[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# Interactive Planning

## Details

**Authors** Pourdehnad J

**Year** 2023

**Publisher** Journal of Systems Thinking 3(1):1-12

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Systems Science

**Secondary disciplines** Business & Management

**Reading level** intermediate

**Kind of engagement** scholarly

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.54120/jost.0000012) 
10.54120/jost.0000012

## In authors' words

### Abstract

Interactive planning is a participative undertaking drawing upon the skills, insights, and ideas of all stakeholders within an organization. As defined and promoted by Russell L. Ackoff, interactive planning focuses on “creating the future by designing a desirable present,” with the idea in mind that “an organization's future depends at least as much on what it does between now and then, as on what is done to it.” Interactive planning works backwards from where an organization wants to be now to where it is now. Moreover, it is an ongoing process that involves the organization’s stakeholders in the planning process. Interactive planning allows participants to know their organization more closely and, because it is ongoing, can be adapted to changes within the organization itself.

### What they set out to do (purpose)

A chapter on Russell Ackoff's interactive planning: a participative process drawing on all stakeholders that works backwards from the future an organization wants to where it is now.

### What they found (results)

Creating the future means designing a desirable present; because the planning is ongoing and involves the organization's stakeholders, it adapts to changes in the organization itself.

## Commentary

### In short

Explains Russell Ackoff's interactive planning, in which an organization's stakeholders design the future they want and work back to the present.

### Response

Published in the Handbook of Systems Thinking (Cabrera, Cabrera & Midgley, eds., 2023), a volume built on the premise that systems thinking now has a universal theory—DSRP-484. Its contents were selected on that basis by its editorial team in concert with a team of advisors.

**Patterns it shows** R, P

## Refers to

- [Handbook of Systems Thinking](https://dsrpevidence.org/element/382)

**How to cite this** Pourdehnad J (2023). Interactive Planning. Journal of Systems Thinking 3(1):1-12.