While various paradigms exist for planning in two-year colleges, from master planning to quality circles, three major elements invariably appear in planning activities: strategic or formal planning, operational planning, and effectiveness measures. Strategic planning attempts to systematically assess an institution's relationship with its external environment, relating internal strengths and weaknesses to external threats and opportunities. Operational planning, or planning at the level of organizational units, attempts to channel institutional activities in the areas of finance, facilities, enrollment, human resources, and organization. The institutional effectiveness element measures how well a community college performs its missions relative to the needs of its constituency, making effectiveness measures unique to each institution. However, these three elements cannot be pursued separately. One approach to combining them is the Integrated Planning Effectiveness Model (IPEM), producing a methodology that avoids duplication of effort and leads to one all-encompassing effectiveness document for an institution. In an IPEM, the institutional mission statement is the initial point of departure, linking the separate processes of strategic and operational planning. Further, each organizational unit performs both types of planning. Both strategic effectiveness measures, as well as operational effectiveness measures, become incorporated into one institution-wide effectiveness/action document. A review of planning paradigms and a list of references are included. (MAB)