Planning and forecasting are no antipodes! As it were, the terms and the specific concepts that are hidden behind them are also not synonymous with one another. What, the logical question is, characterizes the use of careful data analysis and why is the use of forecasting tools such as Microsoft Power BI so profitable?
In today's fast-paced world, nothing is as certain as change. In order to effectively navigate your own company through the pitfalls of everyday life in the face of this fact, every single project requires meticulous planning. In addition to anticipating the necessary target values, such planning also includes the realistic evaluation of contextual options: comprehensive planning therefore comprises more than a mere declaration of intent; it also functions as an ariadne thread that promises security even in tricky situations. However, since mere planning is largely speculative, technical tools are required to render it more reliably.
“Forecasting is a technologically based way of tapping into various data sources and successively evaluating whether the plans made are fundamentally adhered to or realistic. ”
This is where forecasting comes into play: Forecasting is a technologically based way of tapping into various data sources and successively evaluating whether the plans made are fundamentally adhered to or realistic. Business intelligence (BI) helps to make decisions based on previously collected data (such as sick leave, individual workload and availability) — it is important that each individual thoroughly enters the required data. Forecasting is a completely cumulative and iterative issue that promises stability and security, particularly due to its cyclical and addictive nature: on the one hand, it is possible to record the workload of an entire team at a glance and to plan accordingly. On the other hand, individual team members have the opportunity to rely on the forecasts they have continuously maintained themselves when they have any inquiries regarding their availability. In this way, individual overload can be avoided as well as torpedoing a larger project at a higher level. The larger an organization, the more unmanageable the exact situation of individual demands — in case of doubt, you only know yourself fleetingly, which is not really conducive to quasi-organic solidarity. As the size (of the project or company) increases, synchronizing processes, as exemplified by forecasting, become all the more important.
Microsoft Power BI, for example, comes with a clear graphical presentation of relevant data, which serves as a viable reference to the personal availability of individual employees. This makes it possible to carry out medium and long-term planning without scheduling extensive discussions. However, a prerequisite for this procedure to work is the careful maintenance of each employee's own data.
The energetic economy in Hic et Nunc always takes place in an area of tension between accumulated experience from the past and anticipated developments in the future. Information about expected context changes is particularly valuable.
Concluding Thoughts
Every forecasting procedure therefore requires careful social framing, in other words: it is only ever as good as the social contrast film against which you ultimately place the sober information. Anticipatory planning, which starts at the start of every project, draws its effectiveness primarily from accumulated experience. Data-based forecasting methods are then used to predict, at best, the results of the plan, taking all individual planning perspectives together. The best plan can then be implemented and the actual results monitored so that the respective feedback can be incorporated into the next planning iteration.
Where people work, people make mistakes! Since we are all loss-making creatures, a reliable and incorruptible database is so essential.
