By-the-way, the article I’m referring to does a nice job of looking at
models for framing change (emergent or ad-hoc vs planned) and
Kurt Lewin’s model of managing change: 1. Unfreeze, 2. Moving, and
3. Re-freezing.

After reading all this, and just reflecting this past week on the different
environments I have worked in and how relatively responsive vs.
non-responsive to change, I realized cataloguing the origin of change
or the processes it supposedly goes through is all a bit overly conceptual
on a day-to-day basis for me.  I’m more interested in tools that I can
use, so here’s my model, and how I use it.

1. Change comes about from 3 origins and is defined by the relative
tension or differences in power between the three, with the winner
always being the one exercising the most power as reflected by
kicking individuals out of the game. 

    1. Individuals, 
    2. Cultures or Systems and 
    3. Environment or Market.

 2. The individuals facing a change process or challenge always fall into
one of four buckets:  
    1. Early adopters, ready, and usually well motivated, at least at the start,
      but with a track record of getting distracted
    2. Wait and see, tentatively motivated, accommodating, but not working too
     hard at either the change or resisting it.
    3.  The fully resistant, either actively or passively pushing back at the change
    4.  The adopters that see it through, usually made up of groups 1 and 2, who 
    find their way to a point of buy-in and have the emotional resources and
    discipline to see their way to the end.

3.  I use both models in roughly this format:
   1. Find out who/what is exerting the most power on the outcome.  Either
        adapt (change) or raise the level of power I or the group I’m working for
        so that it is the strongest driver in the 3 ringed circus.

   2. If driving change, be very careful about who is on the bus.  Monitor
        regularly as momentum and motivation are both subject to fade-outs
       and reversals.  Garner enough power for the people on the bus, so that
       they can sustain the effort long enough to be successful with the early 
       adopters and wait and see groups, and either over-ride or ignore the
       fully resistant.Expect and treat change, to be a multi-layer event, keep watching,
        Keep adapting and keep the recognition high for any compliance and
        the pressure on when it’s tempting to back off.

    3.  Recognize that power in the change game is always exemplified
        by the process or willingness to kick people out of the game who
        don’t comply.  When the market is the most powerful, it’s rewarding
        some and clearly kicking others out of the game.  When a culture or
        system is the most powerful, it tends to kick out individuals who
       don’t fit or support it, including leaders.  When leaders are the most
       powerful, they kick people off the bus that don’t comply.  In some
       profound ways it really is that simple.

Bottom Line:

My own model is that change is ultimately personal and experienced in terms
of the power of personalities.  It is reflected as a tension between the
personality of leadership, the personality of the culture and the people who
most shape that, and the personality and actions of the market, where power
is exercised as the effect of kicking people out of the game that don’t
comply.   Stability looks  like unchanging power relationships, change looks
like a shift in dominance positions between the three personalities.  Just
remember, the personality that is actively throwing individuals out of the
ring that don’t comply, is in power and driving the change process.

Resume’s are important; they serve as an initial, albeit rough screening
device… but for what?  Technical skills and experience of course.
But what if technical skills are only marginally related to success on the
job and not the area you should focus on in initial screening?  Would
it surprise you to know that only 11% of new hire failures is due to
technical skill deficits?  I was surprised.

There’s an excellent one page read on the topic, derived from a study by
LeadershipIQ.  Here’s the results after interviewing over 5,200 managers
over a three year period.

“The study found that:
26% of new hires fail because they can’t accept  feedback,
23% because they’re unable to understand and manage emotions,
17% because they lack the necessary motivation to excel,
15% because they have the wrong temperament for the job, and only
11% because they lack the necessary technical skills.”

Technical skills and ability are critical to succeeding on a job, but
skills at managing one’s emotions and interpersonal relationships,
or the lack thereof, is underscored in this study as what will lose you a job.

If you knew that 90% of the reasons people you were interviewing,
would be due to emotional and interpersonal IQ, it would only make
sense that it would get a high priority in both pre-job interviews and
in annual reviews.   Check your annual review form and see if it is there.

Finally, there was also a hidden gem in this report, underscoring the
old 80-20 rule.  The report finds that 46% of new hires fail in the first
18 months, “while only 19% will achieve unequivocal success.”  That
adds up to 19% that succeed, and 81% either failing or adding
marginal value.

