Technology rarely poses the major concerns in any effort to build and sustain an effective land administration infrastructure. Rather, the core challenges tend to be related to management issues, as will be discussed in this chapter. Management was described in our earlier book as the art and science of making decisions in support of certain perceived objectives. Like politics, it is the art of achieving the possible, the ability to get things done. Management skills are needed in order to implement policy decisions and to meet the objectives set for any organization. Good management seeks to do this in an optimum fashion—perfect solutions never arise. Management entails extrapolating trends from a limited range of facts—sufficient information is never available for decisions to be made with certainty as to their outcome. Better information will however bring about a better understanding of any system and hence create the possibility for its better operation. Information is needed to: 1. monitor what is going on so that areas where decisions need to be made can be identified; 2. help evaluate alternative strategies for dealing with the problems or opportunities that have been identified; 3. assist in selecting the right course of action; and 4. facilitate the implementation of whatever has been decided. Management operates at all levels from the personal to the institutional; for instance all individuals need to practise self-management in order to achieve their optimum personal goals. More particularly, management within an organization operates at three key levels—strategic planning, management control, and operational control. Strategic planning is the process whereby decisions are made on an organization’s objectives, including where the organization should position itself to cope with future trends and markets. Operational control involves the day-to-day processes of ensuring that routine tasks are carried out efficiently and effectively. Management control is the interface between these two, ensuring that adequate resources are secured, either in terms of people, money, or equipment, to achieve the organization’s mission and objectives.
'n Model vir fasette van strategiese beplanning vir inligtingstelsels in organisasies
