On Planning in Plan-Hostile Environments: I

A plan-hostile environment is one in which executing most kinds of plans — strategic plans, project plans, employee development plans, whatever — all are unexpectedly difficult to execute. The difficulties are of such variety that few plans can be executed as intended. After execution begins, replanning and rescheduling, often multiple times, are common occurrences. In some cases, replanning is necessary even before execution begins.

One fundamental issue underlying such difficulties is that the lifetime of any knowledge of the plan's environment is much shorter than the time required to develop the plan. As a consequence, some of the assumptions inherent in the plan become invalid by the time the plan becomes available for execution. In effect, the organization is unable to cycle through its OODA loop fast enough. See "OODA at Work," Point Lookout for April 6, 2011, for more.

How plan-hostile environments differ from turbulent environments

In organizations that harbor plan-hostile
environments, the lifetime of knowledge
of a plan's environment is much shorter
than the time required to develop the planPlan-hostile environments present to planners difficulties that transcend the more familiar obstacles of merely turbulent environments. Turbulent environments are challenging, to be sure, but planning with flexibility, adaptability, and risk mitigation can often produce success. Moreover, turbulence has randomness that sometimes works in favor of our plans. By contrast, in plan-hostile environments there are agents, factors, and processes in place that seem almost to seek out a plan's vulnerabilities to attack and disrupt execution.

For example, suppose that in a plan-hostile environment a plan depends on the availability of some Key person I'll call Kate. And further, suppose that the leading Advocate of the plan, Adam, has a political Rival I'll call Ralph. Then Ralph (Adam's Rival) might take or create opportunities to occupy Kate (the Key person) by making her a central figure in another effort, thus rendering her unavailable for any role in Adam's plan. If Adam tries to insulate his plan from any form of such resource contention, he would need knowledge in depth of all possible contentions, including both innocent and malevolent contention situations. The focus of Adam's planning effort then becomes largely political.

Although organizational politics cannot account for all difficulties in planning, its effects are significant enough to merit early consideration.

Internal political factors that affect plan development or execution

In plan-hostile environments attention to substantive issues is constrained in ways that affect both planners and teams charged with plan execution. Here are three examples of these mechanisms.

Scope creep

When a project S (for Successful) does seem to be executing successfully, there arises a temptation to combine it with another projects T (for Troubled) that might not be faring so well. Motives vary. Some want to conceal T's problems. Others hope to resolve T's problems by entrusting T to S's management team, which seems to be more capable. Scope creep can overwhelm judgment, and whatever plan was already in place for S must now be revised to accommodate the combination with T.

The combined team must now execute both plans. As if that's not disruptive enough, they must also sort out T's troubles and develop a plan for S+T. Even though the prospects might be dim for having T become successful, the hope is that the combined project will remain healthy enough to at least conceal T's poor health. See "Some Causes of Scope Creep," Point Lookout for September 4, 2002, for more.

A focus on project management rather than people management

In practice, project management is actually people management. When organizations focus only on projects and the metrics that measure project performance, they put at risk employee development and employee welfare. They leave unattended such practices as bullying, favoritism, discrimination, and toxic conflict. Turnover, working conditions, and ultimately project performance can all suffer.

Because the success rate for project plans is so poor in the plan-hostile environment, people focus on project metrics instead of personal performance or team performance, which many regard as only indirectly responsible for project results.

One-size-fits-all policies

Policies that confuse uniformity with fairness risk creating indefensible situations that erode respect for organizational leadership. For example, requiring two days per week of presence in office is ridiculous in organizations in which nearly all meetings are videoconferences.

Desperate to improve the success rate for plans, Management reaches ever more deeply into the organization looking for adjustments — any adjustments — that might make plans more effective. But on such a large scale, they can't grasp the details well enough to formulate policies that make sense.

Last words

I'll continue next time with items such as:

• Miscommunication
• Unrealistic schedules
• Ambiguity of roles and responsibilities
• Reorganization(s)
• Past errors unaddressed
• Factions and polarization

I'm sure there are more. rbrenfHlRlTgqCIXkUHBTner@ChacrEuHRQPYVKkOucGfoCanyon.comSend them along and I'll put them in the backlog.   Next issue in this series   Top  

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Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming April 30: On Planning in Plan-Hostile Environments: II

When we finally execute plans, we encounter obstacles. So we find workarounds or adjust the plans. But there are times when nothing we try gets us back on track. When this happens for nearly every plan, we might be working in a plan-hostile environment. Available here and by RSS on April 30.

And on May 7: Subject Matter Bullying

Most workplace bullying tactics have analogs in the schoolyard — isolation, physical attacks, name-calling, and rumor-mongering are common examples. Subject matter bullying might be an exception, because it requires expertise in a sophisticated knowledge domain. And that's where trouble begins. Available here and by RSS on May 7.

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