Plans. Can't live with them. Can't live without them.

All of us write plans. Annual plans, budget plans, business plans....

Hands up those of you who have felt "this is a total waste of time"?

Well not so fast. As the world becomes more uncertain ("unprecedented times" and all that), as complexity increases, and as more and more organizations and individuals work in "agile" ways, its worth pausing on the importance of planning.

I thought I'd do this with the help of four quotes that I have always loved.

Firstly, planning should be fun. It's where you get to dream, where inspiration and ideas take hold and get written down. This is the part where reality hasn't quite yet taken hold.

If nothing else, write down what you'd like to have happen.

But...

Don't plan in an imaginary world where obvious dragons are left unresponded to.

You may as well start with the most realistic approach possible, so if you know there are dragons, take them into consideration. If nothing else, when more dragons show up, or different dragons or creatures show up, you may be better prepared.

Which leads us to....

In other words, don't try and plan for everything that might happen - you almost certainly won't be able to cover every eventuality. Plan to be prepared for what actually happens.

Planning enables you to ensure you have focus on the areas that are likely to matter or where you know you have strengths, but much more importantly helps you understand where your gaps are, and figure out how to cover those.

Also, without a plan, how do you course correct? That leads to the next great quote:

Even with all the best intentions, we live in a rapidly changing world, and no plan exists in a vacuum. Things will happen, things will change. Those things will validate and invalidate parts or your plan. Or even all of your plan.

The important thing is to be able to adapt - and the plan you had will play a key role in understanding what that adaptability should look like, how you take advantage of the situation you are in, not thought you might be in.

By the way, all of this was enshrined in an excellent article in HBR, authored by one of my favorite professors Don Sull who wrote about a rules based approach to strategy after seeing that the vast majority of significant decisions at the boardroom level were an opportunistic response to an unforeseen event.