We tend to overestimate what we can do in a day, but underestimate what we can do in a year.
This is a well understood cognitive bias first articulated by Roy Amara, as it applied to tech development, but I have found it holds everywhere else.
90 days appears to be the intersection of the two.
It is short enough to create a bias to action, a sense of urgency, but long enough to make meaningful progress while accommodating the adaptations that appear along the road.
In my consulting, I encourage, indeed demand planning followed by execution of the plan. However, it is always challenging to have a 3 or 5 year plan aligned with the day to day activities, so I encourage what I call ‘nested’ plans.
A nested plan is one that has a longer term outcome agreed, then progressively broken down into annual, three month planning and performance assessment cycles, broken further into monthly and even weekly and daily plans, depending on the situation.
For example, a factory should be working on rolling daily plans, sales working on weekly plans. Performance measurement should follow the planning cycles, and be made absolutely transparent. For example, I encourage weekly rolling 13 week cash flow forecasts, which deliver the combination of urgency and perspective over the more usual financial reporting of monthly profit and loss.
It all comes down to determining what you are going to do today that will contribute to the outcome required, today, this week this month, this quarter and so on.
Without a nested plan to which you commit, you will always tend to do the seemingly urgent but unimportant things rather than the important longer term things. These longer term activities are always more emotionally and intellectually challenging, which is why we put them off, find excuses, and generally procrastinate.
It is a fine circus act, this short term/longer term balance, one that is hard to maintain, requiring concentration, situational awareness, and finesse, but essential for success.
A note of caution to finish.
As essential as the planning being a part of normal activity, so should be the ongoing incorporation of feedback into the plans. A robust review and incorporation process is as important as the planning itself. No good ensuring you stick to the plan when it runs you off a cliff.
