The Planning Process

I was not in class on the day the egg planning activity was done, however, I do practice and put into use the planning process when I am at work. As i mentioned in a previous entry, I am a Maitre'd at a catering hall and my job is basically to supervise and run the event that I am assigned to on that day. Before the event even begins, I am in charge of indicating to my staff members how to set up the room for that particular event (room set up varies depending on the type of party). Once the party has begun, I am responsible for planning a schedule for when all the courses will be given out as well as making sure the staff is following the schedule effectively. Although I am the supervisor of the party, I like to think of my staff and I as a team because I would not be able to run the event without them. Therefore, as the team leader, I must effectively use the planning process to manage my agenda and times properly for the party I am running.
When I arrive at work and am assigned to an event, I have to determine my goals and objectives: how does the room need to be set up?; by what time does it have to be done by? given the hours of the party, what time should we serve the courses? which waiters should be assigned which sections? These are several tasks to attend to with a limited amount of time, which means that I need the assistance of my staff in attending to what they have to do in order for me to focus on what I must do. During the set-up of the dining room, I have my strongest staff members do the tasks that are most challenging or most time consuming and I have the less experienced members take care of easier tasks. Once i assign tasks to all the staff members, my job is to come up with a possible schedule for the courses and communicate with the kitchen staff to make sure they can be ready with the food by the time I need it. This time management task is one of the most difficult because usually things happen throughout the party that cause me to fall behind with my schedule. (i.e the bride and groom take too long to be ready for an entrance, speeches take longer than expected, etc). Therefore, when I come up with my possible schedule, I always make another schedule on the side with adjusted times in case I fall behind during the party. This strategy of the planning process has proven to be successful for me in many cases because the alternative schedule has already anticipated falling behind with time.
Being that we just learned about the steps of the planning process, I have actually been following them at work in the past without even knowing it. Due to experience, I feel that my planning process at work is very efficient and my team and I usually have no problem executing the plans for the events. If it were not for my planning ahead of time and communicating to the kitchen and my team members of how we will handle the tasks throughout the party, then everything would most definitely be a disaster. Planning is the most important part of the management process because it serves as a blueprint for achieving the tasks at hand.