Planning, Management and the difference.

Everyone, everyday undertakes some form of planning. Looking at the choices of when to meet a colleague, or what time and where to go fishing, requires planning. So ‘planning’ is usually taken in everyday language to mean the process of charting future activities. To ‘have a plan” is to be in possession of a way of proceeding. In this context planning has two core components:
1) Determining aims for what is to be achieved in the future.
2) Clarifying the steps required to achieve those aims.
These two components may be view as common to all plans and planning exercises. However, different types of plans and planning initiatives may interpret these two components in contrasting ways. Thus, give a way to the third component which is not as important as above but a must in planning; the measures that must be put in place to monitor a plan’s effectiveness in meeting its anticipated aims.
There are perhaps as many types of plans as there are people attempting to classify them. Some governments have their Department of Planning which as the name suggests, has as one of its core activities the production and administration of formalized systems of planning. However, despite the large number of plans, and different approaches to planning, the vast majority of plans and planning initiatives can be characterized as either strategic or operational.
Strategic planning is the highest-order of planning; attempts to provide a context within which more detailed plans are designed to set and achieve specific objectives. It sets broad objectives and outlines the approaches required to achieve them, it neither attempt to give detailed objectives, nor to give a step by step description of all actions required to achieve the objectives.
In contrast, operational planning sets the directions and steps to achieve on-ground management actions. As the name suggests, it dictates localized operations, has to detail exactly where, and how, operations will be carried out. The contents of typical operational plans include details such as designs, costing and schedules of works.
“Manage” like planning, also has a number of meanings. It can mean the ability to handle a situation, or it can indicate control through the direct application of power, knowledge and skills, or through their delegation. Managers in business circles are people who are ‘in control’ of the organization through the delegation of responsibility to employees and service providers. Thus manager could be interpreted to mean directing or overall control of the organizations that oversee the day-to-day activities.
Management also can be divided into two categories; strategic and operational. Strategic management being the process of determining an organization long term direction and performance, whereas, operational being the activities of controlling on the ground actions.