usual. Holistic planning involves combining entities. It uses detailed analysis but goes another step and synthesizes the results of analyses into wholes. To understand holistic planning, leaders and planners first have to appreciate current planning procedures then recognize existing problems the first two parts of the paper explore these subjects. Because theory provides the underpinnings of holistic planning, the paper briefly discusses it. The paper then discusses the tenets of holistic planning: coherency, combination, and continuity. Enlightened use of these tenets provides the conditions for holistic planning to succeed. The last portion of the paper provides some concrete ways to develop holistic planners.