Planning is essential but no plan survives contact with an enemy!

The adage that "No plan survives first contact with the enemy" is a timeless military truth famously attributed to the Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder or as Mike Tyson more pithily put it ‘ Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.’ I think these two quotes neatly set out the conundrum of operational planning and delivery: a plan is essential but somehow it becomes more challenging when the rubber hits the road and an event starts; in any operation the ‘opposition’ always have a vote too! In other words you have to adapt in real time and have the flexibility to overcome changed circumstances during events.

In terms of my professional practice, I use three structural processes to keep on top of operations: “Spinning the wheel”, a ‘Battle rhythm’ and contingency planning exercises. ‘Spinning the wheel’ is short hand for using the UK National Decision Model to systematically work an operation or event. Further, I  schedule a ’battle rhythm’ of check - in meetings during the planning and the execution phases of any event to gather information and intelligence and take action in a collective, collaborative manner - these processes give discipline to operational delivery. Underpinning this is a comprehensive pre event appreciation of possible contingencies and an exercised structure to manage criticality and take appropriate corrective action. 

This approach gives a leader a robust framework to positively manage complexity in a timely and confident manner; I have seen too many plans and sat in far too many briefings where there has been some ‘magical’ thinking and the general consensus is that everything will be fine and dandy and that horrid or unexpected things will not happen. Operational delivery rarely follows a linear path - as with the Boy Scouts my motto is “Be Prepared!’