Can We Do Better Than a 'Plan of Action'?
We‘re all familiar with the phrase ‘a plan of action’ or 'action plan' - this is a common phrase around the workplace. But is it "time's up" for this approach?
We are all familiar with the phrase ‘a plan of action’ — usually in the context when there is a desire to get something done. A ‘Plan of action’, particularly if it remains flexible to realize the benefits of planning without the downside of rigidity, can help set expectations, and improve coordination, and other benefits in the context of execution.
What is an Action Plan?
Action planning has been the dominant form of planning for more than a century, and it may date back to the first instances of human collaborative work. I’ve previously speculated in this publication why actions dominate planning—the summation is that action plans appeal to human nature because they are concrete and absence of uncertainty.
This post builds upon ideas I have shared in:
The Limitations of the Action Plan
I argue that, in many scenarios, action planning is the dominant paradigm but is not the most effective way to plan.
Competitive, fast-moving environments require more dynamic and adaptable approaches to planning. The advantages of a ‘Plan of action’ are constrained, as they are typically limited because when starting with the actions and working out from there, the context, i.e., the purpose of the work and the problem, are often conceptually “bolted on” or adjacent to the work.
The primary form of success becomes the completion of work, and assessment of the impact of the work is often after the fact or even not considered at all. At its worst, “benefits realization” (how popular project management approaches refer to understanding impact) becomes a sub-element of managing a project instead of being the main concern to be continuously optimised for.
Outcome Planning as an Alternative
The primary theme of this publication is that we are witnessing a shift or reorientation of how work is approached, which puts action planning in service of results planning. Put simply, thinking about work begins with WHAT rather than HOW. It is true that approaches to working this way have existed for a long time, but in no period of history could we say this has been the dominant paradigm.
An alternative approach may take its place as the primary form of planning. At its heart, it is about starting with the end in mind at the centre of planning, understanding why it will have the desired impact and defining the evidence of impact to be used to understand progress.
That is what we will call, for the purpose of this post, a ‘Plan of results’. This is a plan which establishes the current understanding of:
The results to be achieved (objectives/outcomes, the WHAT),
How each result relates to the other (the logic or WHY behind the WHAT; more on this idea later),
And how these relate to measures or evidence of progress and the steps or actions to be taken.
The HOW, in my experience, these details could be left out of the plan when the clarity of the other elements of the plan is such that it empowers people to address the HOW themselves.
I will use the rather generic phrase ‘plan of results’ because, in practice, there are many approaches to defining planning this way, and the practices in this area are still evolving.
Examples of Outcome Planning in Industry
Examples include approaches such as ‘Result Maps’, ‘Outcome Roadmaps’, ‘Bet boards’, ‘Opportunity Solution Trees’, “Strategy Maps’, ‘Future Reality Trees’ and ideas dating back to the Theory of Constraints and before. It's too early to tell which practices may emerge as the preferred approaches, and this is why I find it such an interesting space to explore and study.
The Benefits of Outcome Planning
In my experience, I have found that using practices that are more of a ‘plan of results’ rather than a ‘plan of action’ can do away with much of the effort in what would otherwise be involved in action planning or, at very least, exist together.
A plan of results and the actions that contribute to that plan are, by definition, dynamic and adaptive and not as rigid as traditional action plans may have been.
This is possible because the effort is put into understanding and changing the context within which you are working. This effort can be far more impactful than the effort exerted into context-free or context-light coordination.
The agile and lean movements demonstrated some potential to improve the context teams have that can improve delivery efficiency. This is because they can use their evolving understanding of what is working as a way to optimise the work not done — i.e. knowing what tasks and actions will not contribute to the impact being sought.
A plan of results may involve differently named artefacts (result maps, opportunity trees, bet boards, etc.) depending on which framework or approach you may be using to achieve this — as a developing area, there is a diverse range of approaches available — I will write in more detail on the many options available and how they can be applied in future posts. If you are experimenting with these practices and approaches, let me know what you are doing and what your experience has been like in the comments.