Part IV:
Responding to change over following a plan

Following a plan brings stability, safety and also it really saves a lot of energy waste really

Following a plan when you have data that shows the plan is no longer valid? Toxic stuff.

Once I said the above to some clients and had this discussion with a marketing friend
X: Romeu, maybe in IT, but on the biz side we are used to changing plans
Me: Do you agree that a budget is plan?
X: Oh... yeah... makes sense

Of course citing Eisenhower became a cliche for a reason

"Plans are worthless, but planning is everything"

The act of planning, done without hierarchy: bring us together, show our naiveties, align us, solves issues, shapes the problem itself, strengthen our bonds

But I will disagree with Eisenhower on plans being useless

Following a plan? Actually rocks ! See:

People feel safer and more stable when they are following a plan because they feel they got this, safety is good but also and even more important:

Every time you are not following a plan you are spending some energy planning in real time, this mental labour, it adds up, it is a tax on your energy, on your time that constant navigation

it is like the first time you go to a new job, and you keep second guessing yourself on the path, looking at the GPS, looking at the street numbers, that one time will take more time and energy and effort than all any future time

When I give trainings sometimes I use a format where we chose a subject and every 25 minutes we vote what will be the subject of the next 25 minutes, for the whole day
this is constant planning in real time

for many people this is super tiresome tho and they'd rather have a plan

Following a plan is awesome for the same reason train tracks are awesome : the known is highly optimisable for
you can save a *lot* of energy with it

This is all incredibly good up and until the plan is no longer valid

Up and until we are now lying to ourselves and others about the plan being valid

up and until we start punishing people because their invalid plan is no longer being followed

The *one* thing to do when you see or think that a plan is no longer valid is to tell everyone right? tell yourself! tell the others! tell the world! it would be the most useful thing, void the plan as soon as it is no longer valid, re-plan if needed? right?

But doing so means you are not predictable, and predictability is the most sought quality under a fetishisation of control

and your plans impact other people's plans that are also no longer predictable too and they will try to make you predictable https://twitter.com/malk_zameth/status/1359879486980972550

Also we spend so much time and energy planning than being the bearer of the bad news that the plan is no longer valid means also telling people we should re-spend that energy and time again which is painful and we avoid

Also because predictability is the sought-after quality our entire planning process is so heavy (it needs to be precise you see?) that it becomes a huge cost per se and the idea of redoing it frequently becomes ludicrous !

Also, very important friends:
planning is a process, everything I said in the process part becomes important but chiefly this:

We are disconnected to what planning brings US
we do it as paperwork that needs to be done for someone that control us https://twitter.com/malk_zameth/status/1359838287440080898

So the cost, the alienation, the control-fetishisation all comes down into turning planning and plans and following plans into

Something corrupted,

Something oppressive,

Bureaucracy.

the manifesto invites us to push back, to bring up the courage to tell ourselves and our peers and the world "the plan is no longer valid" when we see that it is the case

be it the plan for the year, the week, the day, the lunch
a plan for action, budget or conversation-subject

and in order to do that, if we are to bring that necessary news, the implicit invitation of the manifesto is that you adopt ways of planing that can be re-done frequently

and in order to be re-done frequently they'll probably need to be understood as valuable, sacrifice detail

when you push for that, for that transparency of the limits of plans, for plans that are cheap to do and throw and redo and for people planning to get something out of that planning?

you'll be a pain in the ass

and you'll meet our enemy: productivism https://twitter.com/malk_zameth/status/1359879496778866688

productivism telling your colleagues that now is never the time to change how we plan stuff and that spending time planning is waste anyways and that we should just endure it
brace ourselves, get it accepted and get to work

and why should they not? fetichisation of control has already made their plan redundant, it was all pre-planned in budget and we are asking them to plan again and if they "get the plan wrong" they will be punished!

"One must imagine Sisyphus happy" – Albert Camus

This was part IV of: https://twitter.com/malk_zameth/status/1359823008601374721