Effective Planning

Inputs, Techniques, & Considerations

Have you ever wondered “What does effective planning look like?” Or even “Do we need to plan, at all?” If you’re uncertain about the mechanics, techniques, or even the need to do planning, read on. Yes, not only do you need to be able to plan effectively, it is a fundamental capability for any type of team and every organization.

For teams and companies to be able to perform and deliver effectively, they must be able to synthesize the myriad of potential activities needed to effectively deliver value toward the accomplishment of strategy. In other words, they must be able to effectively plan. They have to be able to plan what they’re going to do, as well as how they’re going to do it, with some degree of accuracy, and that planning evolution has to be aligned to the organization’s mission and objectives.

The way teams define the “value” to be delivered is flexible (sometimes it may be exploration and learning, sometimes product delivery), but it is nevertheless a necessity to clearly define what the team is going to attempt to do, why they’re going to attempt it, and explore how (though the actual execution of the work may differ once begun).

In order to effectively plan (which itself is a learning evolution) we will need to be able to bring together diverse perspectives, domain/context expertise, and mitigate the various cognitive and perceptual biases which can reduce the effectiveness of our planning process. The axiom is true: plans are nothing, planning is everything. Yet preventable, ineffective planning is almost as bad as not planning at all.

Furthermore, an effective planning process will help your team mitigate groupthink and other cognitive biases while providing a naturally inclusive approach to bringing diverse perspectives and quieter voices into the conversation.

What are the ingredients and techniques necessary for effective planning?

Clarity of the goal, objective, or mission. The what of planning. What are we planning against? What are we going to attempt to do? This does not require completeness in understanding the goal or objective – there may still be some unanswered questions about measurements, constraints, etc. Yet fundamentally, we can elucidate what the goal or objective of the planning is, and we know whether further details (constraints) are forthcoming.
The why. Why is this the objective to pursue? What is the associated business case, mission need, or higher-order objective which this would enable? In some contexts, the why may be understood, but stating it clearly gives meaning and purpose to the what. Most importantly, if you cannot clearly explain the why, then you either (1) don’t understand what you’re asking for or (2) don’t know how the what will align to higher-order mission, strategy, or vision, which means it probably won’t. Stop, go back, and revisit the “what” and “why“ until you achieve coherence.
The constraints. The type of constraint, governing or enabling, will inform the decisions and tactics the team applies during planning. Constraints represent the real-world boundary conditions, physical or psychological, imposed on the planning process. For example, “we cannot increase headcount” is a physical constraint imposed on an organization for fiscal reasons which constrains certain options during planning (you can’t just throw more people at the problem). When possible, constraints should be expressed as things the team cannot do (enabling), versus things the team must do (governing). Enabling constraints optimize freedom-of-action in decision-making by setting guardrails or boundaries, versus governing constraints which remove optionality and require decision adherence (limiting flexibility).
An effective process with appropriate techniques. Sitting around a table, staring at a PowerPoint presentation or Excel graph which people speak to and a notetaker fills-in is an all-too-common and exceptionally poor planning technique. Instead, the team should engage in a form of ideation and combination, whereby everyone can have a voice in the process and assumptions can be challenged. The process of planning involves answering questions, challenging assumptions and ideas, and filtering to what will most likely deliver outcomes given constraints.

Techniques (click to view descriptions on the AGLX.com website and download the reference):
Methods:
Process Components. There are many processes for effective planning, but they all share a few core components.- Identification of an overarching outcome, goal, or objective toward which planning effort will be directed. Depending on the type of planning (strategic, tactical, or in-between), these goals or objectives may be expressed differently, and they may be more or less clear depending on whether they are complex, complicated, or clear.
- Challenging and understanding why the goal is important, and its context. This may increase clarity about the goal itself, the problems or issues associated with pursuing it, the constraints affecting our operational and executional flexibility, or we may find that we’ve started planning against the wrong objective. Pivot and continue.
- Analysis of constraints. What constraints apply to our planning? Are there factors we must consider when developing our plan? A viable plan does not ignore context, even when that context exponentially increases the difficulty in planning.
- Leverage the techniques and methods noted above to enable the team to creatively bring together all of its knowledge in determining the path forward without pressure from dominant personalities and with psychological safety. Respect knowledge boundaries and do not try to push and prod beyond the team’s knowledge, Instead, build learning and exploration into the plan. For uncertain, complex, and ambiguous situations, formulate hypotheses and plan experiments to validate / invalidate assumptions. Re-plan based on learning (this is the core component of agility, adaptability, and flexibility).
- Always be Red Teaming.

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6. Pitfalls and planning traps. There are many common pitfalls in effective planning. Leveraging the techniques and methods described above are the best way to mitigate the majority, but being mindful of the various ways planning can deliver suboptimal learning and plans is needed. A few of the most common pitfalls in planning are:
- Groupthink & other cognitive biases (why the techniques and methods above should be applied). One of the greatest risks to effective planning is groupthink. Groupthink is bad because it ignores context, alternative ideas, assumptions, risks, and blinds the group to many components of reality which should be used to shape and leverage the plan. Conflict in groupthink is almost completely absent (which is its own concern).
- Strong, directive leadership (the group plans the leader’s desired outcome, not the necessary path to success). The presence of a strong, directive leader or authority figure in the group which suppresses dissent and drives planning toward their own preconceived outcome is a common mode of failure in planning.
- Lack of conflict. Low-level conflict on a non-interpersonal level which is focused on task accomplishment and goal or objective achievement is vital to creating logical, coherent, and effective plans. If solutions are clear and obvious, then no planning should even be required, simply execute. For complex problems in uncertain and dynamic environments however, planning is absolutely critical. Conflict about approaches, risks, assumptions, trade-offs, and decisions, ensures quality and effectiveness.
- Complacency. If you’re fortunate enough to have a commodity product in a commodity market, you probably can afford to be complacent (at least right up until your supply chain or product solution gets disrupted). For everyone else, being complacent about plans and planning only ensures that your product solutions will lack timeliness and impact. You can expect to be continuously playing catch-up and plugging holes in your offerings while the competition outmaneuvers and outpaces you. Complacency typically manifests itself in failures to identify and test assumptions, challenge status quo ideas, and push against constraints.
- Lack of empathy (for either customers or competitors). Failing to “wear the shoes” of both customers and competitors, to truly understand their perspectives and unique cultural contexts, leads to solutions which fail to satisfy customer needs and which are pummeled by competitors’ products (because they will be able to empathize with you, and exploit that knowledge as part of their planning).
- Oversimplification. Many teams and companies want “the simple answer” or “the simple solution,” but for those fortunate enough to be working on complex work in complex environments, simplification is “simply” not an option. Instead, approaching planning and execution by leveraging techniques and methods appropriate to complex work will enable decision-making and execution without needing to seek “simple” solutions which ignore or disregard critically important context, nuance, constraints, and the need to test multiple hypotheses and validate learning in an incremental, iterative manner.
- Unidentified or unchallenged assumptions and false analogies. As the old saying goes, “you know what happens when you assume.” Red teaming techniques and appropriate planning approaches ensure that assumptions are identified and appropriately bounded while sensemaking tactics (such as creating analogies and identifying patterns) respect the contextual nuance and are appropriately relatable to the given problem. Otherwise, basing decisions on assumptions which are taken as fact and analogies which provide incongruent patterns means execution will almost certainly fail to deliver on outcomes and any learnings taken from the planning process are contextually invalid.