Bottom Line:
Pay attention first to prospective and current employee’s coachability,
emotional intelligence, motivation and temperament, they represent
the factors most highly related to delivering value on the job.  Technical
skills are important, much easier to evaluate and unfortunately not
nearly as good a predictor for success at your work place and mine.

Before I go into what works for me, let’s go over a couple of examples:
1.  Here’s an example of a recent news blurb on Symmetricom.
“SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Symmetricom Inc. slid to a loss in the most recent
quarter, hurt by a dip in sales and one-time expenses from paying down
debt and restructuring…

Stripping out $7 million in expenses related to paying off outstanding bonds
and $6 million for restructuring, the company would have earned 12 cents
per share…”

As you read that quote, can you determine if that was part of a financial
plan… or a strategic plan?  Was it strategic or reactive?  Was it on their
strategic plan for 2010, or did it become a necessary tactical move with
a drop in sales?  It’s hard to tell isn’t it?  It could be either or both.

2.  Here’s a few examples of initiatives that commonly appear in strategic plans:

- Improve sales by 20%
- Raise profit margins by 2.5%
- Grow EBITA by 12% over previous year

As you read the statements above, it’s obvious that they are financial
goals, but are they strategic?   I see them so often in one form or another
in strategic plans, so one might think they are strategic, by their prevalence
if for no other reason.   But most of the time, they aren’t really strategic.

Actually most of the time, the three financial initiatives not only aren’t
strategic, but don’t have a strategic plan to support them, and as a
consequence are not likely to be met.  

So let’s go over how I separate the two, financial and strategic, and how
you can too, because keeping them separate in your mind and planning
efforts will help you be a better strategic planner.

Here we go;

1. Growth vs Survival:
1. A strategic plan is a plan for growth, highlighting the goals and
action items that are being selected as the preferred route and emphasis
to drive growth.  It’s like saying, of the 43 different directions the business
could go this year, what are the 3 most promising efforts, that if resourced
will drive growth?

2. A financial plan is a plan to manage limited resources with priority and
ensure survival.  If you were a farmer, it would be similar to your water
plan.  You need to plan to have reserves to meet demands as well as
enough daily flow to keep existing production underway. 

Does the financial plan drive growth?  Yes, ultimately, but it’s not the
same.  One has to survive to grow, but survival isn’t growth.  In farming
language, securing water is not the same as strategically thinking ahead
and predicting where the market is going to go, and deciding which crops
to plant, where and when.

2. 90% of the time Financial Planning Aids Strategic Planning:
Financial planning and financial monitoring is vital to support your strategic
planning and execution.  Most organizations have a difficult time doing much
strategically if they slip into insolvency.  On the other hand many
organizations have financial outcomes listed as part of their strategic plan,
when they really should be outcomes based upon a strategic initiative or effort.

Don’t confuse the two – don’t list your financial goals as a strategic plan. 
Keep clear in your planning what is being chosen to drive growth, then
anchor that by framing it in financial outcomes.  E.g. you may decide to
drive growth by re-allocating 5% of your operating capital from Engineering
to CRM, but the strategy is to emphasize CRM over Engineering to drive
growth, not the budget amount or the increase in sales… those are just
resources and outcomes.

Here’s another way to look at it, financial goals, are outcome targets,
but they don’t address the vital strategic questions of:
How are we going to achieve that goal, what specific approach? and
Why do we think the market will respond?

3. 10% of the time, Financial Planning is Strategic Planning:
Financial planning becomes a part of the strategic plan when it moves
beyond “keeping the trains running,” balancing the books, paying
the bills, maintaining cash flow, etc.  and moves into how do we use
or shape finances based upon what it does to growth? 

Returning to the first quote regarding Symmetricom above, their
pay down of debt may have been part of a strategy to reallocate
resources to achieve a strategic initiative… who knows, maybe their
strategy is to be acquired and they want to reduce debt to make themselves
more attractive… or it simply could have been part of managing cash
flow and tactically using available cash… because it was there. 
Finance moves can be a fundamental growth driver or primarily
a support function, and most of the time they are the latter.

Bottom Line:

The difference between strategic versus financial planning on a very
basic level is rooted in placing the emphasis on growth vs. survival
or maintenance.  They are both critical, both need to be managed.
But when financial planning (and goals) is mis-identified as a strategy,
most of the time it is a result of a lack of clarity or in-site into what
are the drivers for growth within the market.

Let me know if that helps.

