Limitations of Planning are:
(i) Inaccuracy: Formulation of future plans on the basis of wrong forecasts may not lead to the desired results.
(ii) Time-consuming: Planning involves determination of the major goals to be achieved. It is time consuming and it involves energy, time and mobilization of different kinds of resources.
(iii) Rigidity : Planning often gives some amount of rigidity to its policies, procedures, programmes and methods. A balance between stability and flexibility in planning is to be maintained.
(iv) Costly : Planning is costly because it requires money, time and information.
(v) Attitudes of Management: Good planning is an agonizing process – it is an intellectual activity. It requires tremendous amount of paper work and time. Most managers would not like to undergo such a painful process and prefer to become doers rather than thinkers.
(vi) Faulty design of planning system : Some of the limitations due to the design of planning system can be listed as under :
- Lack of reward : Planning system may not have reward mechanism and as such managers tend to address their attention to short run results of their performance which carried reward.
- Lack of participation : When planning is imposed from the authorities, it may lead to resentment and resistance among those who are forced to execute.
- Lack of specific activities : Planning cannot be effective unless the goals are specific and clear.
- Competence of the planner : A planner must possess not only skill, but intelligence and breadth of vision, and for long-range master planning must have the ability to forecast.
(vii) Planning prevents innovation: Planning demands total commitment to written policies, procedures, rules etc. It restricts a manager unnecessarily to defined areas.
(viii) Lack of orientation and training for managers : For most of the managers planning is easy to put off, as it is not at all exciting or action-oriented.
(ix) Uncertainty : Planning has to’ reckon with numerous uncertainties in the environment.
Finally, planning is a mere ritual in a fast changing environment. The sudden and dramatic changes in technology, competition, government regulations, political, legal, ethical and social changes reduces the effectiveness of the planning effort.
