Planning-The Critical Element

Planning is a critical element of management that inevitably contributes heavily to the end result. In the absence of planning or the lack of proper planning, the end result of a project is typically being incomplete, or flawed; rarely is the end result perfect without perfect planning. In the case of attempting to drop an egg from 10 feet and land it safely with only the use of 8 straws and 2 feet of masking tape, clearly efficient planning is the most valuable asset. Typically there is 5 steps to properly planning and following through to reach your objective: They are 1. Define your goals and objectives. 2 Determine your resources and current status vis a vis objectives. 3 Develop several alternative strategies. 4. Make a tactical plan. 5. Implement the plan and evaluate the results. In my group's case we unfortunately bypassed step2, step 3, and step 4, and actually went through step1 and step 5. My group performed step 1 because it was absolutely imperative to even making an attempt at solving the problem at hand. Also, step one was also partially laid out for us when the objective of the exercise was officially presented. We did not perform step 2 or determine where we stood because it seemed implicitly defined with the presentation of exercise. However, had we gone ahead with step 2 we may have been able to better define the strength of our materials (tape, egg and straws) and what the biggest issue is with the challenge (height). We did not perform step 3 because we did not have enough time after taking too long to agree upon a solution-design, and also because we were sure our original solution would be adequate. Step 4 wasn't performed because frankly we ran out of time and had to vote on which plan to follow through on at the last second. We did perform step 5, because we had a fairly in depth idea which required as much time as possible; Therefore we needed to have someone keep a very close watch on the time. All in all, given that as a group our planning efforts were extremely poor, we were very fortunate to have almost succeded in protecting (40%) the egg. In fact, we only failed because of a single, minimal crack. To have done a better job, my group could have followed through every step with precision. This would have allowed us to better allocate our time, plan out who should follow through with performing tasks in constructing the solution, and better define the strengths and weaknesses of the group. Another issue that my group faced is that a few of the ideas that our group came up with were fairly good, but we voted on them before everyone had a clear understanding of what the design was before we voted on it. That way a better decision can be made regarding which design is the best option. We came so close with only performing 40% of the planning process, had we performed any more, we could have succeeded in dropping the egg safely from 10 feet.