Do You Think You’re Good at Time Planning? Most Probably, You’re?Not
It’s an old saying that nothing would get done if the 5 minutes before midnight wouldn’t exist. That’s a solemn excuse for not improving your planning?skills.
It’s good to be ambitious.
It’s good to have bold plans for the future.
It’s good to move fast.
No matter if you’re an entrepreneur, a military commander, or a parent.
But why are so many initiatives and projects late or behind schedule? Why do people announce bold initiatives with ambitious timelines, when everybody knows that the timeline is completely unrealistic?
Let’s look into some causes of bad time planning.
1. Tasks are picked up too?late
The easiest way not to do something is to discuss it. How often did you experience a delayed start to an initiative due to discussions about the data model, resource availabilities, bookability to different cost centers, and the like?
People love discussing irrelevant things instead of just getting started with the work. Sometimes it’s due to a lack of knowledge. More often, it's because people are mentally overloaded by the task. And most frequently, it’s due to a lack of ownership.
No matter the reason why people don’t get started with the work, the problem with starting late is that problems always pop up at the last possible time?—?during testing, when relying on third parties, and when showing the end product to the customer for the first time.
That’s why starting early is essential to keep the timeline. It’s a leadership duty to enforce it, for example by requesting regular progress demos with the affected teams.
2. Overengineering
Simple is beautiful. Many people claim they love simple and aesthetic solutions. Until it comes down to actually implementing a solution. How often did you witness a simple solution become super complex during its implementation?
It’s easy to expand a simple solution, but it's much harder to simplify a complex solution. That’s the foundation of agile development. Yet so much time is wasted by first creating complex solutions and then simplifying them, wasting precious time and resources.
That sounds like simplifying complex solutions is only relevant to engineering. Wrong. In the military, we say: “Better a good solution in time, rather than a perfect solution too late.” That’s not just true for the military, but also for many aspects of private life.
3. There will always be?setbacks
Setbacks are normal. There are things you can’t control, people making mistakes, and priorities changing.
You can kill yourself by getting upset with setbacks. They are part of life, and the most successful people learn how to live with such setbacks.
Learning to live with setbacks is one thing, but planning for setbacks is another thing. Because you know they will occur, you might just as well take them into account for your time planning.
The core concept for this is called spare time. Every time plan should contain periods of spare time. Whether you plan with multiple shorter periods of spare time, or you are opting for a larger period of spare time at the end of the effort, is subject to style, experience, and the task at hand. But every time plan should contain spare time. All parents who try to catch a train with their small children know this.
4. Humans being?humans
Humans are flawed, but that’s part of our charm. It’s also the reason why people overestimate their abilities and underestimate their tasks. This can have severe consequences on time plans, especially when over- and underestimation go unchallenged.
Getting to accurate estimations involves a challenging of efforts in good faith. Peers and superiors alike should challenge each others’ effort estimations to make sure the resulting time plan is realistic.
Conclusion
It’s an old saying that nothing would get done if the 5 minutes before midnight wouldn’t exist.
That’s a solemn excuse for not improving your planning skills.
I would suggest something else: No matter what’s on your to-do list for today, start now.
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