When you take an iterative approach in life, it might seem like your winging it and proceeding without direction. That doesn’t always sit well with others, though. They wonder, “how will we know where we are going and how to get there?”
The definition of a plan is a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something, so it makes sense that plans lead to success. People reference metaphors like taking a road trip or building a house and you think, “yeah, I need a plan”.
There is some validity to this, but in software development, formal plans don’t yield success. It isn’t that developers can’t create a detailed plan and execute it. The problem is that users aren’t happy with the end result. Along the way, their expectations changed, the world changed, or some of the assumptions weren’t right and the plan became irrelevant.
Life is like that, too. I think about my life and all the plans I’ve made. None of them have materialized the way I imagined. I’m not unhappy about it and it wasn’t a lack of commitment. The plans became irrelevant because of outside circumstances, other influences, and changes in personal preferences.
Plans speak to our natural desire for order and predictability, but if you want to embrace a more fluid and dynamic approach to life, you’ll need to recognize and counteract your natural tendencies. Here are a couple ideas.
Redefine the Plan Timeline
Sometimes, the way to combat our nature is to trick ourselves. Similar to when you don’t feel like working out… you put your running shoes on and tell yourself you’ll do a short walk and see how you feel. Then, if you feel okay, you go for a run.
If your brain needs to have a plan, make one. But, make it for a short timeframe. The Scrum methodology (https://www.scrum.org/resources/what-is-scrum) embodies this principle with the practice of sprints, a repeatable work cycle of specified time period (i.e. 2 weeks). For a specific sprint, there is a plan. At the end of the sprint, you review progress and plan the next sprint.
Are you feeling a bit directionless and think you need a life plan? Instead of trying to plan your life, create a plan for just the next year. Are you trying to change your role at work and feel the need to have a plan for your career? Just plan out the next month. The goal is to recognize when your subconsciousness is asking for detail and clarity, and then provide it, but for a short time period.
Go Descriptive
Plans are generally prescriptive; they state where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. Instead, create a more descriptive objective that provides room to adapt and modify how you achieve it.
For example, the idea of Simple Sundays actually started as a family dinner. I wanted to enjoy Sunday evenings a little more, we needed a time to reconnect as a family, and I wanted to cook a nice meal. So, we made a plan for our Sunday evenings. However, as time went on, I realized the important thing wasn’t the dinner, it was me enjoying Sunday evenings and spending time together as a family.
This last Sunday we watched the RBG documentary (https://www.rbgmovie.com/) and ordered pizza. It was a great evening as we were all relaxed and enriched, but it was nothing close to my original plan for Sunday evenings. It illustrates the need for descriptive objectives – enjoyable time together as a family – rather than prescriptive plans – a homemade dinner sitting at the table.
You might have some detailed plans that you’ve put in place. Pick one and reevaluate what is important about it. Can you reframe the plan into more descriptive objectives that allow greater flexibility?
Plans are nothing. Planning is everything.-Dwight Eisenhower
We’re taught we need a business plan in order to start a business; however, the lean startup movement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_startup) has upended that notion and proven that iterative approaches have merit. It has accelerated the pace of innovation and changed the way we start businesses.
It doesn’t mean that people using a lean approach don’t participate in planning activities, they are just doing it differently so that it accommodates the dynamic nature of their business philosophy. For example, they developed the Lean Canvas (https://leanstack.com/leancanvas), a one-page business plan.
Often, when I start a project at work, I’ll create a scoping document. I don’t use a formal template; rather, I create a document with enough context that it can unite the team, but still lightweight enough that it can be modified. It is succinct and provides vision and meaning for the work we’re doing. It can also be used to make sure that the iterative process is generally moving us in the direction we want to go.
When you are doing something that requires a more formal planning process, but you still want to incorporate flexibility and an iterative approach, look beyond the standard templates. There are many options available and creative ways people are applying new business models to personal and professional lives.
Move, Learn, and Grow
There are times when you need a plan, but far less often than you think. Human nature is to reduce ambiguity and seek certainty. However, life isn’t predictable and you can train yourself to be more flexible. Taking action and moving forward allows you to experience and learn from life, and in turn, grow. Don’t let the allure of a plan stop you from growing.
Next time you’re thinking you need a plan, stop and see if you can put some of these ideas into practice.
- Make a plan with a short timeline
- Reframe objectives to be more descriptive
- Creatively use planning tools that allow flexibility
I hope you’re planning on making Monday awesome!
Some articles for further reading