A Student S Guide to Planning

A student’s guide to planning

In food technology you will often need to make plans, for example when carrying out research. This may help you find out more about the task, context, user or market that you are designing for. It is a good idea to make a plan of action for your research, so that it is done in a well thought out and systematic way.

It also gives you a plan to evaluate against to make sure that you are keeping your original purpose in mind and keeping on track with it.

Use the following steps for a systematic approach 1. Decide on your purpose. Write a statement that explains what you are setting out to do or find out. 2. What information do you need to gather? Produce a list of things to find out or questions that need to be answered. 3. Which of these things do you already know? Underline, circle or highlight them. 4. Look at those remaining. Note down what you still need to find out, the source of information and the research method you will use. Remember to use primary as well as secondary sources. 5. Copy or draw up a table, like the one below, as a record of your research activity. 6. The final column of the table prompts you to think about what you need to know. 7. Once you have decided what research you need you must decide how you will go about it - a plan of action. If you are working in a team you will also need to plan who will do what. Follow your research plan, making any necessary changes as you go along.

What I need to Source of Research method How I will use know/find out information used the research/ How it will help me with the original task

Planning for production On other occasions you may be planning for production. There are a number of ways to set out your plans. Some of these are used in business and industry during design, development or manufacture. They are used because things there are done on a large scale and so need to be precision planned. Planning involves breaking down the whole process into stages, and putting the stages in a logical order or sequence. Examples are given on the next page:

 FoodForum, 2004. Flow charts are sequence diagrams that you use to plan out the order in which things happens. They help you to think through the steps or stages in a logical way.

Quality assurance during product development

Customer needs are identified

Back to the drawing board no Is it feasible?

Product specification is drawn up

[Type the process in this box.]Production and trialling of prototype

Further development, no modification and trialling Conforms to specification?

 FoodForum, 2004. Story boards are used in a similar way to flow-charts, but use pictures to show the stages and steps involved.

Visual flow chart for bread production in a craft bakery

Ingredients are mixed Dough is divided into pieces

Dough is kneaded & shaped Dough proving Baked bread is cooled

Gantt charts are a way of planning that takes account of time. This is particularly useful when more than one thing is happening at once. It helps you to plan and manage your time. The following example of a Gantt chart shows the sequencing of a product development process. Stage in the Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 process Market research Checking feasibility Analysis of research Ideas generation Testing materials Modelling ideas Marketing planning Packaging/labelling Trial run Production planning Promotional materials

Using ICT - planning may be carried out more quickly and effectively by using a computer: . clicking on AutoShapes on the menu bar in Word will provide you with the symbols needed for producing flow charts . spreadsheets or tables in Word can be used to produce a Gantt chart . images and photos can be imported to produce a story board

 FoodForum, 2004.