Art of Managing: Beware the Pursuit of False Precision in Planning

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." -Dwight Eisenhower

Chance are, you’ve seen this movie before. It’s the one where you or your team are on the hook for distilling the chaos and complexity of the market and the ambiguities and risks surrounding emerging opportunities, competitors and disruptive technologies, into a nice, neat multi-year forecast.

Sadly, for all of the effort that goes into cramming the complexities of the markets and human behavior into a few flipping cells on a spreadsheet, the output often isn’t worth a damn.

The future has an annoying habit of ignoring our efforts to corral it in the form of plans. Especially when it comes to financial forecasts.

My issue isn’t with the work of planning. It’s with the literal reliance on the output that so many managers and corporate bean-counters impose upon their teams.

by Art Petty

Full Story: http://artpetty.com/2013/03/24/art-of-managing-beware-false-precision-in-planning/