Are You Good at Planning? A Simple Way to Measure

Want to measure how successful you are at planning? Here’s the simple formula: the more fires you find yourself putting out, the more you need to step up your planning.

Put another way, planning prevents fires. Strong planning = fewer fires.

Why You Need to Stop Putting Out Fires

If you are constantly putting out fires, you’re sacrificing long-term pain for short-term gain. Sure, you’ll save time in the moment. However, by the time the fires break out and you need to handle them, you’ll have invested more time than if you had prevented them in the first place.

Consider this example:

Julio, a senior leader, was promoted into a new position with a new team. Between his desire to make a good impression and his tendency to be task-oriented, he dove right in. Instead of taking time to plan how he wanted to develop his team, map out some of his long-term goals, and create a plan to reach them, Julio had his team knock out some new projects. Not too long after, fires started to break out.

Because Julio never sat down with his team to asses their skills, he didn’t realize that many were unprepared to take on the projects he wanted them to complete. Mistakes were made, which resulted in re-work, additional inspections, and extra paperwork. He had to push his team to hurry up and devote extra time to train them, which was a burden for everyone. Morale and trust were down, and Julio had to find ways to rebuild trust with his team.

The projects that Julio wanted to focus on turned out to not be aligned with what the executive team was looking for. However, because he had already invested time in them, he was directed by leadership to both complete them and take on the additional priority projects. Julio was now understaffed and had to make time to hire new team members. He had to put in longer hours to get everything done but was constantly behind. Trust and morale broke down further as his team had to help pick up the slack. He also had to pressure other departments to make up for lost time, and this strained his relationships with them. And so on.

Unfortunately, examples like this are the norm. As you can see, the cost of not planning is significant. Fires are stressful. They drain time, energy, and morale. Had Julio chosen to face some short-term pain in order to achieve long-term gain, things could have gone quite differently. He might have “lost” time up front, but in the end, he would have gained significant time, trust, and peace of mind.

Start Planning to Prevent Fires

Beyond the technical aspects of planning, which I’ll cover in future posts, let’s look at three skills that will help you start planning:

1. Do A Reality Check
   The first step is doing a reality check. Notice the pain fires caused (and are causing) you. Recognize the potential benefits and value of taking time to plan. Be honest with yourself about the importance of planning.
2. Make Time and Just Say No
   You have to be willing to take time to plan before taking action. You’ll always find a reason not to make time, so just say no and block out time on your calendar. Some fires may have to burn for a little while longer. Some “priorities” might not be such high priorities when you put them in perspective. Make planning your top priority.
3. Do Your Homework
   Get input from multiple stakeholders. Observe and take notes before taking action. Determine your long-term priorities, not just your short-term ones. Think through your plan. Write it down and break it into steps. Picture the end result and look at what it might take to get there. Consider potential fires and design strategies to prevent them.

The Beginnings of a Plan

Hopefully, you can start to see some ways that you can benefit from planning. As you make time to plan and start doing your homework, consider these questions:

• What reasons do you come up with to not make time to plan? How will you overcome those reasons?
• What current fires are a result of you not planning? What plans could you make now to put them out and keep them from coming back?
• What payoffs could result from you making the time to plan?

One feature that I’d like to focus on is how to use your Outlook calendar. Although some of the suggestions below might seem basic, I’ve seen too many people, including executives, not use them at all (so for those smarties out there, keep those “duh’s” to yourself).

Setting an Auto-Responder (When You’ll Be Out of the Office)

When you’ll be out of the office for more than a day without e-mail access, use Outlook’s automatic reply feature. This message lets others know how when you’ll be back and who they can contact in the meantime. It also gives people the heads up to make alternate plans in your absence and not leave them hanging as they wait for your reply. After all, they don’t know if, when, or how long you’ll be gone, if you’re just taking a long time to reply, or if you’re simply ignoring them.

Viewing Your Calendar (To Manage Your Time and Communicate Changes)

All right, how to view your calendar is super basic. However, actually looking at it each day is not so basic, because many people don’t. When you arrive at work at the start of your work week, view your upcoming appointments for the week to give you the big-picture view of what to expect and plan out your week.

When you arrive each day, view your appointments for the day for the same reason. That way, if you need to cancel an appointment you can give the other participant(s) notice (the more advance notice, the better). Consider printing the calendar and taking it with you in case you’re away from your computer.

Viewing Your Calendar, Again (Before Going Out of the Office)

Going away? View your calendar before you go and cancel all meetings during that time. Make sure participants receive the meeting cancellation notice. Not your meeting? Decline meeting invites and reschedule the meetings for either before or after your absence.

Viewing Other’s Calendars (When Scheduling Meetings)

Yes, it’s possible (and easy) to view people’s calendars before scheduling meetings with them. This eliminates playing long games of e-mail scheduling ping-pong.

People’s calendars are typically visible by default so you generally won’t need to ask permission to view their basic calendar (which shows available times). If this isn’t the case, simply ask for permission and explain that it’ll make both of your lives easier. The same works in reverse: share your calendar and have them book an open time if they’d rather do it that way (and share the wealth by teaching them how!).

Need to schedule with multiple people? You can view many people’s calendars at one time, and even use the scheduling assistant to find times that are open for everyone. No more endless group e-mails trying to figure it out.

Other Miscellaneous Calendar Etiquette

• Keep people’s contact info in your phone in case you need to change/cancel meetings but don’t have access to your calendar.
• If you accept a meeting, go. If you aren’t sure, mark as tentative. If you can’t go, decline. Regardless, provide some response instead of letting the invite just sit there. This gives the organizer a heads-up so they can plan accordingly.
• Open all meeting invites (double-click to open or use these fancy methods). There are often important details within the invite that get missed including agendas, logistics, and instructions for how to prepare.
• If you don’t use a computer-based calendar, find other ways to communicate the above information to keep people in the loop.
• Above and beyond basic etiquette, some people print out and post their daily calendar on their door or cubicle wall. This is an easy way to communicate when you might be available. Again, you can just print a “free/busy” version if you don’t want people knowing the details of your meetings.