Plans, Strategies, and Uncertainty
"It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future," is an insight attributed to about two dozen sources. Actually, any one of us could have said this for it's certain we've all had an intuitive feel for the truth revealed by these words. This is undoubtedly why we work so hard to tease out the details about what the future may hold by making plans, laying out strategies, and running scenarios based on our version of the best data available today. Each of these tools are employed in an effort to reduce uncertainty about the future. But which tool to use? Therein lies the rub. The answer, rather unhelpfully, is "It depends."
How complex is the problem space?
How well is the problem space understood?
What is the availability of resources (time, money, people, materials, etc.)?
What is the skill level and experience depth of those tasked with developing a plan or a strategy?
Stated simply, creating a plan and sticking to it is ideal for simple, well understood, small scale problem spaces where one or more resources are limited. They work if the individual or team tasked with finding a way through the problem space is inexperienced or lacking skills required by the problem space. As complexity and uncertainty increase, the way forward benefits with a more flexible approach. This is where it's helpful to have a strategy, something that is more than a single course of action. Rather, a strategy is a collection of possible paths, each with its own set of plans ready to be implemented if the need arises. Working a strategy requires a higher order of skills. It requires systems thinking that has been tested and vetted for competence rather than just a shallow claim of being a "systems thinker."
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