Framing the Planning Game: A Cognitive Understanding of the Planner’s Rationale in a Differentiated World

“Framing the Planning Game ” discusses four cognitive features—realism, relativism, relationalism and idealism—and their mutually supportive relationships. When taken together, these help understand a multitude of realities: a factual reality (realism), an agreed reality (relativism) and combinations of these two realities (relationalism) between the two extremes. An endless variety of combinations results in a differentiated reality, allowing the planner to consider every situation generically as well as specifically. We call this a differentiated world view. These various realities can be seen as a-temporal as well as directly related to desired futures (idealism), meaning that a differentiated understanding of the ‘planning game’ includes transformations caused by both time and non-linear processes. Such a flexible imaginative frame enhances the planner’s vision, allowing them to embrace contemporary planning ideas while including a non-linear understanding of situations as inherently unstable and dynamic, a reality that all planners recognize but few integrate in planning.