• planning: Why continuous planning must traverse time Plans capture a moment in time. • Planning must move through time. • Most enterprises are not short on plans. • They have strategic roadmaps, multi-year investment portfolios, annual operating plans and governance frameworks to create alignment and control. • These plans are often thoughtful, analytically sound and approved with confidence. • Yet when conditions change, those same organizations struggle.
Article Summaries:
- Most enterprises have extensive plans-strategic roadmaps, multi‑year portfolios, annual operating plans-but these documents often freeze assumptions that quickly become obsolete. The article argues that planning must be a continuous, adaptive discipline rather than a static artifact. CIOs are moving away from long‑range models toward real‑time decision frameworks that test assumptions as conditions shift. When planning is episodic, consequences surface only after execution, exposing hidden dependencies and capacity constraints. Examples such as cyber‑incident responses and Nokia’s decline illustrate how outdated plans can derail operations, underscoring the need for planning that traverses time.
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