Planning ahead – what’s the point? It’s provisioning that we need

Every professional project manager knows that the secret to a successful project lies, for a very large part, in good planning. And I for one would say nothing to suggest otherwise. However, there’s a very poignant Jewish joke that sometimes returns to haunt me. Question: “How do you make God laugh?” Answer: “You tell him your plans”.

This is not the kind of joke that has you rolling over with laughter but a kind of double action joke that affects you on multiple levels. On the one hand the idea of God being able to see your future and that he cruelly takes pleasure in being able to laugh out loud as to how wrong you are. And on the other hand, on a more cynical level, where you yourself can look back and laugh (or cry) at the vision you once had and how it has turned out so differently.

I guess there maybe some people (purely based upon the law of averages) that for them, everything goes to plan? But for the most of us, this is clearly not the case. This does not however mean that things necessarily turn out for the worse – quite the contrary. Even in our biggest tragedies comes new hope, new ideas, and even new life.

The point I am making is this: Both in our business and in our personal life, there is no point in making very detailed, long term plans for the future. If you have ambition and you know what you want you should set out a strategy, not a plan, to best try and reach it. I suggest the following:
1. Understand very clearly where you are right now
2. Work hard on developing a clear and plausible vision as to where you want to be
3. Formulate a very clear strategy
4. Ensure you maintain discipline and follow rigorously your short term planning
5. Make provisions for the future

Every adventurer knows that they need a plan, but every adventurer quickly realizes that plans need to be constantly adjusted and revised in order to keep the long term vision in sight. But more important than plans are provisions. We need just enough provisions to keep us going through the rough times but not too much that they weigh us down or make us lazy. And this is the delicate balance that most businesses are facing right now.

So when planning for the future, think in terms of strategy and not detailed plans. And when you have plans, be prepared to change them for the sake of the long term vision. However, the one thing you should never compromise on is ensuring that you have sufficient provisions for yourself and those that depend upon you. Only a fool risks their own life, let alone, the lives of others by setting off with insufficient provisions to reach their next base.

Have a good week,

H.

Crisis what crisis? Everyone’s become so boring…

Regular readers will know that my blogs are (more often than not) either inspired by a situation I encountered or by the people I have met during the previous week. But in the last few days my business acquaintances have become so boring. It’s not that they themselves are boring, it’s just that the enormity of what is happening in the world’s financial markets is so overwhelming that everything else seems to shade into trivia and insignificance.

Of course, if I switch the conversation to the crisis (which isn’t difficult) then everyone, including myself, wakes up and has an opinion. But the whole thing is very bizarre. Here in Brussels, now that two of the household name banks are in deep trouble, people are beginning to feel a sense of doom. However, I get the feeling that they are either trying to ignore it (like a family embarrassment) or are simply refusing to believe that it will have any effect on them.

The quote of the week for me comes from BBC 4’s, ‘News Quiz’ radio program when contributor Jeremy Hardy quoted John McCain “This is no time for politics” – well excuse me, if ever there was a time for politics, it is now! With the apparent collapse of capitalism (albeit temporary – one hopes) in the US, one might imagine that it is time for the politicians to do what they are paid for? It’s weird how the word ‘politics’ has been so much over used by business people that it now has come to mean, ‘plotting’ and ‘underhandedness’, when according to the English Chambers dictionary it actually means ‘the art or science of government’.

The whole scene reminds me of the image I have of Pompeii at the moment of Versuvius’ eruption – in a modern context you can imagine Mum and Dad and their two children in the car park of Delhaize supermarket loading ready made meals into the trunk of their Porche Caynne.

Everyone is an expert but no one knows for sure what to do – and those with the loudest voices are often taken to be the wise ones, until someone in a quiet voice calmly suggests a total other alternative that spins your imagination into another unwelcome direction.

I train my teams to think out of the box and to be creative but this advice is not given for crisis situations that have been predicted and when there is a well thought through risk analysis strategy that has been painstakingly prepared and tested beforehand. Or am I wrong? Was today’s situation so completely unpredictable, were there no warning signs at all? In ICT we are trained to ask the big ‘what if’ questions and to build complete solution scenarios for them, so I find it kind of weird that the US politicians have no such risk strategy prepared and in place, especially as there are ample previous examples of similar situations, albeit on a smaller scale?

Hopefully next week everything will be back to normal, and my blog will be back on the topic of everyday management issues? I just hadn’t thought that risk strategies might end up being one of them?