The situation“I'm writing next quarter's plan and last quarter's didn't land.”
The tools that work this situation, in sequence — each opens in full in the Toolbox.
Don't write the new plan until you've understood the old one. Start with a What, So What, Now What session to get the team past the facts of last quarter and into the implications, because the facts on their own just produce defensiveness. Move into a Retrospective to lock the systemic changes in place so the mistakes don't repeat — the difference between a retrospective and a complaint is whether something changes afterwards. Before launching the new plan, run a Pre-mortem — imagine it has already failed, six months from now, and ask why. The optimism bias blinding you this quarter is the same one that blinded you last quarter, and this is the only reliable way to get underneath it.
Your Next MoveImagine standing at the post-mortem six months from now explaining why this failed — what's the one sentence you already know you'd have to say?
Your Next MoveWhat's the smallest, cheapest experiment that would tell you the project in the next meeting is doomed — and why haven't you run it yet?
Your Next MoveWhich action item from your last three retrospectives has actually been done — and if the answer is 'none', what is the retrospective even for?
Play
- C. Thi Nguyen, GamesBuyAmazonBookshop
- Elliot Aronson, The social animalBuyAmazonBookshop
- Objectivity laundering
Precedent
- Indra Nooyi, My Life in FullBuyAmazonBookshop
- Reed Hastings, No Rules RulesBuyAmazonBookshop
- GameLayers