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TestingPlanForCongruence

Spun off from the CustomerSatisfaction thread

How do you test a plan for congruence?

I'm the lead of a team that is developing a portion of an operating plan. Last year's plan was incongruent because it wasn't followed. For instance, a key part of the plan was a commitment to the employees to limit the average amount of time spent on reporting, training and internal meetings to 5 hours per week. A more accurate statment would have been When it is convenient, management commits to limit....

What does it take to eliminate, or at least minimize the incongruence in a plan during its development?

I have tools for testing a document for ambiguity, but no formal tools for testing for incongruence. I would appreciate you sharing any tools you have or ideas about what tools you think might be useful.

Please assume for the moment that I have created the environment where the tools could be used.

SteveSmith 2003.01.27

I'm having some trouble with the word "congruence." The example given is just about the aspirations in the document not being followed. That happens a lot, in many places. That non-performance is especailly common with attempts at organizational changes. I think there's an important question in there.

So, could you help me out a bit with what you're meaning by "congruence?"

JimBullock, 2003.01.27

SteveSmith 2003.01.28

A coworker, D, and I had a similar conversation, but using the word "fiction." D's contention was that all project plans were fiction because the small chance that reality would unfold in total accordance with the plan was so small to be essentially zero. But I think some plans are more fictional than others.

I am not sure how to talk about the different levels of fiction in a plan, but here it goes: Calling all plans fictional is to measure plans against the standards of prophecies. Some plans are useful, some plans are not. Some of the non-useful plans are not useful because they contain too much fiction. To use an example from The Mythical Man Month, A plan that calls for nine women to produce a baby in one month is too divorced from reality to be useful.

But if the measurement of fiction is related to the non-usefulness of a plan, then the question becomes what makes a plan useful? I think there are multiple answers, but I am going to pass on this question at this time.

Going back to Steve's interest in testing for congruence in a plan, I am still unclear about what is meant by congruence. Steve says, "Last year's plan was incongruent because it wasn't followed," and "Congruence between what is said and what is done." These two statements suggest to me that congruence in a plan is something we measure after the fact and can only measure after the fact.

Maybe something like intent. Here I mean something like the intent to do the other things that are necessary to achieve a goal. In the example of limiting reporting etc. to five hours per week. What would have had to happen to make that possible? Did management intend to do the things to make this an achievable goal? If I am unwilling to increase my physical activity, and unwilling to decrease my caloric intake, then I really do not intend to lose weight, no matter how often I say, "I'm going to lose weight!"

"A more accurate statement would have been When it is convenient, management commits to limit.... " I am not sure it is useful to always include the caveat. If I agree to go to a meeting tomorrow, it is not useful to say, "assuming I am not so sick, I don't go to work, and barring natural catastrophes, and barring death, and if some more urgent support issue comes up, I may have to cancel, and . . . . " OTOH there are times when the caveats make it clearer, especially if people don't share the same set of acceptable exceptions to the agreement. In my example it may be useful to include, "barring a customer having an urgent problem" if it has not occurred to the other party that that happens from time to time.

ShannonSeverance 2003.01.28

I too was confused by the assertion "the plan was incongruent because it wasn't followed". The example Steve adduces suggests instead that the plan was incongruent in that it implied a promise which turned out not to have been reliably made. (I'm stealing the phrase "reliable promise" from Hal Macomber's paper on "making and securing reliable promises", published at http://www.halmacomber.com/ and which I have yet to read with a critical eye but looked quite interesting.)

LaurentBossavit 2003.01.29

OK, I'm better now about what the questions is. As for false statements there are at least these kinds:

• Known to be false when stated.
• Misleadingly but accurately stated, with or without willful, deliberate ignorance.
• Don't know any better, but ought to.
• Don't know any better, but nobody knows.
• Likely, based on some evidence.
• Dead sure.

So, I think Shannon's take on "intent" is useful, especially for forward looking statements. And I was trained as an engineer. So I'm used to any prediction, indeed any measurement having a range. And if you want to get more refined about it, having a distribution, meaning probability and range.

In think for plans in particular, you're congruent if:

• You express only the precision and likielihood you have, what you actually know.
• List the preconditions and assumptions you can think of.
• Include who has to commit to the action.

A plan isn't just stuff that gets done. It's more than tasks. It also includes an objective, plus who, how, when, a quality standard, and how progress will be reported. Ask any junior officer in the US Army: "What are the elements of a mission order?" They'll give you the list, direct from the field manual. (If they're having trouble remembering, address them by rank, with clear diction and direct eye contact. "Lieutenant, what are the elements of a mission order?")

I propose as a candidate definition that a "congruent"

• Contains these elements, and the elements are mutually consistent
• The people being signed up to do stuff have negotiated and agreed to what they'll do
• The tasks in the plan can be reasonably believed to lead to the desired outcome of the whole exercise. (Everybody decided to, oh, I don't know, sing for world peace, it doesn't matter that they're all on board and the plan is self-consistent. Even really bad singing doesn't make the bad people with guns put down their guns.)

Or something like that.

-- JimBullock, 2003.1.28

I very much like Jim's taxonomy of false statements and, as a 12 year Navy veteran, his pointing to the clearness of the Army's definition of a mission order. Shannon's coworker certainly has it right, but the "fiction" fact misses the whole point of a plan. To continue with the military line, the Prussian Field Marshall Von Moltke said, "No plan survives contact with the enemy," yet the military writes them endlessly knowing that lives depend on them.

A plan is a best guess as to how to get from A to B. Last year I attended a presentation by Tom Lister at Boston SPIN called "Why Nobody in Our Business Can Estimate". His main point seemed to be not that our estimates were inaccurate, that was to be expected, but that we stopped estimating after the first attempt I think part of any plan needs to be its recasting given new information, particularly once contact is made with "the enemy".

MikeMelendez 2003.01.29

Shannon Severance In the example of limiting reporting etc. to five hours per week. What would have had to happen to make that possible? Did management intend to do the things to make this an achievable goal?

The VP clearly intended the five hour limit to be a commitment rather than just a goal. He was asking employees to commit to the plan in return for his commitment to keep administrative BS to a minimum. Both management and employees didn't follow through on their "commitments". This kind of behavior demoralizes me.

FWIW, I never signed the commitment letter. My manager stopped by my cube one day and asked me to sign the form. I told him I had received the plan the day before and hadn't read it yet. I told him I wouldn't sign until I had. I was testing whether the objective was just signing the form rather than reading the plan. He passed the first test. The second test was whether the commitment to the plan was important enough for him to return and ask me about how I could contribute to the successful execution of the plan. He never came back.

SteveSmith 2003.01.29

I agree.

Mike Melendez I think part of any plan needs to be its recasting given new information, particularly once contact is made with "the enemy".

So, let's add the following item to Jim's list-- how the plan will be updated.

SteveSmith 2003.01.29

I can already see one problem with the planning process in my division. The self position could include representation from non-management employees. This action would make "others" the customers and prospects.

SteveSmith 2003.01.29