Planning for Everything: The Design of Paths and Goals

by Peter Morville

The planning process includes at least the following six functions: forming a representation of the problem, choosing a goal, deciding to plan, formulating a plan, executing and monitoring the plan, and learning from the plan.[4]

Planning can be fun. If you hate planning, you’re doing it wrong. Plan with a friend, make a map, embrace uncertainty, daydream, and go for a walk. Our ability to imagine, organize, and invent the future is a gift. Shift procrastination into playing with planning.

Even our dog Knowsy makes plans. She finds her throw toy and drops it at our feet so we will play with her. And she barks to go out, so she can bark to come in, so she can bark for her dinner.

This view was shared by Rodney Brooks who in 1987 argued for an evolutionary approach based on perception and action. It is instructive to reflect on the way in which earth-based biological evolution spent its time. Single-cell entities arose out of the primordial soup roughly 3.5 billion years ago. A billion years passed before photosynthetic plants appeared. After almost another billion and a half years, around 550 million years ago, the first fish and vertebrates arrived, and insects 450 million years ago. Then things started moving fast. Reptiles arrived 370 million years ago, followed by dinosaurs at 330 and mammals at 250 million years ago. The first primates appeared 120 million years ago and the immediate predecessors to the great apes 18 million years ago. Man arrived in roughly his present form 2.5 million years ago. He invented agriculture a mere 19,000 years ago, writing less than 5,000 years ago, and “expert” knowledge only over the last few hundred years. This suggests that problem solving behavior, language, expert knowledge and application, and reason are all pretty simple once the essence of being and reacting are available.[24]

I wish to build completely autonomous mobile agents that co-exist in the world with humans, and are seen by humans as intelligent beings in their own right. I will call such agents Creatures.[25] Rodney insisted that a Creature must be able to pursue multiple goals, adapt to changes in its environment, and have a purpose. So, like an insect or a Trukese navigator, a Creature is an intelligent agent driven by an objective, not a fixed plan. In pursuit of his goal, Rodney co-founded iRobot and to the delight of cats around the world, created the first successful, domestic robot, Roomba. These vacuums don’t map rooms but rely on sensors and algorithms such as spiral cleaning, room crossing, wall following, and random walk angle changing after bumping into an object. Their unplanned paths aren’t efficient, but they are adaptive and surprisingly effective.

Times of rapid change and increasing complexity require a shift from optimization towards innovation. Forcing workers to blindly execute the upfront plans and sequential processes of the “waterfall model” turns out not to be the one best way. But we do it anyway. Taylor’s obsession with time, order, and efficiency has been absorbed into the fabric of our culture. We share his faith in reductionism. We divide projects into phases into tasks. We separate people into teams into roles. We split work into steps and silos. Then things fall through the cracks. Figure 1-6. The Waterfall Model. It’s not that waterfall is wrong. In many contexts, it’s a useful model. The problem is that, all too often, we apply it without realizing it’s not the only way. Again, it helps to know history. In the 1950s, Toyota figured out how to avoid the pitfalls of Taylorism by embracing what’s now called Lean. In design, all relevant specialists were involved at the outset, so conflicts about resources and priorities were resolved early on. And in production, managers learned that by making small batches and giving every worker the ability to stop the line, they could identify, fix, and prevent errors more quickly and effectively. [40] Rather than serving as cogs in the machine, workers were expected to solve problems by using “the five why’s” to systematically trace every error to its root cause. Similarly, suppliers were expected to coordinate the flow of parts and information within the just-in-t...

In recent years, Eric Ries famously adapted Lean to solve the wicked problem of software startups: what if we build something nobody wants?[41] He advocates use of a minimum viable product (“MVP”) as the hub of a Build-Measure-Learn loop that allows for the least expensive experiment. By selling an early version of a product or feature, we can get feedback from customers, not just about how it’s designed, but about what the market actually wants. Lean helps us find the goal. Figure 1-7. The Lean Model. Agile is a similar mindset that arose in response to frustration with the waterfall model in software development. Agilistas argue that while Big Design Up Front may be required in the contexts of manufacturing and construction where it’s costly if not impossible to make changes during or after execution, it makes no sense for software. Since requirements often change and code can be edited, the Agile Manifesto endorses flexibility. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Working software over comprehensive documentation. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. Responding to change over following a plan.

The practices and artifacts of Scrum – backlogs, sprints, stand ups, increments, burn charts – reflect an understanding of the need to strike a balance between planning and improvisation, and the value of engaging the entire team in both. As we’ll see later, Agile and Lean ideas can be useful beyond their original ecosystems, but translation must be done mindfully. The history of planning from Taylor to Agile reflects a shift in the zeitgeist – the spirit of the age – from manufacturing to software that affects all aspects of work and life. In business strategy, attention has shifted from formal strategic planning to more collaborative, agile methods. In part, this is due to the clear weakness of static plans as noted by Henry Mintzberg. Plans by their very nature are designed to promote inflexibility. They are meant to establish clear direction, to impose stability on an organization…planning is built around the categories that already exist in the organization.[43] But the resistance to plans is also fueled by fashion. In many organizations, the aversion to anything old is palpable. Project managers have burned their Gantt charts. Everything happens emergently in Trello and Slack. And this is not all good. As the pendulum swings out of control, chaos inevitably strikes. In organizations of all shapes and sizes, the failure to fit process to context hurts people and bottom lines. It’s time to realize we can’t not plan, and there is no one best way. Defining and embracing ...

