Welcome back to Cardcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about To Plan Or Not To Plan.

That’s the question… again. There’s a popular take floating around that planning is a waste of time because things always change, especially in early-stage companies.

Sure, no plan survives first contact with reality. But to jump from that to “planning is useless” is a leap over a very important distinction.

Plans rarely come true exactly as written. They aren’t meant to. The real value is in the planning: imagining where you want to go, working backward from that future to today, and making deliberate decisions based on that direction.

As Greg Crabtree put it: “He who aims at nothing hits it with amazing accuracy.”

Good planning assumes change. It gives you a baseline so that when new information inevitably shows up, and it most certainly will, you can adjust early instead of scrambling at the end.

Strategy, planning, and plans are not interchangeable. Strategy defines how you’ll win. Planning is the process of turning that into a path. And the plan is simply today’s best guess at that path.

Be stubborn about the goal. Be flexible about the details. Because without a plan, the plane flies you, and that’s not a strategy.

Key-Card points:

• Plans will change, planning is what matters

• Start with the future goal and work backward

• Strategy = how you win. Planning = mapping the path

• Be stubborn about the goal, flexible about the plan

Links & Resources

• To Plan Or Not To Plan

• Veverka.ca

Connect with Milan

• Veverka.ca

• LinkedIn

Connect with Ged

• Crystalyzer.com

• LinkedIn

CardCast is produced by Lovemore Media.