Effective planning techniques, efficient resource management, and appropriate documentation is critical for informed and responsive technological practice. Ongoing reflection and evaluation of past practice (both one's own and that of others), result in the ability to make informed projections into the future that underpin dynamic planning. In order to work most effectively, ethically, and responsively, specific planning mechanisms are often developed as part of technological practice to ensure that all factors key to success are taken into account throughout the developmental work.
Such planning should take into account the physical and social environment into which the outcome is to be embedded, as well the environment in which the technological practice is occurring. A significant aspect of this is the ongoing critical analysis of the impacts and implications (ethical, environmental, political, etc) of the practice, as well as those that result from the development of the outcome itself. Impacts and implications should be explored for the current time period and environment, as well as those that may be reliably forecasted for potential future scenarios. Planning of this type maximises the potential for achieving successful outcomes, whereby 'successful' is defined by 'fitness for purpose' in its broadest sense.
Planning for practice ensures that planning is both flexible enough to incorporate modifications and respond to unforeseen issues and/or changing environmental factors, and robust enough to provide guidance and ensure resource availability and sustainability. Documentation of planning, and justifications of any changes, should be through a range of communicative strategies including oral, graphic, written, and electronic means as deemed most appropriate. Practice is enhanced when documentation strategies best meet the needs of the stakeholders, including the technologist. Practice should not be constrained by documentation requirements. Rather appropriate documentation should enhance the practice undertaken to develop outcomes.