The hottest Planning Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Business Topics

Balancing your execution, re-planning the roadmap

🔮 Crafting Tech Teams • 19 implied HN points • 27 Apr 23
🕹 Technology Planning
  1. The roadmap is crucial for tech organizations, requiring careful planning, estimations, and collaboration among departments.
  2. Addressing technical debt and support tickets is an important aspect of balancing execution and re-planning the roadmap.
  3. Subscribing to Crafting Tech Teams gives access to in-depth posts and a 7-day free trial for the full archive.

How to beat the critical path

Wednesday Wisdom • 47 implied HN points • 13 Mar 24
🕹 Technology 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.

Punch It In

CTOrly • 19 implied HN points • 13 Sep 22
💼 Business Planning
  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 Planning
  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.
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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 Planning
  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.

How to prepare your business for a new year ahead

The Ask Newsletter — by Ellen Donnelly • 5 implied HN points • 04 Dec 24
💼 Business Planning
  1. Set high expectations for yourself, your business, and the world. This mindset helps drive personal and professional growth.
  2. Identify and overcome personal limitations like fear and knowledge gaps. Clarity is the first step toward overcoming these challenges.
  3. Use a tailored planning tool that aligns with your goals. This will help you track progress and make adjustments throughout the year.

Planning based on where the puck is gonna be

Joshua Gans' Newsletter • 19 implied HN points • 22 Feb 21
🚌 Education Planning
  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 prioritize marketing activities & avoid random acts of marketing

MKT1 Newsletter • 4 implied HN points • 21 Oct 24
💼 Business Planning
  1. Prioritize your marketing activities by balancing new ideas with proven strategies. This way, you can test new things while also focusing on what works.
  2. Use a structured process for organizing your marketing ideas, including categorizing them into big projects, core work, and operational tasks. This helps keep your efforts aligned with your goals.
  3. Spend time upfront on prioritization to prevent wasting time on unrelated tasks later. A clear roadmap will keep you focused and efficient throughout the year.

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

Building Rome(s) • 7 implied HN points • 13 Jun 23
🕹 Technology Planning
  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.

The Power of Micro Events and How to Host Them!

The Outlier • 6 implied HN points • 06 Mar 23
💼 Business 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.

How to Run Effective Sprint Planning Sessions

The Incrementalist • 4 HN points • 30 Jul 23
💼 Business Planning
  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.

Building in the long/short term as a small team

Mehdeeka • 3 implied HN points • 11 Oct 23
💼 Business Planning
  1. Understand the business goals and integrate marketing into the overall strategy.
  2. Use a goal framework like OKRs to plan, track, and present your objectives.
  3. Balancing long and short term planning is about continual refinement and aligning with the company's overall goals.

Interrailing to Paris with a worrying lack of planning

One bag many places • 0 implied HN points • 23 Mar 24
🏝 Travel Planning
  1. Planning a trip to Europe, even with a lack of preparation, can be manageable and exciting. Last-minute adventures can be surprising and fun.
  2. Understanding the differences between interrail and eurrail passes is crucial when traveling within Europe. It's important to consider extra bookings for certain trains like the Eurostar.
  3. Traveling through different European cities can provide unique cultural experiences and insights. Trying local dishes and observing daily life can be eye-opening.

How to harness powerful AI

AI Prospects: Toward Global Goal Convergence • 0 implied HN points • 14 Mar 24
🕹 Technology Planning
  1. Harness powerful AI capabilities without relying on autonomous agents by considering how to apply these resources to accomplish large tasks.
  2. Organize tasks in AI-agency role architectures to efficiently utilize highly capable AI for transformative endeavors while maintaining control.
  3. Utilize AI systems for large, consequential tasks through planning, action, correction processes, incorporating bounded tasks, and adhering to the principle of least authority for safer outcomes.

Film Study: Learning from North Kansas City High basketball game shooting

School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports • 0 implied HN points • 09 Apr 24
🚌 Education Planning
  1. After a shooting incident, school officials should analyze security plans and procedures by studying the events similar to how coaches review game film.
  2. Many schools lack specific plans or training for shootings during sports events, highlighting the need for better emergency coordination, notification systems, and radio interoperability.
  3. Security technology like acoustic gunshot detection systems and CCTV image classification software can provide valuable insights, but their effectiveness relies on proper implementation and resolution of cameras.

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

Equal Ventures • 0 implied HN points • 31 Mar 20
💼 Business Planning
  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.

OKR Process

realkinetic • 0 implied HN points • 02 Aug 17
💼 Business Planning
  1. Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) provide a framework for high level planning and resource alignment, helping to negotiate and communicate priorities within and between departments/teams.
  2. OKRs are strategic tools, not task lists, and work well alongside tactical project management methods like Agile. They focus on outcomes and business needs, empowering teams to choose the best solutions.
  3. Developing and applying OKRs is an iterative process involving negotiation, cross-team debates, clear objectives, and grading criteria to drive results and continuous improvement.

A tool to gauge the effectiveness of your succession planning

Ruben Ugarte's Growth Needle™ • 0 implied HN points • 02 Jul 24
💼 Business Planning
  1. You need a clear way to check if your team is ready to lead when you're gone. It’s not enough to guess; you want to feel confident in their abilities.
  2. Taking sabbaticals is a smart move for leaders. It lets your team show what they can do without you, which helps you plan for the future.
  3. When planning a sabbatical, set up tasks for both your team and yourself. Preparing them well will help you see how ready they are when you step away.

Uncovering more strategic insights

Ruben Ugarte's Growth Needle™ • 0 implied HN points • 24 Oct 23
💼 Business Planning
  1. Good strategic insights can really change the way an organization plans for the future. Even a few strong ideas can shift everything.
  2. It's important to know where and how to find these insights. Look for inspiration in various places and from different people.
  3. Collecting insights can be a process. Think about how to gather and analyze information that can inform your strategy effectively.

How to have a kickass kick-off meeting

Askwhy: UX Research, Product Management, Design & Careers • 0 implied HN points • 08 Aug 23
💼 Business Planning
  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.