I have been helping my son train for his swim team. Most local high
school teams follow a tradition of generating what you might call brute
force to achieve their results by what would seem to be a wise strategy
to work harder, faster, and longer than the other teams. Yet this
approach is a tad bit frustrating for both the coaches and swimmers as
academics standards must also be met. In each of these swim programs you
will always have a few swimmers who are naturals and rise to the top and
yet the rest of the team struggles. You can observe all of the other
swimmers putting their might into swimming with poor technique
struggling against the water going home each day discouraged because the
long hours, hard work and efforts are not paying off. To make it worse
the coach is sure to let all know that to be more like the top tier
swimmers you must have a better work effort, more drive, and more
dedication.

Why do I bring this up when talking about project plans? I do so for
three reasons: Time, perspective, and tradition.

Time - The more pressure and organization has to perform a given task
the more apt they are to roll up their sleeves and re double their
efforts by working harder, faster, and longer. Why? Mainly because the
technique has worked in the past. Yet on the other hand I think it would
be fair to say business managers are wise and know that they need to
think things out and generally will agree that planning is as equally
important as taking immediate action. So attempts are made to plan.
Often these show up as the daily stand up meetings like swimmers meeting
with the coach each practice to get pumped up about how hard they are
going to work, how they are going to change, and to discuss the upcoming
meet. Fortunately swimming has an off season and the coaches will have a
few months to create next years winning strategy. Unlike swimming teams
most businesses don't get an off season. More often then not, serious
deep strategic planning is done in a shoot from the hip manner, for time
pressures do not allow much of any thing else.

Perspective - Coaches study the tapes of Olympic swimmers over and over
again looking to help their swimmers mimic the gold medal winning
strokes. However there is a serious flaw in this. Swimmers swimming at
max speed do not display perfect technique because they are swimming
close to being completely out of control. Yet watch the great Alexander
Popov and his practices sessions look nothing like his racing because he
swims only fast enough to make his technique perfect. Yet watch most
high school swimmers and they practice poor technique and swim at max
effort. So when they get to race day and they push the engines hard they
cross the line and the extra effort at race day only buys a minimal
improvement in performance. Yet the great Popov's muscles remember the
perfect technique and allow him to stay in enough control to devastate
the competition. Similarly in business, our perspective on the most
successful companies is distorted because we watch the great
organizations without seeing the disciplined approach to planning,
training, and methodical execution. Additionally add in time pressure
and inadequate training and the only thing left is the strategy of
harder, faster, longer.

Tradition - Swimming has a long history of tradition and so do
businesses. In fact most business leaders gained their first lessons in
leadership in the sports arena. Most swimmers who make it to college
level swimming are almost impossible to retrain. If they have defects in
their stroke it can take years to erase because of muscle and nerve
memory. The problem is even greater for men than women because of the
tradition of using sheer strength to solve stroke problems. Do we not
see the same thing in business?

As I apply these lessons to my own companies I am cognizant of how
important disciplined project planning and execution is. It takes a
conscious effort to set aside the appropriate amount of time to not only
plan, but to build solid systems that allow business execution to occur
not only during the slow cycles but to do so at race time when customers
are knocking at the door in the up cycle and to do it without going over
the edge of control.

Regards,

Michael Carroll






-----Original Message-----
From: CriticalChain@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:CriticalChain@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Clarke Ching
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 10:25 AM
To: CriticalChain@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [CriticalChain] How common is it to have "No plans"?

> Not a TOC meaning of a handshake either.

Cool! We have a secret handshake!

What is it, btw?

Clarke

On 10/30/06, Jim Bowles <j_m-bowles@...> wrote:
> Thanks guys.
>
>
>
> As you might have guessed the answers do not come as any surprise to
me - I
> felt that from time to time we need a reality check.
>
>
>
> Should we blame the organisation that placed the contract in the first
> place? In this case they are probably THE biggest national spending
> organisation.
>
>
>
> What name should we give to the directors and the managers of such
> organisations?
>
>
>
> Following Tony's lead it is clear that they don't follow the 6Ps
principle.
>
>
>
> Proper Planning Prevents "urine-deficient" Poor Performance.
>
>
>
> In my view the fact that they get away with such behaviour is nothing
less
> than scandalous. But who cares when it is the tax payer who suffers?
>
>
>
> One could speculate how the deal was done, with the appropriate
handshake
> I'll wager. Not a TOC meaning of a handshake either.
>
>
>
> An angry,
>
>
>
> Jim Bowles
>
>
>
> It is very common for large businesses to invest many millions with no
> project plan or with a urine-deficient plan.
>
> Tony
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: HYPERLINK
>
"mailto:CriticalChain%40yahoogroups.com"CriticalChain@-yahoogroups.-com
> [mailto:HYPERLINK
>
"mailto:CriticalChain%40yahoogroups.com"CriticalChain@-yahoogroups.-com]
> On Behalf Of Jim Bowles
> Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 5:49 AM
> To: HYPERLINK
>
"mailto:CriticalChain%40yahoogroups.com"CriticalChain@-yahoogroups.-com
> Subject: [CriticalChain] How common is it to have "No plans"?
>
> Three months ago my son started work with a well known company. He was
> brought, in along with several others, to develop and implement a
budgetary
> control system. It is a fixed price contract against some specified
> requirements, so they are keen to know what they are spending. They
are
> working on a very large software project for a major organisation. The
> initial project was due to be completed next year 2007 but slippage is
such
> that they are now talking 2009, maybe!.
>
> He asked if I could point him to good reference material on risk
assessment,
> which I did. Then he told me that none of the material covered what he
> wanted. So I tried rephrasing my questions to him.
>
> What is the question you are seeking to answer?
>
> What will it cost us if the project goes "tits-up"? Maybe the term
> "belly-up" would be more acceptable in the US!
>
> On several occasions I have asked him if he has seen the overall
project
> plan.
>
> Last week he saw his boss, the second meeting in three months, lasting
20
> min.
>
> During this review he asked his boss if he had seen the overall plan.
> Amazingly the answer was No.
>
> Nobody in the organisation has seen any plans.
>
> My question is this.
>
> How common is this and how do such organisations work and survive?
>
> Jim Bowles
>
>
>
>
>
> --
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>
>
>
>
> --
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> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this discussion, send an email to:
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>
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>
>
>
>
>


--
Clarke Ching
www.clarkeching.com


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