APR 14

Building the giant, wooden rabbit

The perils of poor planning

Once again, Arthur and his men arrive at a strange castle and inquire of the guards about the master of the castle, potentially enlisting him to aid in their quest. This tactic hasn't worked out well for Arthur in the past, and it doesn't work out well for him now. (You'd think Arthur would try something different, like send a messenger or invite everyone to a giant feast at Camelot or set up a Facebook page on Where's the Grail?, but, no, there he is, going door to door, like a Jehovah's witness or vacuum salesman expecting to be greeted with open arms. I mean, how do you u deal with strangers knocking on your door?)

So Arthur is not well-received at the doors of the French castle, and he and his men are summarily taunted and insulted by John Cleese with a ridiculous French accent. Still, Arthur continues to try to reason with the uncooperative French guard, asking to speak to his manager even, until the French get physical and launch a cow over the wall and squash one of the pages (kind of like the red-shirts).  An incensed Arthur issues the order to charge castle, but more farm animals rain down on them (including farm animal by-products) and the grail-seekers must run away. Is all hope lost for Arthur and his men?

Fortunately, Sir Bedevere, ever the clever one, has a plan to penetrate the French castle. He organizes the men to build a giant, wooden bunny rabbit. After much collective sawing and hammering, the men wheel the rabbit to the doors of the castle, knock, and watch as the French guards bring the bunny inside. "Now comes the surprise," Bedevere explains to the others, "where we all jump out of the bunny and take the French off-guard."  Only, the men have forgotten to get inside the rabbit, first.  Perhaps, a giant wooden badger?

PLANNING FALLACY

ALWAYS TAKING THE BEST-CASE SCENARIO

Forgetting to get into the rabbit before wheeling it into the castle is probably less an example of bad planning than of sheer stupidity. Yet, we in business regularly act stupidly where it comes to planning and much of that is due to planning fallacy. 

Planning fallacy is a fancy term for “the tendency to hold a confident belief that one’s own project will proceed as planned, even while knowing that the vast majority of similar projects have run late.” CITATION Bue94 \l 1033  (Buehler, Griffin, & Ross, 1994). This occurs both on the small scale, such as it should only take me three hours to clean out the garage even though it took me 2 days last time, and the large scale, such as major construction projects.

In addition to adopting the best case scenario as our baseline, we also tend to think that our project or situation is unique. Somehow we possess the knowledge or the skills or the luck that everyone else lacks, like Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon where everyone is above average. 

HELPFUL PLANNING CHECKLIST

FROM THE FRENCH GUARD'S PERSPECTIVE

Before you develop your plan, here is helpful checklist to make sure you don't become victim of the planning fallacy. 

1.       You stupid sod, did you even think to find other people who have done the same project? It’s not like in this information age, with all the interwebby connections upon which you waste half your day, you can do some research or find other people with experience.
2.       No, you are not smarter than the other people who have led similar projects in any way, shape, or form. Frankly, I see your lips moving as you read this, you slow, useless excuse for a peon. Add more time to your plan because the rest of world operates in fast forward compared to you.
3.       So you think your project has a higher priority than all the others and will get the most attention from your team? You stupid, sodding pimple on the face of the earth, the mere fact that you are leading it means it has the lowest priority, you son of a mouse herder. 
4.       Your mother was a gooseberry and your father smelled of skunk farts, and your team does not like you and will not work doubly hard to meet the deadlines. They make raspberries in your general direction. Thhhp, tthhhp.
5.       Of course, Murphy does like you and his law will prevail over everything you do, you silly corporate, sit-in-a-cube-like-a-caged-gerbil, expendable-as-a-pet-goldfish, staff member.
6.       Of course, your human resources are 100% efficient and don’t need any maintenance or down time. Just like your machine resources. Always up and running, like the diarrhea that has replaced your brain tissue, you silly, smug project mangler. 

 

Posted by Karen Phelan. 32 comments. Filed under Templates. Tags: awesome, new.