3 1/2 Signs You’re Doing Flawed Planning

From “Flawless Planning: The art and science of planning anything” 2023 Jack Ricchiuto | Visit FlawlessPlanning.org

Until we learn an alternative model, flawed planning remains our less than enthusiastic norm. We apply it without question to any and every planning situation. Even though it feels normal, it is still flawed, and as such produces more costs than benefits.

It’s interesting that we can do unconscious flawed planning. This is not even knowing we’re doing flawed planning.

One sign we’re doing flawed planning is that we limit ourselves to planning a single scenario. When we say we have “a plan” for any situation, it’s one scenario. It could live anywhere along two intersecting continuums of favorable to unfavorable and likely to unlikely. A scenario is a version of a situation. It’s possible to imagine more than one scenario for any situation. The more scenarios we plan, the more new options of ideas, questions, and resources we have.

A second sign is that we make planning about prediction. Prediction is a set of assumptions about a future featuring any variety of uncertainties. Working from assumptions is the prime planning flaw. In flawless planning, we work from questions rather than assumptions. We get everything done with zero predictions, meaning zero assumptions.

A third sign is we’re trying to follow a plan. The idea of following a plan is based on the assumption flaw that planning is about proving our predictions correct. In flawless planning, we waste no time trying to prove predictions correct because we’re not working from predictions at any point in the process. What we do instead is learn our way into the results we will ultimately value and appreciate. We learn our way forward one right question at a time.

The other 1/2 sign is that people do not look forward to planning in the first place. They will do planning because they think or know they should. They do it to check the “planning” box so they can move onto their actual plan of “Doing what makes sense, seeing what happens, and going from there.” For them, the only thing worse than having to make a plan is to endure life’s disappointing promise of making uncertainty a constant.

All of this changes when flawless planning turns uncertainty into prime assets in the planning process. Finally, we have a cringe-free planning model. For once, planning is doing what makes sense.

For more about Flawless Planning, visit FlawlessPlanning.org. The Flawless Planning model is an open source model under the Creative Commons license: Flawless Planning © 2023 by Jack Ricchiuto is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

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