4 ms·

Just look back 3 month and assess how many of the things that happened were predictable (keeping in mind the fact that hindsight is 20/20). I wager every compan

Just look back 3 month and assess how many of the things that happened were predictable (keeping in mind the fact that hindsight is 20/20). I wager every company in the world was affected by the world wide changes right now. Those who cling to plans are at disadvantage against those who have the ability to quickly adapt to the change.

ethbr0 4y ago
> Those who cling to plans are at disadvantage against those who have the ability to quickly adapt to the change. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop
- doctor_eval 4y ago
  > The OODA loop has become an important concept in litigation,[2] business,[3] law enforcement,[4] and military strategy. According to Boyd, decision-making occurs in a recurring cycle of observe–orient–decide–act. An entity (whether an individual or an organization) that can process this cycle quickly, observing and reacting to unfolding events more rapidly than an opponent, can thereby "get inside" the opponent's decision cycle and gain the advantage.
kgwgk 4y ago
"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."
hef19898 4y ago
Just throwing things to the wall and see what sticks is not agility, nor is it just mindlessly running after any random car like a dog chasing the mail man.
- tikhonj 4y ago
  Who said anything about "mindless"? Just because work wasn't planned in detail in advance does not make it mindless—the people actually doing the work make creative, nuanced decisions as they're working. Not pushing a top-down, up-front plan gives people more room for careful nuanced thought. That isn't "throwing things to the wall" or "mindlessly running around", that's trusting a team of professionals to make effective creative decisions.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    I agree, if you have team of experienced professionals tgat is. If not, well, stuff to the wall it is. If wrapped in sometjing something agile, at least it looks good.
  - ThalesX 4y ago
    Who said anything about detailed planning? You’re throwing this in and then using it as a lever to push an engineering led approach. There is no such argument in this thread. There is however the argument of whether companies should look ahead for more than three months. And brilliant and trustable professionals don’t change my assessment that they should.
- roguecoder 4y ago
  Trying to guess the future of complex systems is an exercise in hubris. Success is far more likely if you decide on a goal, and then build feedback loops that let you learn. And in the internet age a feedback loop of a month is painfully slow, never mind three.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    Not everything is a consumer facing app, you know?
    - SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
      I'm pretty skeptical of this kind of thing even for enterprise software. I can imagine scenarios where it's relevant - if you're planning to release Disney+ in 6 months, yeah, you'd better coordinate pretty tightly to make sure you're not missing some key dependency when you flip the switch. But I've seen multiple incredibly successful enterprise products developed through the "throwing things to the wall and see what sticks" approach.
  - ThalesX 4y ago
    Is that goal for next week? Two weeks? My argument was that three months is too little for any sort of company strategy. We’re talking about a financial quarter. You don’t even have the time to measure your decisions.
ThalesX 4y ago
> Just look back 3 month and assess how many of the things that happened were predictable (keeping in mind the fact that hindsight is 20/20). The company I work for hasn’t changed a single procedure or milestone. Neither have my clients. I am also not talking about predicting the world, but of predicting an internal kitchen. This is just n = 1 but I’ve never seen a company that does it’s strategic planning in detached 2 week sprints. If anything, if any sort of coherence exists I’d say that the previous sprint, the current sprint and the next sprint should have an understandable connection, and then we are already talking about a month and a half. > I wager every company in the world was affected by the world wide changes right now. Affected? Perhaps. Derailed? Not so much. > Those who cling to plans are at disadvantage against those who have the ability to quickly adapt to the change. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but I’d trust and would like to work, more, for a company that doesn’t flap in the wind. No one in the industry expects stability like in the waterfall days, but to expect a company to change / adapt their strategy in less than a financial quarter is just marketingspeak in my opinion.

ethbr0 4y ago

> Those who cling to plans are at disadvantage against those who have the ability to quickly adapt to the change. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop

doctor_eval 4y ago
> The OODA loop has become an important concept in litigation,[2] business,[3] law enforcement,[4] and military strategy. According to Boyd, decision-making occurs in a recurring cycle of observe–orient–decide–act. An entity (whether an individual or an organization) that can process this cycle quickly, observing and reacting to unfolding events more rapidly than an opponent, can thereby "get inside" the opponent's decision cycle and gain the advantage.

kgwgk 4y ago

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

hef19898 4y ago

Just throwing things to the wall and see what sticks is not agility, nor is it just mindlessly running after any random car like a dog chasing the mail man.

tikhonj 4y ago
Who said anything about "mindless"? Just because work wasn't planned in detail in advance does not make it mindless—the people actually doing the work make creative, nuanced decisions as they're working. Not pushing a top-down, up-front plan gives people more room for careful nuanced thought. That isn't "throwing things to the wall" or "mindlessly running around", that's trusting a team of professionals to make effective creative decisions.
- hef19898 4y ago
  I agree, if you have team of experienced professionals tgat is. If not, well, stuff to the wall it is. If wrapped in sometjing something agile, at least it looks good.
- ThalesX 4y ago
  Who said anything about detailed planning? You’re throwing this in and then using it as a lever to push an engineering led approach. There is no such argument in this thread. There is however the argument of whether companies should look ahead for more than three months. And brilliant and trustable professionals don’t change my assessment that they should.
roguecoder 4y ago
Trying to guess the future of complex systems is an exercise in hubris. Success is far more likely if you decide on a goal, and then build feedback loops that let you learn. And in the internet age a feedback loop of a month is painfully slow, never mind three.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Not everything is a consumer facing app, you know?
  - SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
    I'm pretty skeptical of this kind of thing even for enterprise software. I can imagine scenarios where it's relevant - if you're planning to release Disney+ in 6 months, yeah, you'd better coordinate pretty tightly to make sure you're not missing some key dependency when you flip the switch. But I've seen multiple incredibly successful enterprise products developed through the "throwing things to the wall and see what sticks" approach.
- ThalesX 4y ago
  Is that goal for next week? Two weeks? My argument was that three months is too little for any sort of company strategy. We’re talking about a financial quarter. You don’t even have the time to measure your decisions.

ThalesX 4y ago

> Just look back 3 month and assess how many of the things that happened were predictable (keeping in mind the fact that hindsight is 20/20). The company I work for hasn’t changed a single procedure or milestone. Neither have my clients. I am also not talking about predicting the world, but of predicting an internal kitchen. This is just n = 1 but I’ve never seen a company that does it’s strategic planning in detached 2 week sprints. If anything, if any sort of coherence exists I’d say that the previous sprint, the current sprint and the next sprint should have an understandable connection, and then we are already talking about a month and a half. > I wager every company in the world was affected by the world wide changes right now. Affected? Perhaps. Derailed? Not so much. > Those who cling to plans are at disadvantage against those who have the ability to quickly adapt to the change. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but I’d trust and would like to work, more, for a company that doesn’t flap in the wind. No one in the industry expects stability like in the waterfall days, but to expect a company to change / adapt their strategy in less than a financial quarter is just marketingspeak in my opinion.