A recent dialogue with an expert in strategic planning as practiced by the U.S. Army, a retired Lieutenant Colonel, raised the issue of planning efficiency. The question was whether a planning process made efficient use of resources, with one thought being that however effective planning is in the Army, planning and plan implementation by the Army are, by nature, less efficient because the Army, as a people-intensive organization, tends to "throw people at the problem."
Planning efficiency is an issue of great concern, especially for organizations that, unlike the Army, are not people-rich and can't mandate planning and execution the same way a command and control based organization can. For many organizations, inefficiency in planning contributes to bad plans or bad execution, or the avoidance of formal strategic planning altogether.
Planning efficiency relates to the idea of planning elegance, which we raised in a previous post, Look for the elegant strategy. We wrote, "Elegant strategies are not about effort or hard work. They are about rightness, about use of the minimum amount of effort required to achieve the desired result. Elegant strategies conserve resources and enable other strategies to be implemented and achieved."
The idea of elegance actually can be applied not just to the strategies that are created in a planning process, but to the process overall and to the implementation of the strategies.
By its nature, an elegant planning process is efficient. Being efficient means using the least amount of resources possible, most notably the fixed asset of time and the often unaccounted for asset of management attention, which, when misspent, creates net opportunity costs.
Yet, efficiency somehow is lacking as the best term for describing what we are after in promoting elegance in planning. The reason is that efficiency is not hinged to effectiveness. Envision a highly efficient production process, creating products with consistent, rapid precision. Now envision no market for these products, no demand or buyer. Indeed, the process is efficient, but it is not effective.
We are led to the seldom used term "parsimony." Its more common meaning is stinginess, excessive frugality. But according to The Free Dictionary, parsimony also means "Adoption of the simplest assumption in the formulation of a theory or in the interpretation of data, especially in accordance with the rule of Ockham's razor."
Melding these meanings produces the idea of restricting resource use to just the right amount needed to deliver the desired result. In the context of strategic planning, a parsimonious planning process limits the time, attention and resources used to the minimumm required to create and implement the strategies that move the organization to a shared vision of future success.
Parsimonious planning is planning that is a means, not an end. When planning is the end, resources are wasted, diverted from other efforts and investments that can deliver improvement. With parsimonious planning, planning is the means to the end of greater success. Parsimonious planning uses an elegant process restricting resources committed to just those needed to create and implement elegant strategies. Parsimonius planning is the effective and efficient way to deliver transformational change that creates significantly greater value for stakeholders.
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