I think it is debatable whether the best management thinkers today are at Santa Fe Institute (SFI) or the U.S. Army. Both groups share at least one common interest—complexity--as contrasted with the complicated. SFI's approach to complexity tends to focus on advanced mathematics. The U.S. Army's approach involves design thinking and is comparatively more understandable. Today's post comes from The U.S. Army Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual via the Farnam Street blog.
When should one plan? Much less often than you think. I am not advocating one go mindlessly through life, although it may be less stressful, but rather that one use alternatives to planning. A quote from the Field Manual:
"Planning applies established procedures to solve a largely understood problem within an accepted framework. Design inquires into the nature of a problem to conceive a framework for solving that problem. In general, planning is problem solving, while design is problem setting. Where planning focuses on generating a plan—a series of executable actions—design focuses on learning about the nature of an unfamiliar problem." (My emphasis)
Planning, a series of executable actions, applies in situations that are deterministic and likely to be expressible in numbers. Sales forecasting, architecture, engineering are some disciplines that are largely deterministic. Much larger are the domains that do not lend themselves to mathematical approaches, such as most things that involve politics, emotion and the arts. In these areas, design thinking is one peferred approach.
If we consider managing a business, perhaps the startup effort to find product/market fit lends itself more to design thinking. Maybe growing a business from $30-100 million in annual revenue is more of a planning exercise, until you need to revamp a product, react to a monster competitor entering the market or adjust for a law change (think Uber). Actually most of the events affecting customers or products are not handled by planning. This type of event is not deterministic in nature. Design thinking and framing the problem correctly are a better approach, which is why you can plan less.
Happy holidays.