Knowledge in communicative planning practice: a different perspective for planning support systems

Although planning support systems (PSS) have now undergone more than two decades of research and development, this is not reflected in their practical application. In this paper we argue that one of the reasons for this is that too much emphasis is put on the instrument rather than the usage and planning context. A better understanding of the relationship between planning practice and PSS is needed in order to improve the role of the latter. We argue that communicative and analytic approaches to planning should be combined. A key to this is a more careful conceptualization of the concepts of knowledge and planning support. Therefore, we have developed a conceptual framework in which the characteristics and evaluation of knowledge and the role of planning support are central. Combined with the notion of storytelling, we believe that this results in a perspective for PSS that has potential for future applications. We conclude the paper with recommendations for future research.