Fast Planning Made Easy

Few people will disagree that clear plans make doing work easier. If you know what you need to do, the amount of uncertainty and stress you experience is reduced.
But how do you know what you need to do? If you are unclear about what needs to be done, you are forced to guess. Guessing is made even harder if managers or other people you are working with keep changing their priorities. This can be described as “moving the goal posts”.
Often I ask managers “Do you have a plan?” The answer is usually “Yes”. But when I ask to see the plan, it is often in the manager’s head; so they are unable to show me or any of their team members.
Having a plan in your head is slightly better than no plan, but not much. For example, it is hard to keep the people who need to complete a plan up to date on any changes so they can adjust what they are doing.
Years ago I looked for a way to get in-head plans onto paper, so the people involved had some chance of doing what they need to do. I developed a simple planning template that most people can complete in around 10 minutes.
I think that the reason people can create a plan so quickly is that they have already worked out the plan in their head. All they are doing is making it clearer to themselves and other people.
I have been providing the 10 minute planning template free to anyone who wants to use it for their personal use. In six months over 2000 people from over 175 countries downloaded the template. This suggests that many people in a diverse range of situations appreciate the ability to get plans out of their head quickly.
Many users of the free 10 minute planning template requested a web software version of the template that provides anywhere, anytime access. They also wanted the web software to be able to link plans together to create larger plans, and to create and update personalized ToDo lists from relevant actions in many plans. We listened and are currently Beta testing a web software solution that satisfies these requests and many others. The software will be released in June 2010.
For more information on the free PDF fast planning template, visit www.taskey.com

By,
Dr Neil Miller

About the Author:
Neil is CEO of TASKey that develops and validates management solutions for people. Neil who has successfully managed over 100 projects in a wide range of areas identified the biggest deficiency in managing projects as a method to help people work together to complete project tasks. Over the last 10 years, he has developed unique distributed project management software to eliminate this project deficiency. Visit http://www.taskey.com