Monday, February 24, 2003

• Dynamic Planning -- Cass McNutt, in ThoughtsOnThinking last year, posed a classic dilemma associated with plans and planning...

"...where on the one hand the Engineering Perspective tries to nail down and quantify all the variables, there's another perspective that says such effort is totally futile -- because there are too many variables to ever be managed or understood. For lack of a better phrase, I call this the Artist Perspective. It says that since the planning we do is essentially futile anyway -- it's all subject to change, right? -- that there is no point in trying to plan at all. The Artist Perspective says, "It's just a matter of winging it well." (Perhaps I should call this the "Que sera sera" perspective)."

Of course "winging it," even well (and with "agility?"), does not quite jive with the need to make promises that characterizes most project environments. Cass continues with an insightful view to this dicotomy..."I believe that both of these are false perspectives. I also believe that the division we typically erect between the two is a false dichotomy -- that they're two edges of the same coin... and I call that coin Dynamic Planning. Planning, that adapts on the fly from new information, takes into account the effects of iteration (and, indeed, expects iteration), and yet still projects as much predictability and control into any given situation as is economically feasible. It brings -- or rather, reveals -- structure for situations that seem to have none, and provides a framework for figuring out where the leverage is."

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