BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

PLANNING 1)

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"The act or process of deciding in advance what to do" (UNESCO – UNEP, 1983, p.20).

The UNESCO – UNEP "Glossary of environmental educational terms" adds the following complementary definitions: "A dynamic effort to use decisions to guide future actions and decisions. A continuous process which identifies, analyzes, decides goals/ends, alternatives, programmes, and evaluations in guiding the future and in coming up with solutions for present and future problems" (Ibid).

The basic postulate for planning is the possibility of prediction. However, prediction remains still more of an art than a science. Moreover, it becomes now clear that predictability is never total and more and more imperfect for situations and systems transformations more distant in time.

Planning also implies choice, i.e. the selection of preferred constraints on the future.

The scope of planning is becoming wider and wider with the ever growing interactions of numerous complex systems. It has also become divided in more specific areas, as for example tactical and strategic planning.

The need to differentiate short, median and long-term planning is also more and more recognized.

In synthesis, planning is an ever wider embracing activity and thus systemic methods are in growing need.

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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