Do you think it might be time to rethink your planning model?

Based on “Flawless Planning: The art and science of planning anything” | 2023 Jack Ricchiuto.

Why plans don’t work out

In any kind of planning you can think of, there are three classic kinds of planning disappointment: we don’t make plans in the first place; we don’t follow them well; or we don’t complete them well.

We don’t make plans when it feels like we have too many uncertainties for a predictable plan. We don’t follow or complete plans well when we run into uncertainties that conflict with our planning assumptions or that prevent the results we wanted.

This is what happens in flawed planning. We are undermined by unpredictable uncertainties from the start or along the way. In flawless planning, we turn uncertainties into assets and opportunities. We don’t have fewer uncertainties; we simply have a different relationship with them.

Could it be that our planning model is the problem?

Some people have “solved” the flawed planning problem by simply giving up on planning. They avoid flawed planning by claiming they do no planning. They won’t admit they have a plan, but they do. It’s the plan of “doing what makes sense, seeing what happens, and going from there.” Improvising is a plan.

In their experience, if you want to know what’s not going to happen in a future situation, make a plan. The corollary principle is that if you suffer from a disappointment deficiency, make a plan.

Giving flawed planning B-school jargon monikers like “strategic,” “operational,” “project,” “agile,” “start-up,” or “business” planning, is still flawed planning. It is still a misdiagnosis to assume that if these don’t deliver the best possible results, it’s obvious because we’re doing something wrong. We stay stuck in this unfortunate and costly loop until it somehow occurs to us that we’re not the problem‒the model is.

In flawless planning, we are crystal clear that the quality of our planning results is equal to the quality of our planning model. To have different planning results, we need a different planning model.

If we want different results in any kind of planning we’re doing or contemplating doing, it might be time to rethink our planning model.

Unconscious flawed planning

It’s fascinating that we can spend every week, month, quarter, and year doing flawed planning and not even know it. This is unconscious flawed planning. It’s a thing. This happens when it’s all we’ve ever known, having not yet learned viable alternatives. Even if a friend one day asked us if we would be interested in flawless planning, just the suggestion would make our inner perfectionist anxious.

The cringe test for flawed planning is noticing our immediate reaction when we decide to make a plan or have to make a plan we’ve been assigned to make. If we cringe, it’s quite likely we’re thinking about flawed planning. If our initial response is interest, it’s because we’re likely thinking about taking a flawless planning approach.

The “good” news is there is only one flaw in flawed planning‒the one flaw missing in flawless planning. It is basing what we feel and do in planning on assumptions. Our assumptions are guesses, speculations, and beliefs. We don’t question them because they feel true. They paradoxically especially feel true if others have the bad manners to doubt or challenge them.

We only become conscious of doing flawed planning when we discover how to do flawless planning.

What makes flawless planning possible?

The radical principle in flawless planning is that we operate from zero assumptions. This is not saying we have zero assumptions. Our brains are wired to run millions of simulations each second to compose our moment to moment experience of what we know, feel, and do. Because of this biological reality, we cannot not make assumptions about the future.

In flawless planning, we treat assumptions as uncertainties and translate all of our initial and emerging uncertainties into questions that guide us in building the best possible results. Questions have the power to produce results never possible by assumptions.

Flawless planning is question-based planning. New questions lead to new learning leading to new results. New results always and only come from new learning. People who love learning instantly get and benefit from flawless planning.

New questions have the unique power to keep us productive, efficient, and supported by our unlimited inner resources.

If you’ve ever been in a planning conversation and people raise new questions and everyone gets busy talking about how to answer them, you’ve seen flawless planning at work. If these questions seemed to give the group energy, focus, and momentum, that’s because that’s what happens when we work from the right questions at the right time.

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

Join us for the online Flawless Planning Webinars on 1.24.24 and 1.31.24.