Planning and controlling

Planning and controlling depend on each other.

• Planning provides the standards that controlling uses.
• Controlling checks whether the plans are being achieved.

So planning without controlling is meaningless: no one knows whether the plan is followed. And controlling is blind without planning: there is nothing to compare against.

Planning is prescriptive: it says what should be done. Controlling is evaluative: it judges what was done.

It is often said that planning looks ahead and controlling looks back. That is only partly true. Planning also uses past experience, and controlling's corrective actions improve the future. So each looks both ways: plans based on facts make control easier, and control improves future plans.