In striving to implement successful planning systems within organizations, managers must keep in mind several basic differences between strategic planning and tactical planning:

• Because upper-level managers generally have a better understanding of the organization as a whole than lower-level managers do, and because lower-level managers generally have a better understanding of the day-to-day organizational operations than upper-level managers do, strategic plans are usually developed by upper-level management and tactical plans by lower-level management.

• Because strategic planning emphasizes analyzing the future and tactical planning emphasizes analyzing the everyday functioning of the organization, facts on which to base strategic plans are usually more difficult to gather than are facts on which to base tactical plans.

• Because strategic plans are based primarily on a prediction of the future and tactical plans are based primarily on known circumstances that exist within the organization, strategic plans are generally less detailed than tactical plans.

• Because strategic planning focuses on the long term and tactical planning focuses on the short term, strategic plans cover a relatively long period of time, whereas tactical plans cover a relatively short period of time.

These major differences between strategic and tactical planning are summarized in Table 7.3.

Despite their differences, tactical planning and strategic planning are integrally related. As Russell L. Ackoff states, “We can look at them separately, even discuss them separately, but we cannot separate them in fact.”³⁶ In other words, managers need both tactical and strategic planning programs, and these programs must be closely related to be successful. Tactical planning should focus on what to do in the short term to help the organization achieve the long-term objectives determined by strategic planning.