On Planning

"No one starts a war - or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so - without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it."- Karl von Clausewitz.

But we all know someone who did just that.


My journey towards the Bath Half Marathon began with just a sketch plan in my head. It has grown since but even so remains faithful to the KISS principle - Keep It Simple, Stupid.

A plan needs to be flexible - to cater for those Known Unknowns - and have a contingency - for those Unknown Unknowns. It is also sensible to examine the “Do Nothing” option - the costs and risks involved - rather than just drift into it by inertia.

It is handy to break the plan down into sections, such as:-

• Physical - training plan
• Mental - motivators
• Risks Assessment - injuries
• Charity - sponsorship
• Publicity - blog.

These link together - an injury will require changes to the physical training plan and renewed motivation.

So the plan will need to be re-examined in the light of experience using the classic feed-back loop:-

Plan - Action -Assessment - Revise plan.

But there is a danger of imitating Rimmer in Red Dwarf by spending more time preparing the plan than following it. Microsoft provide a useful tool for this - you can spend hours mucking about with MS Project® - if you like that sort of thing.

The opposite is where the plan becomes shelf-ware - completed, put aside and forgotten.

Once in preparation for visiting an organisation I looked up the plan they had on their website. It was informative, if a bit dated, and my questions were based upon it. This left them baffled as nobody else at the meeting knew they had a plan. In due course their project went over time and over budget.

No surprise to me.