mercoledì 25 giugno 2014

Planning ÷ reacting: finding the balance

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans - John Lennon, Beautiful Boy









The are things that can be planned and others that cannot be. The conundrum is, which is which?

What happens when someone

This is why it is important to find out in every moment the balance between the two, to know


Someone says that Agile is the art of finding the balance between anticipation (as e.g. panning) and adaptation (as e.g. reacting).  

An interesting final reflection: what values, principle and practices help to find a good balance, and how ?

 
posted @ lunedì 1 gennaio 0001 00:00 | Feedback (0)

Consequences for too much planning






When someone plans things that cannot be panned or plans too much:
  • the time and effort spent for the planning don’t increase certainty and don’t reduce risks

  • it can creates a false sense of certainty and safety this drives wrong decisions

  • a plan over-detailed upfront stiffs innovation

  • the time and effort spent for the unnecessary planning causes delays

 

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posted @ lunedì 1 gennaio 0001 00:00 | Feedback (0)

Consequences for too much reacting





Adaptation is a mindful response to unforeseeable events and change and to unknowns and uncertainties that unfolds.

When adaptation is not so mindful because someone rely too much on adaptation (reacting too much, being too impulsive, continuous firefighting) :
  • failure to take advantage of knowable information increases costs

  • unnecessary adaptation cause excessive reworks

  • no extra flexibility is achieved

  • it can lead to endless mindless change that doesn’t produce real value

 

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posted @ lunedì 1 gennaio 0001 00:00 | Feedback (0)

When to plan, when to react





Few examples follow.

 Planning is beneficial with Reaction is beneficial with
Customer objectives, priorities and requirements that are known, well understood, and stable Customer objectives, priorities and requirements that are uncertain, ambiguous, or partially unknown, that are volatile and can change because of things that are outside our area of influence and control
Domain that is know and well understood A new unknown domain, a complex domain or a wicked problem
Well known, well functioning, stable technologies A technology that is unknown, novel, unstable, still under development, or used outside contexts and limits tried before
People that know each other and worked together before or worked to similar problems with similar approaches, and the level of interdependency is low
People that don’t know each other and is used to work to different kinds problems and with different approaches, or the level of interdependency to other teams/departments/external partners/suppliers is high   
External dependencies, as other teams/departments/external partners/suppliers, are well known and understood, stable and their response time and service level is known and stable  Some external dependencies are unknown and not well understood, are unstable or their response time and service level is unknown or unstable    
Just enough, just-in-time
 When circumstances changes, with the suitable speed, when it is the appropriate time to act

In every project the mix of things on the left and the right can be different.
Sometime even during the same project the mix changes as circumstances change.
A good balance of planning and reacting depends on that mix.


Planning is a form of anticipation, reacting is a way of adaptation. These images below show some examples of the balance between the two:














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posted @ lunedì 1 gennaio 0001 00:00 | Feedback (0)