Good planning begins top-down, however when that’s not doable, plan bottom-up with out dropping sight of the larger image. Right here’s how.
We all know that good planning begins top-down by understanding the technique and drawing your actions from it. Sadly, for numerous causes, it’s not all the time doable to take action. Typically, you want to plan bottom-up, however don’t throw the infant out with the bathtub water.
Firstly of the 2011 film “I don’t understand how she does it” Kate Reddy (Sarah Jessica Parker) must bake a pie for the college bake sale. Sadly, she solely remembers it on her return from a enterprise journey the night time earlier than. Dedicated to her household duties, she buys a pie at an open retailer however desires it to look home made, so she intentionally ruins it slightly (as a result of who can bake an ideal pie?) and strikes it to a special dish.
This scene says rather a lot about attempting to reside as much as what different individuals assume, however I wish to take a look at it from a special perspective for a second. It’s concerning the compromises that all of us make.
In a really perfect world, I imagine Kate would have needed to bake a pie. However since she (and none of us truthfully) can’t do all of it, she compromises for a purchased one.
I do know I make many compromises when balancing work and private life. My children might undoubtedly eat more healthy and have their display time managed higher (or in any respect), and I don’t all the time fortunately settle for these compromises. Then again, all of them know that household is their secure area and that we might settle for and help them it doesn’t matter what. These are compromises that I’m not prepared to make.
Shifting to the skilled world, all of us make compromises there, too. The product chief’s function is so busy that we merely can’t do all of it, and sometimes, different constraints drive us to do issues in a different way than we ideally favor.
One such space is roadmap planning. My advice for roadmap planning is to begin top-down, from the corporate’s technique itself, perceive it in depth, and solely then begin planning how you will make it a actuality. Backside-up planning (coming from what you already know that you really want or must do) enhances this course of and retains us rooted in actuality.
I extremely suggest following this course of at the least yearly because it typically unveils essential strategic insights, aligns all departments to work collectively, and will increase the probabilities of assembly your objectives relatively than merely including extra product capabilities.
But it surely’s not all the time doable. In startups, for instance, issues are so dynamic that it generally feels irrelevant to plan too far forward. I might nonetheless suggest making use of the method there, too, but when administration isn’t with you, you may battle to take action.
Even in additional mature corporations, if the corporate doesn’t have a strong technique and doesn’t see the significance of discussing it earlier than planning, you received’t immediately change that DNA.
And generally, should you don’t have a strategic roadmap, the CEO may need one ASAP, for instance, earlier than a presentation to the board or an essential buyer. Even when everybody understands that planning takes time and that ideally we must always begin on the high, generally you merely don’t have the time to take action.
So, on the one hand, it’s a must to compromise on one thing. If the CEO wants a presentation for Tuesday you want to have it prepared for Tuesday. However as you make these, there are some stuff you don’t wish to compromise on.
Like many different issues in life, if it’s a must to, you may get a lot of the worth with a smaller effort.
It begins by not forgetting the ‘up’ half, since in any other case you might be simply stacking options on a timeline, which is nearly meaningless.
Here’s a 3-step course of for bottom-up planning that you should use if it’s a must to. Maintain it for a wet day.
You might be in all probability accustomed to the idea of “ 5 whys “: asking ‘why’ 5 instances till you get to the basis explanation for one thing. It’s a typical apply in problem-solving meant to make sure you resolve the correct downside and never simply the symptom.
Within the product world, we regularly use it with requests we get from prospects or stakeholders to make sure we perceive what they really need and never simply do what they ask (since they aren’t product managers they usually communicate in options as an alternative of issues).
For planning functions, I counsel you to make use of this technique to query your self. You have already got many issues you understand you need or must do subsequent yr. For every one, ask your self why you wish to do it. After which ask it once more, and once more, 5 instances or till you get to one thing that feels undebatable or core to your technique.
It might look one thing like this:
We wish to add one other safety layer to our product.
Why? As a result of we’re a safety firm and it’s essential that our merchandise are as safe as doable.
However why now? As a result of our prospects began asking about it.
Why? As a result of they appear to be extra security-aware.
Why? What has modified? As a result of we began promoting to healthcare corporations.
Why did you begin promoting to healthcare corporations? As a result of it’s a strategic alternative that the corporate has determined to pursue.
Try this for each characteristic on the plan to have a greater context for every.
The 5 whys course of forces you to lift your head from the options to the explanations you might be planning to construct them. It’s not as strategic as beginning with the objectives and planning for them, but it surely’s ok if it’s a must to work bottom-up.
Now that we’re on the causes stage, we are able to begin making sense of it.
On this step, you wish to group your options into bigger initiatives which are rooted in causes and never in outputs. Have a look at all the explanations that you’ve found. More than likely, lots of them will collide.
Within the instance above, you’ll in all probability discover extra options that map properly into ‘the healthcare alternative’. Observe that you simply may should be pragmatic and never purist when you consider these. It could possibly be that there are options that produce other causes, like ‘the corporate’s grand imaginative and prescient’ or different prospects need them too, however the purpose for selecting them now and including them to the plan was actually the healthcare alternative. In such a case, it could serve you higher to group them beneath the healthcare alternative relatively than add one other separate purpose.
Ideally, all the pieces you do ought to be mapped into 3–5 main initiatives or causes. That is essential for the subsequent step.
If you find yourself having extra, see if a few of them may be additional grouped collectively. Ask ‘why’ just a few extra instances — this time on the explanations themselves — to see if you will discover a typical denominator. For instance, if in case you have ‘take away gross sales obstacles’ and ‘shorter onboarding time’ as major causes, they may match properly right into a extra core purpose of ‘scaling our gross sales course of.’
Now that you’ve 3–5 beginning factors, and all the pieces you wish to do maps properly into them, it’s time to inform the story top-down so everybody can perceive, bear in mind, and comply with it.
Observe that whereas we haven’t began the method top-down, and the ‘high’ on this case could be decrease than the place we wish it available you began with a correct top-down course of, it’s nonetheless essential to inform the story top-down as it’s.
That’s how individuals assume, and by telling it that method, you’ll create readability that couldn’t exist in any other case.
Metaphorically talking, if options are the pixels of a picture of a cat, the explanations are its physique elements. As a substitute of describing the colour of every pixel and asking individuals to infer that you’re truly speaking a couple of cat, say that you’re describing a picture of a cat and speak concerning the head, the physique, and the background as the correct context.
Had we began with an actual top-down strategy, we might have requested whether or not or not it’s a cat that we ought to be engaged on.
If I’ve to, this can be a compromise I’m prepared to make, at the least briefly.
Once you current your bottom-up constructed plan, see if it’s acceptable so as to add a disclaimer that you’re nonetheless engaged on a correct top-down course of, and let everybody know that you’ll replace later as you had been in a position to take action.
Setting expectations about how the plans may change is all the time a good suggestion, particularly when planning bottom-up, since there can be extra issues that you simply may miss this manner.However even when the plan is sure to vary, forcing your self to maneuver up and never stay on the backside ends in a significantly better plan and far clearer communication of it.
