2015. The year I stopped making plans.
…and started creating instead.
So it’s already this time of the year. 2015 is coming to an end. And it’s time to reflect. Overall, it’s been an incredibly awesome year. Both for my professional and personal life.
I wrote about my 2015 learnings at Usernap in this blog post.
Just recently, I stumbled upon something which got me thinking.
2015 has been the year I stopped making plans.
It wasn’t a deliberate choice. It just happened. It’s been the year where I have written 0 (zero!) project plans.
You might wonder: Okay Thomas, but why’s that important? What’s that all about?
Well, here’s a little story.
About 5 years ago, I landed my first job as project manager after finishing my Bachelor’s degree. Although I always worked besides my studies, I consider this as my first real job.
And it was a dream job. I was planning, monitoring and analysing all kind of different digital projects. I absolutely loved making plans, and I loved presenting them to colleagues & clients.
I put a lot of time & effort into creating plans. On paper everything sounded great. Even for my customers.
So, what made me stop creating plans?
Well, on the one hand, I changed. And I switched jobs. Twice.
At the end of 2015 I started out as a marketing manager at a B2B SaaS Startup. With every new job, your working style changes and adopts to the new environment.
Progress is impossible without change.
So, being in a new environment, new ecosystem makes you think about all the things you took for granted. And that’s a good thing.
And then, after a year into my new role I realized.
I managed various projects and campaigns in 2015 without writing a single line of project plan. And basically everything worked out.
Here’s what happened.
I stopped making project plans.
Yep. I just stopped creating project drafts. It’s simple, just give it a try.
I started creating.
I know that sounds naive, right? Doing or creating something without a proper planning sounded quite greenly to me as well. But here’s the thing.
Done is better than perfect. Or:
Don’t make change too complicated, just begin.
Interate. Over. And Over. Again.
In the last year I read a lot about software development techniques and frameworks. Over and over again, I stumbled upon something which most expert would call the „release early, release often“ paradigm.
And I enjoyed following that framework not only when it comes to software development, but also for all kind of different areas.
Releasing something (like publishing a blog post) not finished (unready in terms of not 100% ready) sounds frigthening, right?
However, it will also give you the chance to gather in-depth feedback from people which will make your next release way better than you’d expect.
I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on planning & creating. Let me know on Twitter if you have any input. I’d love to see what you think about making plans vs doing.
PS: This post was written on my mobile phone and according to the idea of releasing early & often, I just clicked publish 😉
