Ideas Behind Agile Planning: Planning, Not the Plan

August 13, 2020

There are people in Agile that call themselves the “no-estimates” group. They hate “planning” that used to crush people. And, at least, this is how planning is perceived sometimes. But they overreact.

Yes, they are right that planning should never be used to put people under a lot of pressure—certainly not to crush people—but life always includes time-boxes. So, something must be done (delivered) with a specific time-frame, often.

So, we favor planning. (And we have a number of more specific ideas and suggestions around that.)

The Dwight Eisenhower quote is: “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

That is the context of war and battles, but I think the metaphor translates well for our work. It is much more about what comes out of the planning process (many things) than about the plan (which, even if revised, is still certain to be notably wrong).

More soon…