The output of planning is an organization aligned around the plan

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I have been doing a little thinking about planning recently.. How do we decide what features are going product? What big bets is the product going to make? What scenarios do we enable?

As you might guess, I am working on all kinds of collateral around planning: feature lists, vision statements, one-page specs, and PPTs galore… but I heard the quote a few weeks ago and it really resonated with me.

The output of planning is an organization aligned around the plan

That is the goal of planning is NOT a vision doc, a feature list, or even great specs… it is a team that is completely bought into the same common plan. It will be interesting to see how this thinking colors our planning over the next few months… stay tuned!

BTW – I have lost track of the original source of the quote, all though it was a famous Avalon guy that turned me on to it….