What are the limitations of Planning in Management?

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.