We all know that planning is essential … it allows us to create structure and efficiency. We plan at various levels – from detailed production or marketing plans for our company to personal ToDo lists.
However, the other day I felt my own ToDo list was so long that it was starting to make me unproductive – because I knew I had to get to items on the bottom of the list but the urgent ones on top stopped me from doing so. It started to irritate me … and then to annoy. My planning was getting in the way.
Then I got to thinking whether it is the same for more formal planning – the kind of planning we do at departmental or organisational level. Can these get so complex and complicated that they start to become unproductive? If so, what is the answer. Does this only happen when we are under-resourced … or is it a fault in execution? Should we rely more on intuition? … or improve our planning?