Management system mind maps lay out the logic of managing any process, from making an apple pie to running a transglobal company.

In our everyday life, we try to plan before we act.  We plan what or where to eat; where to go after work; what to buy; how long it takes to reach home. We all make so many plans throughout the day that we can truly say that a compulsion to plan with foresight is the outcome of the evolution of the human brain.

Basically a conservation plan sets a target for the condition of a system, and schedules the work neccesary as inputs to the system in order to control positive and negative factors that influence the system's condition. The results, or outputs, of this work plan change the system towards the target condition, which is known as the outcome of the plan. If the inputs are not producing the desired outcome they are adjusted by the planners in an adaptive loop. This defines the planning cycle as a dynamic iterative process.   

Thinking about making apple pies helps in understanding the basic ideas behind planning and evaluating the effectiveness of our plans as a general planning/recording logic.

·         The objective in making the pie is to provide a pleasurable eating experience.  This eating experience is the desired outcome and it is measured (monitored) by its taste.

·         To meet the objective of  making an apple pie needs certain inputs: the motivation of the cook, a suitable time slot, the recipe, the ingredients, and the availability of an oven. The quality of each of these inputs (the resources) will have a significant impact on the state of the final product.

·         The process of making the pie includes a sequence of actions which comprise the method; following the recipe, preparing the apples, mixing the pastry, setting the oven and baking the pie for the required time at the required temperature. The quality of these processes will affect the result of precisely managing our actions according to the best procedure.

·         The output is the pie itself.

·         The outcome is the result of the pie i.e. the meal. The eating of the pie is in fact the objective of managing its production, and the properties of the pie, i.e. its state or condition, determine the quality of the eating experience.  A performance indicator to communicate the outcome to others would be whether or not the pie is fit to eat.

Effective planning along these lines is vital to the success of all projects no matter what the scale or our professional standing. Planning may feel like a frustrating delay to action, but often saves time.

Time is saved because planning helps:

• To determine whether the task should be attempted
• To work out the most effective way of managing our actions to  reach the target
• To prepare to overcome things that stand in our way (controlling negative factors
• To take advantage of opportunities available to do a better job (controlling positive factors) .

Planning is beneficial because it prompts us to:

·         Take stock of the current position

·         Identify precisely what is to be achieved as a target

·         Detail and schedule the 'who', 'what', 'when', 'where', 'why' and 'how' of achieving the target.

·         Evaluate whether the effort, costs and implications of achieving the plan are worth the achievement.

·         Consider the control mechanisms (for example reporting, quality or cost control) that are needed to steer a course of actions to achieve a target that is measurable.

·         Use a yardstick to measure how close we are to the target (monitoring with performance indicators).

·         Assess the impact of the plan on our organisation and the people within it, and on the outside world.

A plan is really a mind map which can be made as a simple ‘to do list’, a tree diagram or a computer database consisting of sets of actions on one-to-many linked forms.

2      Conservation management plans

2.1 The preliminaries

In order to make a plan for a nature site the manager has to gather information in order to:

·         Collate all the relevant facts about the site and its features.

·         Identify all the legislation and policies that will govern both the process and outcomes of management.

·         Identify or confirm the most important wildlife and natural features.

·         Identify all the important cultural features: historic, archaeological, religious, landscape, etc.

·         Develop objectives for all the important wildlife features.

·         Develop objectives for all important cultural features.

·         To identify the range of facilities or opportunities that the site will provide for visitors.

·         Identify monitoring and surveillance programmes to ensure that managers are aware, year to year, of the status of all the important features and the quality of the experience provided for visitors.

·         Identify all the management and recording activities required to manage the site.

·         Identify and justify all the resource requirements, both human and financial.

·         Combine all the above in a cohesive, logical, dynamic and iterative process, which endures that feedback from the actual outcome is used to evaluate the effectiveness of the inputs.

If a plan meets all the above functions it can:

·         Help resolve both internal and external conflicts.

·         Ensure continuity of effective management.

·         Be used to demonstrate that management is appropriate, i.e. effective and efficient.

·         Be used to bid for resources.

·         Share decision making, whenever appropriate, and to communicate these decisions and their outcomes to all interested individuals groups and organisations.

2.2 The actions

Planning can be thought of as a process that prioritises ideas, assesses their relevance and potential, and answers the following sequence of practical questions which are going to determine your actions.

·         What is the goal and how will it be reached?

·         What are the required resources and how much will everything cost?

·         What does the project timeline look like?

·         How will the project be checked  to find out if it is working and successful?

The necessary actions are then scheduled to answer five essential questions which define the action plan.

1.       Why are we here?

2.       What have we got?

3.       What is important?

4.       What do we want?

5.       What must we do?

The most important question is ‘What do we want?’ because it sets the management objective.  It is answered in the form of a vision statement written in plain language so that everyone is aware of the desired outcome of management. The following three paragraphs are a vision statement describing the desired outcome of managing a Welsh upland oak woodland on acid soil.

The entire site is covered by a high forest, broadleaf woodland. The woodland is naturally regenerating, with plenty of seedlings and saplings particularly in the canopy gaps. There is a changing or dynamic pattern of canopy gaps created naturally by wind throw or as trees die.

The woodland has a canopy and shrub layer that includes locally native trees of all ages, with an abundance of standing and fallen dead wood to provide habitat for invertebrates, fungi and other woodland species. The field and ground layers are a patchwork of the characteristic vegetation communities developed in response to local soil conditions. These include areas dominated by heather, or bilberry, or a mixture of the two, areas dominated by tussocks of wavy hair grass or purple moor grass, and others dominated by brown bent grass and sweet vernal grass with abundant bluebells. There are quite heavily grazed areas of more grassy vegetation. Steep rock faces and boulder sides are covered with mosses, liverworts and filmy ferns.

The lichen flora varies naturally depending on the chemical properties of the rocks and tree trunks within the woodland. Trees with lungwort and associated species are fairly common, especially on the well-lit woodland margins.

The woodland does not contain any rhododendron or any other invasive alien species with the exception of occasional beech and sycamore. There is periodic light grazing by sheep and very occasionally by cattle. This helps to maintain the ground and field layer vegetation but does not prevent tree regeneration.