Planning is looking ahead and controlling is looking back. This statement is partially true. Planning is a psychological process of ‘thinking and deciding in advance’ about ‘what is to be done’ and ‘how it is to be done’. It is a mental activity that includes deciding the goals and also the actions through which they are to be accomplished. Thus, it is said that planning is looking ahead as it involves predicting the future. Controlling on the other hand, involves an assessment of the past performance and evaluating them against the set standards. In this sense, controlling is said to be a backward looking function.
However, both these statements are only partially true. Though planning is a futuristic concept but it is based on past actions and experiences. Planning for future cannot take place without peeping into the past. Similarly, though controlling involves assessment of past performance, it also aims at improving the future performance by taking the required corrective actions. Hence, we can say that planning and controlling are backward looking as well as forward looking functions.
