Plan Before Doing

My younger self was more driven to

doing over planning.

My older self is more driven for the right kind

of planning before doing.

In Running Lean, for instance,

I prescribed getting outside the building

as quickly as possible.

But simply getting outside without a plan

can be a recipe for burning needless time, money, and effort –

while you try and make sense of weak signals in the noise

that is the terrain of qualitative learning.

Simply getting outside without a goal

can be a recipe for achieving sub-optimal results –

while you spend the same resources to chase hill tops (local maxima)

and potentially miss neighboring mountains.

The Lean Startup prescribes

Build -> Measure -> Learn

which also has a strong call for action

with the goal of learning.

The original “lean thinking” has a step before building (or doing)

that in our exuberance for action we skipped…

This is the Deming or PDCA loop:

Plan, Do, Check, Act.

While doing leads to learning,

there are many things you can learn

from the comfort of your armchair

if you simply take some time to plan.

Like all the other steps,

planning does needs to be timeboxed

to avoid analysis/paralysis which is a form of waste.

But time spent on the right kind of planning

is time well spent.