Design is how it works.”[44]

So before working to design the thing right, we must first be sure we’re designing the right thing. This calls for a process of diverging and converging twice. The “Double Diamond” asks us to discover many possible paths and goals before we define the problem and craft the plan; and then to develop and test prototypes before deciding upon and delivering the solution.[45] Figure 1-8. The Double Diamond. At the heart of design is our ability to model the world as it is and as it might be. This is powerful. A sketch or prototype can spark insights and change minds. Goals and vision may shift in a “now that I see it” moment. In recent years, business has begun to adapt these practices to strategy and planning under the aegis of Design Thinking. Post-its and prototypes engage our brains, bodies, colleagues, customers, and ecosystems in distributed cognition. Design helps us solve wicked problems by exploring paths and goals. And it works for individuals and teams, not just big business. In short, design is a great fit for planning, and its practices are the inspiration for this book.

Principles and Practices The discovery of planful behavior in animals, robots, people, and organizations reveals that planning is a big, messy subject. As we shift from introductory definitions into the book’s core practical chapters, we’ll focus on planning for people. The aim is to help individuals and teams get better at the design of paths and goals. The plan is to build understanding, skills, and literacy by studying four principles and six practices.

Framing. While common sense suggests we should start to plan by defining goals, it also helps to study the lens through which we see problems and solutions. By examining needs, wants, feelings, and beliefs, we’re better able to know and share our vision and values. Imagining. By expanding our awareness of paths and possibilities, we create choice and inform strategy. We search and research for information, then play with models to stray beyond knowledge. Sketches draw insights that help us add options and refine plans. Narrowing. After diverging, it’s critical to converge by prioritizing paths and options. This requires study of drivers, levers, estimates, and consequences, as the value of a strategy is tied to time and risk. Deciding. While decisions are often made in an instant, the process of committing to and communicating a course of action merits time and attention. Instructions are essential to the rendering of intent. Words matter. So do numbers. Define metrics for success carefully. Executing. The dichotomy between planning and doing is false. In all sorts of contexts, we plan as we travel, build, or get things done. Reflecting. While it helps to ask questions throughout the process, we should also make space to look back at the whole from the end. Long before the invention of time, people used the North Star to find their way in the dark. In the future, I hope you will use these principles and practices to make your way in the world. Figure 1-10. Principles and p...

fer-de-lance

In this chapter you may have noticed and perhaps even been irritated by the inconsistent spelling of realise and realize. It’s not a mistake but a subtle gesture to surface a delicate point. Different isn’t wrong. I am British and American, and this book will be read in many countries, so neither spelling is right or wrong. When in doubt, we’re told to pick one and be consistent. But why? Is it to maintain the illusion there’s one right way? Is it because diversity is inefficient? I invite you to ask if some irregularities that irritate may also inform. Why do they cause anger? What do you fear? What might they teach?

When Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,”[49] he was inviting us to be free.

As an information architect, framing is a vital part of my work, but it’s not what organizations ask me to do. For example, the National Cancer Institute hired me to fix the usability of their website by reorganizing its navigation. The goal was to reduce the number of clicks from the home page to content. But I soon discovered a bigger problem. Most folks searching for answers about specific types of cancer never reached cancer.gov due to poor findability via Google. I only saw this problem because I knew how to solve it. I explained to my client that by aligning the information architecture with search engine optimization, we could improve usability and findability. Together, we were able to reframe the goals. The site went on to win awards and rise to the top of the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

In our pursuit of happiness, we heed the timeless words of management guru Peter Drucker who told us “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” We define key performance indicators (KPIs) and objectives and key results (OKRs) for business. And we use wearable sensors to track steps, calories, insulin levels, and the heart rates of individuals. The numbers keep us so busy, we fail to realize Drucker would never have said those words. The quote is also attributed to W. Edwards Deming, but what he really said is “it is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth.”[54]

Frames are evoked by words, and as a colleague of mine likes to say “words make people hallucinate.”[60] In a debate, Lakoff argues their language draws you into their worldview, so do not use their words, like Richard Nixon did when he claimed “I am not a crook.”[61]

The last point of our star is reflective, and it’s what framing is all about. Our choice of words and metaphors says as much about us as the goal. Is it a game or a conversation or a battle, and why do we frame it that way? My friend is a life coach, and she says eighty percent of her clients are not ready to plan, because they don’t trust or listen to themselves. How can you know what you want if you don’t even know who you are?

If we study the maps that make the system, it’s easier to win the game.

hope is not an emotion but a mindset rooted in the belief that you will find a way. And we don’t all have an equal share. Folks with “big will, little ways” respond to brick walls by pushing harder, whereas those with “little will, big ways” are haunted by unrealised ideas and plans. In contrast, high hopers know they have the creativity and discipline to achieve big goals. Not blind optimists, they are problem solvers who invent a way around every obstacle.

Let’s say you plan to teach a class on a subject you know well. How do you begin? You might create a syllabus, then prepare lectures for each topic in the outline. But is there a better way? Remember, you enjoy access to information and aren’t limited to trial and error. Perhaps you find a book called Make It Stick about the science of successful learning and encounter another mnemonic, RIGOR, that helps you teach different and better. [71]

I also learned in library school how to search for information and how to evaluate sources for truth and bias. In the swirl of social media, fake news, and alternative facts, these core skills of information literacy have never been more essential. If you search for confirmation, you will find it, but dare the opposite and self-correction may bear truth and more successful plans.

Physical, intellectual, and emotional engagement is vital for cultivating motivation, imagination, and openness to change. Mental models are the game board of the mind. Learning often means changing the game board, not just learning fancier strategies on the same board with the same pieces. Often the game board we begin with incorporates mistakes and blind spots and prejudices.[75]

The graphic and narrative portray how the organization will accomplish the mission. Together the graphic and narrative identify who, when, what, where, how, and why (intent).[85]

Add this thought to the one about Amazon, working backwards.. this is how PIDs or AES could be written