No one plans to fail
by Rich Carango, April 7th, 2008
“No one plans to fail, they just fail to plan.” It’s one of the oldest clichés on the planet, it’s certainly one of the most time worn axioms in the business universe, but it’s as true today as it ever was. Need proof? Look at what happened to the U.S. Census Bureau when it failed to plan. Now, no one ever cited the government as a good role model for business, but there’s hardly a more textbook case to illustrate the need for planning, and nowhere is planning more important than in communications programs.
The Census Bureau had 10 years to plan for the upcoming 2010 census and its conversion to electronic data collection. But their budget went from $600 million to $1.3 billion – more than double the original projection. But wait, the original scope of work included 500,000 computers ($1,200 each). The revised program will include just 151,000 units, which raises the cost per unit to $8,609. Cost adjusted to the original size of the program (500,000 computers) that’s $4.3 billion – seven times the original budget!
How did this happen? According to Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, “a lack of effective communication.”
The fact is that the bureau kept changing the specifications for its system but had already contracted for their manufacture, clearly a case of horse/cart inversion.
The point here is that entities – government or business – need to not only to plan, but to plan according to an appropriate step-by-step process to maintain budgets and timelines. Many companies develop communications plans before they know what the market wants, and very often before they even know their own product’s capabilities. Then they’re stunned when the plan and the product fail.
Planning doesn’t mean that there’s no room to change. A good communications plan will be flexible, but planning without research and certain fixed parameters is as good as no plan at all. Further, you must plan in the proper order. Otherwise, your company will end up using No. 2 pencils when everyone else is using computers.