The hottest Planning Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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I wish I started doing this on day 0 of my career as an engineer

High Growth Engineer • 1574 implied HN points • 18 Feb 24
💼 Business Productivity Career development Software Engineering Time management Planning
  1. Planning is crucial to avoid feeling unproductive and getting pulled in different directions throughout the day.
  2. By planning your day, you focus on what's important and maintain control over your daily tasks.
  3. Even a simple daily plan of one main goal can significantly improve your productivity and time management.
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How to beat the critical path

Wednesday Wisdom • 47 implied HN points • 13 Mar 24
🕹 Technology Software Engineering Project management Planning
  1. To beat the critical path, the first step is to acknowledge its existence.
  2. Effective project planning, like utilizing the Critical Path Method (CPM), can prevent delays and ensure timely project completion.
  3. Maintaining a Directed Acyclic Graph of project activities with expected durations is crucial in project management to identify critical paths and manage dependencies effectively.

12 Steps To Inner Rewilding

Creative Destruction • 53 implied HN points • 01 Mar 24
🏥 Health & Wellness Observation Connection Planning
  1. Start by taking time to do nothing for inner rewilding, giving yourself the space to observe and disconnect from things depleting your inner diversity.
  2. Conduct an inventory of your inner self, focusing on understanding your thoughts, feelings, connections, and overall ecosystem to initiate the process of inner rewilding.
  3. Seek guidance from individuals who are experienced in inner rewilding and reconnect with systems and people around you to develop a plan for reintroducing inner wildness.

Insights from the Research Community: Plans for 2024 and Strategies for Implementation

Askwhy: UX Research, Product Management, Design & Careers • 33 implied HN points • 27 Feb 24
💼 Business Research Implementation Planning Strategy Product Management
  1. Avoid unnecessary research by understanding when it's not appropriate, like for problem-solving issues instead of validation.
  2. Prevent overcommitting by scoping projects well, building in time buffers, and looking at historical data to manage workload effectively.
  3. Enhance visibility for your UX research work by selecting the right method for your audience, sharing updates in product meetings, and knowing your stakeholders.

3 areas to drive clarity for sustained high-performance in teams

Effective Software Leads • 39 implied HN points • 03 Jan 24
💼 Business Management Leadership Teamwork Planning Communication
  1. Driving clarity of purpose, direction, plan, roles, and boundaries leads to sustained high-performance in teams.
  2. Clarity of purpose is essential for motivating and guiding team members towards a common goal.
  3. Having a clear plan and understanding of roles and responsibilities are key for effective team performance.

Mapping your company's year: how to sequence the big processes

Lessons • 255 implied HN points • 07 Apr 23
💼 Business Planning Budgeting Performance reviews Sequencing
  1. Sequencing big projects in your company efficiently can save time and streamline processes.
  2. Key company-wide activities to schedule include board meetings, business reviews, budgeting, and performance reviews.
  3. Being thoughtful about the timing of important processes like performance reviews can impact company productivity.

How we increased execution by 10x at Coda | Oliver Heckmann - Head of Engineering at Coda

platocommunity • 39 implied HN points • 13 Dec 23
💼 Business Management Productivity Execution Planning Tools
  1. Cutting down planning time to 10% allows for better focus and higher quality plans, leading to increased execution speed.
  2. Bridging the Planning-Execution Canyon by synchronizing OKRs in planning and execution documents improves insight, accountability, and progress tracking.
  3. Creating centralized Team Hubs with all important information in one place reduces information silos, fosters transparency, and promotes unified teamwork.

Conquering the Dreaded Annual Plan

Build To Scale • 39 implied HN points • 17 Oct 23
💼 Business Planning Management Team Dynamics Resources
  1. Annual planning is crucial but understand that it's a flexible roadmap, not a rigid rulebook for the year ahead
  2. Using SWOT analysis can help identify internal strengths, weaknesses, and external opportunities, threats to guide strategic initiatives
  3. Evaluate your team's readiness to scale, recognize their strengths, weaknesses, and consider bringing in new talent as needed

Excess Capacity in SFUSD's schools

SFEDup • 58 implied HN points • 21 Mar 23
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Education Planning
  1. Different sources provide varying estimates of capacity for SFUSD schools.
  2. Actual enrollment history may provide a more accurate measure of capacity than the Facilities Master Plan.
  3. SFUSD has excess space for about 25% more students than currently enrolled, which may indicate too much capacity.

