ABSTRACT
The concept of planning has evolved to the point where it presents us with some basic philosophical dilemmas. Program-planning has been an important concept for health administrators. The term "planning process" is often used to denote the intellectual stages one goes through in logical problem-solving: identification of the problem, analysis of the problem, identification and specification of alternative solutions to the problem, selection of alternatives for implementation, and evaluation. Coordinative planning in this context implies that there should be coordination of the action of two or more organizations or units so as to increase availability of scarce resources or to enhance the impact of the several organizations' actions. Coordination reduces uncertainty for agency decision-makers, but in so doing it also reduces the field of operations and the innovative alternative actions that might evolve if the larger system were considered. Another concept of planning that is based on the problem-solving assumption is that of making rational allocation decisions.
