AAI Planning
All Aspects of the Industry Aspect about How Organizations Plan
Planning is the aspect from All Aspects of the Industry that provides educators guidelines to teach students about how planning occurs in an industry or business.
The Planning aspect of the All Aspects of the Industry guidelines is designed to expose students studying industry based careers about the different ways in which that industry or a specific organization plans. The Planning aspect does not promote training for a specific career; instead it gives a framework for students to learn how an industry operates. Specifically, this includes concepts such as types of ownership and the relationship of the industry to economic, political and social contexts. It is ideal to teach planning within the context of a specific industry, such as engineering or food service, but otherwise the ideas for how to teach it are similar.
Potential Topics
Planning is a broad topic that means different things to different industries. A technology help desk would plan responses to customer questions and what to do when the problem is not easily solved. A hair dresser might plan how to respond to customer needs. A construction foreman would plan who works on which part of a project at what time. There are also other aspects to planning that students need to be exposed to, including:
- Laws that affect the industry
- How employees can affect a manager’s decisions
- What could happen within a company when anticipating technological or market changes
- How customer satisfaction and company income are related
- How to determine a company’s competition
- The role of managers within a company
- Economic, political and social influences to the industry
Implementing AAI Scenarios
Problem solving activities are ideal for including the Planning aspect in the curriculum. These can be individualized or used as group projects. Students should be exposed to a variety of scenarios; consider using a case study or a specific scenario and having students create a final product to demonstrate understanding. Examples for activities include:
- Provide a paragraph that mentions all the members of a team and have students create an organizational chart.
- Have students create a market assessment for a proposed start-up company.
- Invite a guest speaker who owns his or her own business in the industry and afterwards have students write a report as to what is necessary to successfully start a business.
- Redesign a computer lab in the school, first assessing the needs of the lab and then becoming as complicated as reasonable for the student’s skills.
Internships Enhance Classroom Activities
Classroom activities can be enhanced by internship or job shadow opportunities. A field trip could also expose students to the variety of planning within a company. In either situation, require students to write about what they see. This could include evidence of strategic planning, the roles of managers and even determining how customer satisfaction is measured.
