It’s Not Planning Versus Building

Somehow the word is out that planning is a waste of time, and you just have to “go build stuff.” And the popularity of approaches like lean, agile and scrum have been interpreted by some to mean we don’t get value from planning our moves.

Even in a world of absolutist, “this-or-that thinking,” this is extreme and dangerous to the health of your business.

I think what happened was that planning became a business itself, apart from execution and all the other aspects of running a company. So planning — and the people who were selling planning as a product — got big and arrogant and self-important. Then the word itself became synonymous with 50-page strategy decks created by consultants.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Planning can and should be a vibrant, dynamic, everyday activity, asking yourself questions and then thinking about the answers and their implications.

Go build what? For whom? How do we connect with them? To meet what need? How much would someone pay for this? How many do we have to sell? How much would it cost to make it? And then: Are these the customers we’re set up to serve? Is this the business we want to be in?

1. It’s not either planning or building. We have to do both.

2. Plus, while we’re building and sharing our iterations with customers and other constituents, we have to listen and think about what we’re hearing and learning, and then planning our next move.

You can use the word strategy if it feels right. Prepare decks if you find, as many people do, that reducing ideas to the few words of a PowerPoint slide helps you think better. You can even ask a consultant to provide some process and order to harness your ideas.

Most importantly, it doesn’t have to slow you down. Done properly, it will make your moves — your builds, your iterations — more focused, efficient and productive.

In a previous article, I set out a template for your annual planning process, and you can use and re-use it periodically to re-validate the products and services you’re building, and to make sure you’re moving in the direction you still want to go. Use charts and graphs and what-if’s. It doesn’t have to be formal, painful and boring.

Just don’t confuse the seemingly endless reams of output with mindful reflection on what you build and share, and miss out on planning as an integral part of everything you do.