Managment talks: Plan meaning

The real meaning of plans In task management, you need to understand that plans are exactly that: plans. They’re general schemes that help you decide where you’re going, what you’re going to do, how you might proceed. But you need to acknowledge that no plan is set in stone. At best, planning is a guessing game. It’s a general outline of how things might go, so it’s important not to get stuck on them. We don’t know enough to plan At the beginning of any project, we know less about what needs to be done than we will ever know again. We simply don’t know enough to plan. You can see how this is a bad time to make plans. How can you decide when things need to be done, if you’re not really sure what needs to be done in the first place? You don’t want your team to focus on meeting an artificial deadline you created for your plan. You want them to focus on great performance and getting closer to your goals. Don’t get us wrong though. We’re not saying that being flexible means letting deadlines slip. It just means that you’re always on the lookout for the best path to get where you need to go. That path might change as your project progresses and you know more about it. Being flexible is all about being open to reassessing your initial plans and changing as you go. The point of staying flexible There’s something to be learned from bamboo when it comes to flexibility. Bamboo is famous for being flexible and strong. But the interesting thing is that it is strong exactly because of its flexibility, not in spite of it. So in the face of adversity, bamboo bends, but it doesn’t break. Instead, it snaps back into shape as soon as the pressure is taken off. Similarly, being flexible in your task planning will give you strength. Flexibility doesn’t mean that you don’t plan. It means that you are able to reassess your plan often and adjust on the fly as circumstances around you change. That’s why your task list needs to be adjustable as you go. The ability to adapt to new situations is an asset that will help you get where you want faster. Let’s say for example that your team is working on a feature, but then you find out there is a similar yet conflicting feature that will work much better for your target market. Being able to change course of action will help you to keep an open mind to all the possibilities. There are countless stories of companies that changed course and found immense success as a result. Take for example Youtube: in 2005, the site started as a video dating site - very similar to HotOrNot. But when it did not gain traction, the founders abandoned the idea and focused on an online video sharing tool. Another good example is Flickr. The company actually started as an online role-playing game. But when the founders realized that they were solving a much larger problem, they decided to stop the development of the game and began focusing on simplifying online photo sharing. YouTube was acquired by Google for $1.65 billion, and Flickr was acquired by Yahoo back in 2005, reportedly for $35 million. Plans, if we get hung up on them, undermine our ability to stay open minded and positively respond to change. We want to follow our plans because we think that abandoning the initial plan means we’re somehow failing. But examples like YouTube and Flickr show us that abandoning the initial plan can really pay off. When a plan makes you rigid to change, then it’s failing to be good plan. So how can you apply flexibility to your task management practices in a practical way? First, try to plan your tasks in weeks rather than in hours. Have a general plan for the day, but don’t get hung up on them as long as you get to what needs to be done in the week. Second, make it a habit of reprioritizing - both daily and weekly. Don’t be afraid to move tasks from this week to the next, or from next week to this week. It’s one of the best ways that you can stay responsive to change as you learn new information. Third, allow room for creativity. Get into the habit of brainstorming possible solutions, and try not to dismiss options that are not part of the initial plan before really assessing them.