Chapter 5: Develop strategic thinking & proactive planning
Now, flip it and plan forwards.
Start from where you are and build the plans from there, ending with your finishing point.
Walk through these steps below.
Exercise:
One way to plan is to plan forward, mapping out the resources and dependencies to determine the end finishing date. Take a priority that you have and work through this exercise, planning forward.
Identify the end state. What is the end result? The desired outcome? Once you have this information, you can start to build a plan going forwards.
Break it down. What are the individual deliverables for this end state? What are the milestones that will support reaching this end state? Are there milestones integrated with other efforts to be aware of? What are the actions needed to support each milestone or deliverable?
Estimate time. How much time is needed to complete each action, milestone, deliverable?
Dependencies. Which actions are dependent on one another?
Sequence the actions. With this full picture, how do you want to sequence the actions, milestones, and deliverables? What is the order and what are the due dates, accounting for the estimated time to complete each? Based on this ideal sequence, what is the date you’ll reach the end state?
Review end to end. Look at the full picture, end to end. Review with stakeholders. Tweak until you have alignment.
Execute the plan. Block the time to complete each action. Follow through with the actions, milestones, and deliverables.
When working forwards, your final end date may get extended beyond a desirable date. Consider adding more resources to reduce the time to complete.
Working forwards is used for efforts that are not tied to a specific date, but that are based on resource availability.