On Planning in Plan-Hostile Environments: II

At the highest level, plans are little more than specifications for collaborative activity. They describe the resources, relationships, and choreography that guide the people who will be executing the plans as they work together to reach their shared objectives. But no plan is ever complete, because all plans are executed inside an environment of some kind. Business plans are executed within a market; project plans within a strategic plan; employee performance plans within an organization.

When we devise a plan we make assumptions about the environment within which we intend to execute it. One common, if tacit, assumption is that the environment will be at least somewhat supportive of the plan. We assume that the plan and its hosting environment are compatible.

Factors that lead to planning difficulty

Some environments have properties that make them hostile to all plans. I explored three of those properties last time: scope creep, a focus on project management rather than people management, and one-size-fits-all policies. Here are three more.

Ambiguity of roles and responsibilities

Ambiguity of roles and responsibilities encourages those with even the most limited ambitions to take steps to enhance their own status. Because the success rate for plans is so poor, people try to "help." They're tempted to push the boundaries of their roles to prevent failure.

By reaching beyond the limits of what others understand as their roles, people can (intentionally or not) disrupt plans that assume more limited definitions of those roles.

Elevated incidence of miscommunication

Because everyone is under extreme time pressure, they communicate by messaging instead of face-to-face. And they do it hurriedly, which elevates the chance of misunderstanding.

When things go awry, and the overall approach changes to respond to the problems, not everyone is informed at the same time. Some people are following the old plan, some are following he new plan, and some the new-new plan. Miscommunications abound.

Unrealistic schedules

One way to seem to make up for lost time is to set unrealistic schedules. They help us maintain the delusion that the previous schedule was achievable. It was never possible, and creating a new unachievable schedule won't change that.

Unrealistic schedules are little more than tactics for avoiding conveying to Management the whole, sad truth about our desperate situation.

Reorganization(s)

Although reorganizations do often produce efficiencies, the savings usually appear at the scale of the enterprise. At the scale of the individual project or task, the effects can be less helpful. The fundamental problem is that reorganizations sometimes sever existing working relationships unnecessarily. People are then compelled to build new relationships, and that takes time and resources.

A second difficulty is that champions of reorganizations sometimes oversell expected efficiencies. The new workloads aren't always reasonable and rebalancing workflows can take time.

Factions and polarization

Political factions and polarization within the organization can act as sources of turmoil for the indefinite future, as political opponents of the advocates of the plan seize opportunities to deflect plans into directions more compatible with their own agendas.

The effects of factionalism and polarization can appear even before execution begins. Anticipating attacks, some planners include defenses against those attacks in the plans from the outset. This anticipatory defense makes plans more complicated than they need otherwise be, which increases costs, stretches schedules, and enhances risks.

Even more

Here are a few more factors:

• Unresolved conflicts
• Past errors unaddressed
• Leaders more concerned with personal success than with enterprise success
• Organic process development has led to burdensome processes
• Inadequate resources: equipment and personnel

I'm sure there are more. rbrenaXXxGCwVgbgLZDuRner@ChacDjdMAATPdDNJnrSwoCanyon.comSend them along and I'll add them to the list.   First issue in this series    Next issue in this series   Top    Next Issue

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Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming August 13: Leaving High-Touch Jobs: How

High-touch jobs require that we work closely with colleagues, teammates, clients, or suppliers. Because choosing to leave such a job affects all these people, and the person departing, we would do well find a path that respects all involved. Here are some suggestions. Available here and by RSS on August 13.

And on August 20: Earned Value and Goodhart's Law

Earned Value Management, widely used approach to project management, is most useful in contexts in which estimators are familiar with the Tasks, the Technologies, and the Teams. But even then, it is vulnerable to the tactics of those who game the metrics. Available here and by RSS on August 20.

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