Interactive planning

Interactive planning is a concept developed by Russell L. Ackoff, an American theorist, early proponent of the field of operations research and recognized as the pioneer in systems thinking. Interactive planning forwards the idea that in order to arrive at a desirable future, one has to create a desirable present and create ways and means to resemble it. One of its unique features is that development should be ideal-oriented. Interactive planning is unlike other types of planning such as reactive planning, inactive planning, and preactive planning. This is because interactive planning is focused on systems thinking and is "based on the belief that an organization's future depends at least as much on what it does between now and then, as on what is done to it." The organization will then create its future by continuously closing the gap between its current state and its desirable current state. The overall result of a case-based approach conducted by Haftor suggests that IP is a powerful methodology in guiding organizational development. Interactive planning (IP) is a procedure that prescribes how to develop and manage social systems, e.g. organizations, whether they are business or any other kind. Ackoff (1981) expresses the intention of IP in the following terms: "The objective of interactive planning is an effective pursuit of an idealized state. The state is formulated as a design of that system with which the current system's stakeholders would replace it if they were free to do so. Such a system should be technologically feasible and operationally viable, and it should provide the system with an ability to learn and adapt quickly and effectively." Interactive planning promotes democratic control by allowing and facilitating the active participation of various stakeholders in the conceptualization and formulation of programs, projects, strategies and techniques. This empowering shift affords the stakeholders to become committed, engaged and grounded decision-makers.