Strategy Is About Confident Decision-Making

The Strategy Deck • 19 implied HN points • 14 Apr 23
💼 Business Strategy Investment Analysis Stakeholders Planning
  1. Strategy in business involves making confident decisions for success and profitability.
  2. Three fundamental elements of strategy are investment decisions, analysis and prioritization, and stakeholder involvement.
  3. Types of strategy work include business strategy, product strategy, and strategic planning, each with specific focuses and benefits.

Punch It In

CTOrly • 19 implied HN points • 13 Sep 22
💼 Business Product Management Planning Leadership Strategy
  1. Having a plan is crucial, but it's essential to plan practically and realistically for today.
  2. Traditional roadmapping may give a false sense of accomplishment without delivering tangible benefits to customers or the market.
  3. Prioritize making plans based on the current reality rather than uncertain future projections.

The Pivotal Thing

CTOrly • 19 implied HN points • 25 Aug 22
💼 Business Product Management Leadership Planning Problem Solving Change Management
  1. Guard against unnecessary, preventable volatility in planning and focus on the quality of the problem rather than constantly changing solutions.
  2. Detangle desired outcomes from specific features in planning to enable pivoting on how to achieve goals while maintaining the constancy of overall objectives.
  3. Leaders should balance adapting to changes when necessary without causing unnecessary chaos by crying wolf with constant changes.

Sweating small stuff / Milestones & Estimates / We need to change how we interview TPMs

Building Rome(s) • 7 implied HN points • 13 Jun 23
🕹 Technology Management Planning Interviewing
  1. Sweating the small stuff is crucial in tech program management, focusing on minor details that can lead to major obstacles.
  2. Using milestones instead of estimates can improve project planning and organizing tasks effectively.
  3. There is a need to revamp the way Technical Program Managers (TPMs) are interviewed, with a more tailored approach to assess their skills.

How to Run Effective Sprint Planning Sessions

The Incrementalist • 4 HN points • 30 Jul 23
💼 Business Management Planning Execution Teamwork Productivity
  1. Bulk of the sprint planning should happen 2 weeks leading up to the sprint start, allowing time for preparation and setting the stage for success.
  2. During the sprint planning session, focus on high-level sprint review and alignment, while detailed discussions should occur prior to the meeting.
  3. Each team member should take ownership and drive their work stream, creating tickets and breaking down work into manageable chunks, ensuring a proactive and self-driven approach.

The Power of Micro Events and How to Host Them!

The Outlier • 6 implied HN points • 06 Mar 23
💼 Business Events Networking Community Marketing Planning
  1. Micro events can be powerful for making authentic connections and achieving business goals.
  2. Micro events work well online and offline, with benefits like niche engagement and personal connections.
  3. Planning a successful micro event involves simplicity, targeting the right audience, creating great content, building alliances, effective promotion, and having a backup plan.

Planning based on where the puck is gonna be

Joshua Gans' Newsletter • 19 implied HN points • 22 Feb 21
🚌 Education Planning Vaccination Pandemic Decision-making
  1. Universities should plan for a Fall reopening based on forecasts of the pandemic and vaccination progress.
  2. It is reasonable to expect that Canada will reach its Summer vaccine goals, indicating potential for substantial improvement in the situation.
  3. Planning for a Fall reopening offers benefits of being prepared for a favorable outlook and maintaining option value, as opposed to planning to remain closed.

How to have a kickass kick-off meeting

Askwhy: UX Research, Product Management, Design & Careers • 0 implied HN points • 08 Aug 23
💼 Business Management Communication Planning Execution Stakeholders
  1. Kick-off meetings set the tone for a project and involve aligning stakeholders on the problem and solution.
  2. Key attendees in a kick-off meeting include sponsors, engineering teams, designers, and cross-functional teams.
  3. Ideal preparation for a kick-off meeting involves ensuring key stakeholders are aligned beforehand and sharing necessary context.

Open-Sourcing Equal’s Framework For COVID-19 Scenario Planning

Equal Ventures • 0 implied HN points • 31 Mar 20
💼 Business Strategy Planning Framework Startups COVID-19
  1. Founders need plans for various potential scenarios caused by the pandemic, leading to the creation of a standardized framework for strategic planning.
  2. The framework is divided into 3 key sections: current impacts analysis, short-term scenario planning, and long-term implications discussion.
  3. Personalizing the framework template for different business categories is important to account for varying impacts and parameters.