What Skills Do Planners Need? (2024)

In addition to a formal educational background, planners possess a unique combination of skills that enhance their professional success.

Because planning is a dynamic and diverse profession, individual skills vary depending on a planner's role and area of specialization, but successful planners typically demonstrate the following:

  • Knowledge of urban spatial structure or physical design and the way in which cities work.
  • Ability to analyze demographic information to discern trends in population, employment, and health.
  • Knowledge of plan-making and project evaluation.
  • Mastery of techniques for involving a wide range of people in making decisions.
  • Understanding of local, state, and federal government programs and processes.
  • Understanding of the social and environmental impact of planning decisions on communities.
  • Ability to work with the public and articulate planning issues to a wide variety of audiences.
  • Ability to function as a mediator or facilitator when community interests conflict.
  • Understanding of the legal foundation for land use regulation.
  • Understanding of the interaction among the economy, transportation, health and human services, and land-use regulation.
  • Ability to solve problems using a balance of technical competence, creativity, and hardheaded pragmatism.
  • Ability to envision alternatives to the physical and social environments in which we live.
  • Mastery of geographic information systems (GIS) and office (presentation, spreadsheet, etc.) software.

Resources and Information

Accredited Planning Programs

The Planning Accreditation Board currently accredits 71 master's and 15 bachelor's programs at 75 North American universities.

AICP Certification

The American Institute of Certified Planners is APA's professional institute and provides the only nationwide, independent verification of planners' qualifications.

Passport

APA offers easy access to core knowledge and instruction in a variety of formats — from on-demand courses to virtual conferences — to meet the demands of your job, your role, and your schedule.

Core Competencies

The American Institute of Certified Planners' Core Competencies establishes a framework for the "core" of skills, experience, and values that form the foundation of the profession — fundamental knowledge and understanding that every planner should both possess and share.

What Skills Do Planners Need? (2024)

FAQs

What are the skills of a planner? ›

Planner skills encompass your ability to organise tasks efficiently, set realistic goals and create strategic plans to achieve them. This includes effective time management , breaking down larger objectives into manageable steps and maintaining a proactive approach to meeting deadlines.

What skills are required to be an event planner? ›

Event Planning Skills
  • Organizational Skills.
  • Communication.
  • Networking Savvy.
  • A Basic Understanding of Events.
  • Client-first Approach.
  • Problem-solving.
  • Negotiation and Budgeting.
  • Multitasking.
Apr 12, 2023

How would you describe your planning skills? ›

Planning skills are abilities that directly contribute to your productivity, accuracy and effectiveness in the workplace. For example, you might use planning abilities to decide when to do each task in a project based on your workload and deadlines.

Why are planning skills important? ›

Good planning/organizing skills give you the ability to get things done in a more structured way. You have more control over the tasks and time available to implement them, and can organize yourself and others better in order to be more effective and consistent in achieving the set goals.

What are top 3 skills for maintenance planner? ›

An effective maintenance planner has clear communication skills, a sound knowledge of maintenance and workflow processes, and strong technology skills.

How can I be a good planner? ›

Achieving Goals
  1. Commit to your Goals on Paper. When we have unfulfilled goals they bounce around in our minds, disturbing our thoughts and taking up mental space. ...
  2. Practice self-compassion. We all fall off the wagon from time to time when it comes to pursuing our goals. ...
  3. Find intrinsic motivation. ...
  4. Work with others. ...
  5. Reflect.

What are 2 important characteristics an event planner must have? ›

Organizational skills are natural to some individuals. If you are naturally organized or if you have worked hard to become an organized individual, then event planning may be for you. Creativity/Thinking Outside the Box - Event planners have to be creative in almost every respect.

What are the 7 stages of event planning? ›

7 Steps to event planning success
  • Define your objectives. Always ask yourself beforehand 'What are you hoping to achieve from this event? ...
  • Choose your location. Make sure that your location aligns with your objectives. ...
  • Set a date. ...
  • Create a plan. ...
  • Issuing invitations. ...
  • The day of the event. ...
  • Evaluate.

What are the technical skills? ›

Technical skills are the specialized knowledge and expertise required to perform specific tasks and use specific tools and programs in real world situations. Diverse technical skills are required in just about every field and industry, from IT and business administration to health care and education.

Is planning a skill or ability? ›

Having the ability to plan and organise is a skill many recruiters consider essential. Many adverts will simply ask for someone who can "plan and prioritise their time" or "organise resources effectively"; others, however, might not make it so obvious.

Is planning a soft or hard skill? ›

shared this: Hard skills are teachable and most often technical skills, such as economic analysis, strategic planning or design. Soft skills fall in the interpersonal realm and include listening, team-building, and leadership development.

How do you use planning skills? ›

How To Improve Your Planning Abilities?
  1. Create a list of tasks that you want to complete in a day.
  2. Assign priorities to each of these tasks.
  3. Allocate a certain amount of time to complete each of them.
  4. Use task management software to simplify the process of task allocation and monitoring.
  5. Learn to delegate tasks effectively.
Sep 11, 2023

What is planning and organizing skills? ›

What is planning and organising? Planning and organising skills help you manage time, tools and resources to reach a goal. They help you work out what you need to do to achieve your aims. Planning is vital at all levels in the workplace.

What are the three importance of planning? ›

Why is planning important? It helps us to identify our goals clearly. It makes us decide clearly and concretely what we need to do to have the effect on society that we want. It helps us make sure that we all understand our goal and what we need to do to reach it by involving everyone in the planning process.

What are the key skills of leadership? ›

8 key leadership skills you need to know about:
  • Relationship building.
  • Agility and adaptability.
  • Innovation and creativity.
  • Employee motivation.
  • Decision-making.
  • Conflict management.
  • Negotiation.
  • Critical Thinking.

What personality trait is a planner? ›

Those with the Planner (SJ-Gold) personality style are steadfast, reliable, and conscientious. Responsible by nature, Planners aim to create a life that is safe and secure. Not content to waste time, they tend to be responsibly active filling their schedules with “must dos” and “gotta-get dones”.

What are the roles of a planner? ›

The job role of a planner involves the following duties: Creating, maintaining and reviewing a programme of work. Ensuring that projects are completed on time and within budget. Liaising with surveyors, engineers and architects.

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