Before I dive into this, to give you an idea of how far we’ve gone amuck
with performance reviews, just roll around some of her blog’s keywords
in your brain.  Keywords like: “dread, criticism, discussions turning
into battles, employee comments having little final impact on
ratings or money (sort of the spilt milk effect), and complicated forms
that don’t clearly tie to the employee’s department success.  It does
cause you to pause and wonder “How did this get to be such a
negatively framed experience?” doesn’t it?

Maybe the following warning signs should be attached to
performance reviews:

WARNING:  Only Complete if:
1. The employee is well adjusted and has demonstrated the
emotional resilience to listen to, absorb and profit from feedback.
2. The reviewer is trusted by the employee and perceived as
both accurate and fair.
3. Adequate data has been tracked throughout the review 
period to ensure the review will be fact based.
4. The performance review would actually add significant value
to the work process and outcomes within no more than 30 days
5. Both employee and reviewer are committed to the value of
improving performance as the primary reason for a review,
vs. completing a form, qualifying for a raise, avoiding a layoff…

When you read the list, doesn’t it make you think that
maybe performance reviews aren’t for everyone? 

I know that the research suggests that not everyone benefits from
setting goals, mostly just the people interested in performance
improvement.  So wouldn’t the same be true for reviews?

If performance reviews are really best suited for a minority of
employees and companies, several questions come to mind:

1. Are you, is the organization you work in, in that minority?
Why?  Why not?

2. Instead of a performance review, what would the majority
 of employees find to be less disruptive and more helpful?
-  A highlights film? 
-  A simple list of what works and what doesn’t? 
-  30 minutes of recognition for anything they have done that
    created value, capped by an affirmation?
-  What would you add here?  I have some thoughts, maybe next blog,
but meanwhile am curious about what thoughts come to your mind.

 Bottom Line:
Performance reviews are both widely used and widely associated
with negative connotations.  In this blog I cover 5 guidelines that
should be a pre-requisite for conducting performance reviews in
their current state, and propose the consideration that performance
reviews are not well suited to most employees or companies, hence
all the negative associations, and the needed alternatives.

Link:
Do Performance Reviews Really Work?
Performance Reviews; Skill, Outcome or Process Review?

Frankly, sometimes collaboration is a poor use of time, sometimes it
doesn’t really help, doesn’t really help generate a better or more timely
outcome. 

You know when you hit those moments.  For me it occurs when:
1.  I’m sitting in a meeting and wanting it to wrap up 30 minutes ago
so that I can get on with what  I need to do,
2. It happens when I keep getting cc’d on mass emails, and I really
need to focus and the extra email input is … just extra.
3. It gets signaled by my internal thought of “just let me do this myself.”

General collaboration/communication tools such as e-mail, wikis, IMs,
conference calls, video conferencing, whiteboards and shared 
documents as well as specific work tools (ex. web based project
management software like MProLite) all represent various forms of
collaboration tools, but don’t really give a clue as to when they add
value and when “they don’t work.”

Here’s the thing.  I’ve worked in organizations that under-collaborate
to their detriment, causing 7 figure mistakes on a given day.  I’ve
worked in organizations that spent most of the day collaborating in
meetings to their detriment in getting things done.

So what’s the answer for predicting, explaining why and when
collaboration doesn’t work.  I’m looking forward to hearing your
thoughts, but here’s a short list of answers that come to my mind:

Collaboration doesn’t work when the following exist for me:

1. Unequally Yoked: The team members participating in the
collaboration who don’t bring to the table the skills or experience
that add value.  If not participating for training, this in fact
detracts from the ability to meet deadlines.  e.g. they aren’t there
to learn and their input doesn’t help move the ball forward.

2. Language Skills: People who struggle with the language
and/or ability to present information succintly and clearly…
whether in the spoken or written form, cause collaboration to be
“painful” and I only do it if I really need something from them I
can’t get any other way.

3. On Stage: People who see collaboration as the opportunity to
share their opinion, pontificate, grab 5 – 15 minutes of mike time,
demonstrate their expertise, etc… e.g. people who use
collaboration for something other than helping move the
project forward in a more expedient, accurate, informed manner.

4. Preparation:  Whether it’s following through, or doing your
research, or updated the collaboration tool, or whatever the
preparation is, collaborating with team members who aren’t
prepared marginalizes the value and creates frustration for me.

