Planning during chaos

"Plans are worthless, but planning is everything." — Dwight D. Eisenhower

We get into trouble when we consider our plans as precious little things set in stone that ought to be followed to the letter.

Alas, that is rarely true even when times are nice, and even less so when there is as much uncertainty as there has been in the last few years.

Now, just because plans are always valuable, does not mean that the process of making them—i.e. planning—should be discarded as well.

There is great value in thinking through various options, discussing and assessing them, imagining and playing out different scenarios, and so on. The same process can be used to update existing plans based on new insight and feedback, e.g. from the market, industry, and rest of the environment.

It is a living process meant to create a living document.

Making plans ineffably static was a mistake.

Luckily it is an error that's can be easily ameliorated.