Is Your Planning 
like Football?

Football season has started and that always signals that it’s planning time again.  

            If you’re a football fan, you’re very excited! If you’re not into football, you may have a sense of indifference, possibly dread. Few people approach planning like excited football fans because plan, after all, is a four-letter word. However, we’ve seen several basic approaches to planning that are a lot like football.

Is your planning like fantasy football…where you pretend you have all the resources you need?  Many strategy models assume that you should make the best plan and then find the resources. Unfortunately, the defense is not going to wait for you to recruit a solid offensive line, they're just going to sack your quarter back, or worse, recover a fumble.

One group squandered a fantastic marketing opportunity because they spent an entire year searching for funds instead of creatively thinking if there was another way to seize the opportunity. They not only didn’t find the funds, but they also missed the window of opportunity.

Do you start your season with a fumble or a quarterback sack because you missed opportunities by asking the wrong questions or by building your offensive line up with your defensive players simply because they're already on the field?

It's easy to loose sight of the ball and focus on tangents like pursuing technology fixes, resource allocations, or off-base "new ideas."  Our experience is using your know-how and thinking differently about your approaches are what lead to scores and big plays. 

Are your planning sessions like a poorly done half time…where everyone can’t wait for it to be done, so they can get on with the game?

Hide in the bathroom and discover what people really think about your session!

 We’ve all seen the “feel good,” unprepared facilitator rob people of the opportunity to make an impact on their work. 

Moreover, planning that takes too much time can have a wearing-down effect—like the football game that lacks excitement. New methods for streamlining and engaging can make sessions much shorter and more effective.  

If you are dissatisfied with last year's results, using the same planning approach isn't likely to make it better this year!

 Is your planning more like a grudge match where the same old debates happen from year to year?

If the same old arguments keep happening, re-assess how to put the issue to bed, declare it off limits or take the discussion to a whole different level. New ways exist to exploit differences, not get stuck from them. The key is a game plan that stimulates the players to keep their head in the game.  

Are you trying to play football without goal lines, 10 yard markers and a scoreboard?

Does your game plan get scrapped at the first difficulty?
Lack of follow up and value-based metrics can derail plans--so can lack of ownership, an unrealistic plan or an inflexible plan.  Execution and tweaking are what really produces and improves performance. Is tweaking built into your plans so that unanticipated difficulties and challenges can be resolved? Milestones that are reviewed maintain a sense of progress and keep your team playing all four quarters.

Does your planning take you to the Super Bowl of your industry?

Did your last session produce a focused, prioritized achievable game plan or a laundry list of ideas that can't be coordinated because they lack cohesion and fit?

  SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis facilitated by an unprepared, unfocused facilitator produces laundry lists that can’t and don’t build on the past, are generally not prioritized and don't further your mission. These sessions reward talking, not thinking and dealing with hard issues.  

Indeed, many "feel good" planning sessions generate a lot of RAH! RAH! for the moment, cool-looking graphics, and leave the team clueless about what to do to execute the game plan--or worse, send them off doing the wrong work. Because the why are we here, who do we serve, have our "customer's" needs changed are not questioned, the game plan is doomed to drop the ball from the start.

 Participants in these sessions leave frustrated, disengaged and too often distracted from their real mission. Do your participants leave ready-to-go or just ready-to-get-out?

 Achieving the Super Bowl of your industry requires new ways of leading people and using their know-how of your business. Preparing for planning is a strategy itself. Are you employing planning methods that take you to the Super Bowl or send you to clean out the locker room?

Who is Byron Streitz?