I can think of more instances, and there’s probably 100 more
instances beyond my list when collaboration is invoked, but
doesn’t work.  Hopefully you’ll add your favorites to comments
below. 

Bottom Line:
Collaboration only works when it adds value.  Collaboration has the
capacity to either greatly add to the work effort or detract from it.
Collaboration eats up time and dollars, so it either needs to benefit
the process or reduce risk.   

It is fun to work with people who are experts at collaborating. 
They know when and how to pull the information and feedback from
others they need, and do so in an agile, reinforcing way that makes it
a pleasure for the team members to contribute. 

How would you characterize yourself and your team/company,
when it comes to the collaboration/value equation?

Links:
 Collaboration that Fosters Innovation

This is the second blog in a series on limits or lines and performance.
When it comes to managing business information as it relates to
getting work done, collaboration, coordination, etc; tools present
a significant challenge and impasse to performance for many people.
Sometimes the resistance you encounter when deploying 
performance tools would make you think you’re challenging
the bill of rights.  What’s that all about?  (See links below)

I just got a call from a contractor who built our office.  What do you
think he would say if some of his framers said they didn’t want to use
nail guns, they preferred to hammer each nail manually.  Or what if
the sheet rock help said instead of using power screw guns, they
wanted to put in each screw with an old style screwdriver and lots
of wrist action.  You guessed right.  He would show them the door,
it just costs too much to use old tools. 

If it costs too much to use old tools in the construction industry,
don’t you think it costs too much to use old tools in your business?
So this leads up to the second limit most people don’t get or know
about.

#2 Use the right tool to get the job done expediently, the
right process to save everyone else time. 

Did you catch the twist?  Using the right tools will ultimately make
you go faster, but not necessarily at first, given there’s always some
learning curve. 

But the big performance boost is that if you use the right tool and
the right process, you save other people time… lots of time and
ultimately money.

Let’s go back to construction for a second.  Is it easier to grab a
hammer off of your tool belt and start pounding away, or go
get the nail gun, the extension cord, plug it in and come back
to start the job.  It’s a no-brainer.  Hit it with the hammer.  But
the person with a nail gun passes the hammer thrower by the
2nd 2×4.

That’s how most of us are when it comes to using information
management tools that have a performance boost built in. 
It’s easier to just manage information manually.  Writing it
down is very immediate, sort of like grabbing the hammer off
the tool belt.  But it actually slows the overall process down.

When it comes to anyone else having to touch the information,
including us, it really slows the production process down
when staff haven’t used the right tool and process. 

With the right tool, you’ve got the information at your finger
tips.  When people are using the wrong meeting, you can’t find
the information.  You need to make a call, send an email,
walk down the hall, have a meeting, dig through your email
inbox, sort through an old power point report.  You know the
drill. 

So what if you got serious about using the right tools, the
right process?  What if you got serious about it as a requirement
for anyone who worked on your team?  Don’t you think
it’s about time?

Bottom Line:

Using the right tool and the right process in managing information
and people is a hidden limit, which when enforced can  boost
performance as well as dramatically save time for anyone who
has to interact or use the information originally created.  What
tools, what processes should you draw the line at, in your team?
If you don’t draw this line, you are losing at the performance game.

Links:
Performance, Limits and Outcomes
Performance Management Software Adoption

But before I jump into this topic, I want to be clear that I understand
that lines can be harsh, uncomfortable to enforce.  Here in the US
we both want good performance from ourselves and others, and at
the same time get wishey-washy about the reality of lines.  You may
find the same to be true where-ever you are working.

But back to lines, or you could use the word boundaries or limits.

Here’s the first one.  Actually let’s just do one in this blog.

#1 Outcome is key, not your time, and every approach to
reaching an outcome, every effort, has a time limit. 

There’s always a time limit… to everything you do.  There’s also
a time limit to every approach.  A time to be finished by, a time
to give up or switch by.   I’m starting to sound like Ecclesiastes 3.

Whether you are capping the BP well in the gulf, pursuing a sales lead,
framing a house or writing software code for a feature… there’s only
so much time you can spend on any one approach if you’re going to
reach your desired outcome.  If you aren’t getting the outcome,
the performance needed, its time to change, switch, move on, get help, etc. 

By-the-way, that’s a high performance frame of mind.    Here’s what
the conversation sounds like in your head if you’re not into
performance:

“I’ll just keep working until its done.”
“I’ll keep working until its time to leave.”
“I keep working at it as long as its interesting.”
“I’ll at least get started on it.”

