Messing around or improvising? That’s the question.

Our previous blog was about the importance of continuously going through the plan-do-check-act process. Devise what you're going to do, do it, then check if it went as planned, and if not: adjust your plan. In this blog, we zoom in on the first part of this process: planning. Also known as improvising 2.0.

Knowledge makes the difference

There are all sorts of ways to plan. People often plan based on experience. That's not wrong in itself, because experience is important. But the word 'experience' isn't in the Dictionary of Confusablesfor nothing. You have experience in something if you possess expertise or knowledge, not if you just have a feeling about something. The word 'knowledge' makes the difference. Because true planning is done based on knowledge, on facts, on experiences that you have recorded in systems.

‘If you don't plan, you're just messing around’

No matter how solid the plan, we now know – yes, from experience – that something in the schedule always changes the moment you set off in the morning. You might quickly be handed an extra package, or you receive a notification that someone on your route unexpectedly isn't home. And there's little point in driving somewhere if you know no one will answer. So, planning isn't static; it's dynamic, and you must accept that dynamism as a given. A wise man once told us: ‘If you don't plan, you're just messing around. If you do plan and have to adjust your schedule, then you're improvising.’ That's a truism. You can only improvise if you have a plan to work from. Otherwise, you're just messing around, and we don't like that.

199 tabs full of data

A while ago, we visited a large company. We won't mention names, of course, but believe us, you know the company. They had introduced a new, revolutionary planning system. The old planning system consisted of A4 paper that would be sorted around 2 AM. The new, revolutionary system was called… Excel! The only drawback? Only the guy who designed it knew how to make sense of the 199 tabs full of data.

By plane over the A1

If we look at the different phases of planning, we see that companies originally planned on paper. At some point, they switch to Excel, but they essentially do no more than copy the old paper-based method to Excel's digital 'paper'. The next phase is switching from Excel to a planning system. But even there, things often go wrong because people cling to existing workflows: the planning system is set up as if it were still about that stack of loose sheets of paper. This has everything to do with a form of maturity. You need to change your workflow. Otherwise, it's like navigating a plane above the highway from Amsterdam via the Antwerp Ring to Calais, and then via the A1 to Paris, only to conclude there that a plane is a worthless mode of transport.

Just quickly replan

If you switch to a planning solution, use it as a planning solution is intended. In the old situation, you would plan at 2 AM. If an extra package came in during the morning, it caused chaos. With a good planning system, you can just quickly replan. Of course, you need to consider the number of vehicles and the people you have, but you can quickly adjust the route planning. That's what you call improvising 2.0.

Want to know more?

In two weeks, we'll zoom in on the next phase: do. You'll drive and deliver packages, and in the meantime, you'll collect data to plan better next time. Want to know more now? Feel free to contact us via the contact form or call us at 030 – 7600 018.