Plans vs. Planning

While sitting through an all day strategy session today, I was reminded of a favorite Dwight D. Eisenhower quote of mine:

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

sidenote: As a nerdy project manager, I’ve printed that quote out on my desk with the word [projects] replacing the word battle…

Plans

Whether your battles are real or imagined, keep these words in the back of your head. Clausewitz taught us about about the Fog and Friction of War, which was basically a 19th Century version of Murphy’s Law. The general concept can be applied to all aspects of life. Let’s face it, no matter the subject, I could have everything all mapped out in a plan but the slightest variation as events unfold ends with disaster when I don’t know how to react.

I start having to manage the plan and stop managing the task/project/what-have-you.

Planning

Planning on the other hand is excellent. When I sit down with a group of people in a planning session, we’re talking about objectives and strategies to reach those objectives. We’re talking about risks and fears and ways to mitigate and overcome them. We’re talking about things that need to be done and possible obstacles. We’re getting in tune with one another.

Planning is syncing and syncing is indispensible.