Notice the difference? High performance tends to be outcome
driven.  Being Performance minded, means you’re
paying attention to the outcome and monitoring time remaining.
If your schedule is driven by closure, by commitment, by putting
in your time, by comfort, by … you fill in the blank, then what I
find is that you typically aren’t as nimble, you don’t make
adjustments in a timely manner.  You keep working processes,
issues, even goals, pass the point at which you should have made
a change.

Think about that, even if it’s the big limit of your time
on the planet. If you operate without regard to a time limit, or say
to yourself,  I’m just going to keep working until it’s done or keep
working until I’ve put in my hours for the day, it usually means:
- you are going to chronically over-run time estimates in the
process of ignoring the clock
- you aren’t going to be very attuned to the messages others,
your customers and the market in general sends you.

If you don’t get this right in your head, you believe you’re getting
paid for the hours you put in, instead of the outcomes you are able
to deliver.  If you don’t get this right in your head, you will earn
less and accomplish left in the time you have remaining on the planet.

If I can avoid it, I don’t want you working for me or with me,
especially if it involves innovation.  Why?  You may be very nice,
buy you’re going to spend more time trudging along than I have time
to accommodate. By-the-way, I’m not alone in finding value in people
who can focus on the outcome, the time remaining… and get it done.

Bottom Line:

If you want to increase your value and get more done, you
likely need to change the way you think.  Performance thinking is
a way of regularly balancing the need to reach an outcome, with the
time remaining, with the relative success of whatever approach
you have adopted.  Let me write that one more time.  To improve
performance, you want to start operating with a constant awareness
of the outcome you want to reach, and given it’s value, how much time
it should take  you to reach it.  Be prepared to challenge your approach
to any outcome as soon as it looks like you won’t reach the outcome in
the time allocated.  Have fun!

Links:
Working Strategically and the three legged Stool of Outcome, Time and Value

If the strategic plan is essentiallythe plan to get ahead at the business
level, is it something that’s written or stored in a software program?

Or since most people in an organization don’t know or can’t remember
the strategic plan, is it really how and what we think, our
assumptions about what it takes to get ahead?

Or since we all don’t act consistent with how we think, or what we read,
is the strategic plan really defined by how we act, what we spend
time on, what we prioritize or repeat?

If you redefine the strategic plan as simply the plan that defines how to
get ahead, it really makes you realize for most people it isn’t what’s written.
What if ultimately the strategic plan is always something internal that
drives the choices we make.  Now that internal plan may be based upon
a written plan or thought process somewhere, but that internal plan
could also be quite detached from any formal process.

While you’re thinking about that, let me also suggest that maybe,
for most of us, the internal plan is based primarily on one core
assumption that fits with our personality more than anything else.

I have a unique way of combining Myers-Briggs scores that seems
to match up well against brain research, and if I were to put it in
a matrix, the personality types and their one core strategic
emphasis would look like this:

Back to the strategic plan question.  Is it external, internal, or a connection
between the two?   I’m thinking the strategic plan is primarily internal,
and you have to work pretty hard to connect the two.  It takes some
work to connect an external plan to people’s internal assumptions. 

To Fred’s discussion of the whether the process or the value is the
value add, I’m thinking neither if the plan people are working from
is primarily internal and not impacted by whatever formal plan got
developed or the process to develop it. 

What if the process for developing strategic plans emphasized
connecting people’s inner world of assumptions and preferences,
with the external business question and reality of “how to get ahead.”?

Bottom Line:

I think most of us work off of an internal strategic plan, not an external
one.  Secondly our internal plan is shaped more by our personal
preferences than business needs or process.  Third, if you look at
personality profiles, you realize the standard approach to strategic
planning is structured for only one personality type,the Analytic
Thinker/Builder.  Looks like we need to redesign current approaches
to strategic planning to incorporate the styles of everyone
in the organization, not just a minority… especially if you want to
create an external plan that will impact everyone.

Links:
Is Strategic Planning an Oxymoron?

First of all, there are a number of things you can do to improve
utilization, depending on the user group, the organizational culture,
and how clearly and compellingly you can address the questions of
“Why do I need/have to learn to use this software now?” and
“What’s in it for me?”.  See the links at the bottom of this blog for
references.

So what’s the single most effective thing you can do?  What really
increases adoption… in just 10 work days?

