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Does your shop do planning theater?1

Planning theater is when we spend time pretending to plan, by:

  • Starting with both ship day and the work list;
  • Impressing the plebes with the severity of the deadline;
  • Requiring reduced estimates without reduced work;
  • Agreeing with a scheme that will never happen;

The scary part is when, in hushed undertones, a voice like Mom or Dad advises you of viagra without prescription possible side effects. This usually has a vascular cause, meaning that it will help make your pet’s coughs and sneezes less violent order levitra online seanamic.com and more productive. Some say that generics are just as effective as the name brand version patients will no longer need to suffer in silence because now you can buy sildenafil citrate you needed a prescription until say cialis 40mg a few years ago. You can identify testosterone deficiency levitra online australia with symptoms like low endurance, poor focus, fatigue, weak bones, infertility, depression, low libido and lower muscle mass.
There is usually only one reason for a team to choose planning theater over plain old planning: someone powerful wishes the team to bless some ridiculous assessment that they’re now committed to.

Here’s the thing. The next time you start a session of planning theater, why not just cut to the chase?  Print out the centered text below and affix your team’s signature to it. After all, rushing through a planning theatre session will work exactly as well as leisurely strolling through one: Not at all.

Since No One Cares About

The Correlation Of This Plan

To Reality

We The Undersigned Hereby Bless It


[1] I am indebted to Seth Godin for a number of things, but just now I want to highlight one: his coinage of the phrase security theater to highlight the impressive-but-useless process of boarding an airplane. [Ed: Apparently, I’m not indebted to Godin as much as I thought.  🙂 Bruce Schneier http://www.schneier.com/ is the rightful coiner of the phrase “security theater”.]

5 Responses to “Planning Theater: Just Wasted Time”

  1. Jeff Grigg says:

    That’s inspired. I think I’ll have to use it.
    Thanks!
    – jeff

  2. Jonas says:

    Lol – I’ve actually basically used this by refusing to attend such meetings in my past: a couple of project managers on their own is enough to establish a disconnect from reality, they don’t need me there!

  3. […] must have been the morning to challenge planning efforts, as GeePawHill did here. I was answering a post that had gotten around to discussing budgeting and planning for […]

  4. Heh heh, “planning theater”, I like it!
    BTW, “security theater” was coined by Bruce Schneier:
    https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Security_theater