You may not believe this, but it’s using the software in meetings.

This is particularly true for any program that involves project planning,
collaboration, task management, etc… e.g. ManagePro & MProLite.

Let me give you 3 quick reasons why using the software in meetings
is so directly tied to user adoption:

1.  First of all, using the software in a meeting that occurs regularly,
preferably weekly, indicates (proof) that you (management) are
regularly using the “new program.”  A majority of users always wait
to see if the people who bought or mandate using the software are
really serious about it.  E.g. will it be a passing fade and die out in a
month.  Using it regularly in a meeting cuts through all of that right
up front.

2. Using it in a meeting immediately exposes who is keeping up with
updates and data entry (two primary indicators of adoption).  You
want the public visibility (transparency) to work for you.  It is a
powerful double motivator of recognition and embarrassment, when
a user’s updates are either present and well written or missing. 
People respond to this motivator really quickly.

3.  Using the software in meetings give you the opportunity to redefine
attendence rights based upon software adoption.  Most people do
not want to be excluded from meetings.  When you make attendance
conditional on having their inputs into the software you are referencing
in the meeting, it becomes an additional powerful shaper of behavior.

For even more effect, and you usually only have to do this once,
ask the first person who hasn’t updated their part of the software as
you reach that part of the meeting agenda, to leave the meeting and
return after they have completed their update.  No one likes to be
“fired from the meeting”, and this sends a big time message to
everyone else that the rules have changed in a way that gets the
point across 100 times more powerfully than asking, threatening,
pleading with people to use the software.

Bottom Line:
The most effective way to increase user adoption is to use the
software within the meeting process.  The emotional drivers are:
proof, transparency resulting in recognition/embarrassment, and
new meeting attendence requirements.  With ManagePro, we just
use a project to display the contents on ManagePro on the screen,
and use the program to function as both the agenda and immediate
data source for discussion and action items.

Links:
Software Adoption and Innovation
Meeting Management

So here’s a quick blog on project planning and the two key questions that
I’ve found consistently improve your results, regardless of how you
approach project planning.  Let  me know what you think.

Two questions that improve any project planning effort.

1. The first question is simply this:  “How much face validity does
the plan have,  to you… to others… in representing the key steps
needed to reach the outcome?”  This question is generally applicable,
but creates  the most  value when heading into uncharted areas,
creating innovation, etc.

Face validity is the sense you get when looking at a plan, that it
addresses the needed steps.  It makes sense.  If you had to bet your
lunch on it… you would take the bet. 

Here’s the real secret to face validity.  It’s outcome based. 
The plan looks like it will realistically get you to the outcome. 

You might be surprised at how many people get lost when creating
a plan, want to make sure they include everything and lose the focus on
“what’s the outcome” and “are we doing what’s needed to get us there.” 
There really is no other basis for plan validity.  It’s what separates
forms and lists from a real plan.

2.  Here’s the second question: “Is it (the plan) working?” 

That conveys two things, which can be very difficult to get.
It conveys that you keep the plan open to adjustments.  Maybe I
should better write that as you keep hammering on and reshaping
the plan based on what happens mid-stream.

It also conveys that you’re getting data, updates, results, feedback
in a timely manner that let’s you respond to that question based upon
current data… nothing else.

You see I think most people mistakenly believe that project planning
is limited to the first part of a project.  Like there’s some point at which
you finish the plan, and then you just execute it from there.  I think
that’s a big mistake, at least it sure is on most of my projects.  I can’t
remember a single major project in the last 10 years that worked out
exactly according to the initial plan. 

If you don’t update the plan, it quickly becomes outdated and marginalized,
or drags the entire project management process down because  efforts
are aligned with an outdated plan that doesn’t reflect current realities well.

What if project planning keeps going until the project is complete and
you’ve done your “lessons learned” review?  For me, project planning
starts with a definition of outcomes, schedule and resources, but
continues throughout the life cycle of the project with a continual
reference to that key question – Is the plan working?

Bottom Line:
Project planning is mistakenly thought of as a phase at the front end
of projects.  I think it goes throughout the life cycle of the project and
is best shaped by two ongoing questions:
1. Does the plan have validity, does it make sense, will what’s included, 
what’s focused upon, clearly get us to the outcome?
2. Is the plan working, have you checked, based upon what data?

Separate yourself from the crowd - keep it real and keep it current.