Coaching practices for Survivability in Planning
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Survivability in Planning, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- My plans hold up fine until something throws them off
- I get swept up in how big the win could be and barely glance at what happens if it goes wrong
- My whole plan is a chain where every link has to hold
- I’m all-in on this plan and can barely make myself imagine it going wrong
- When I ask myself "what could go wrong with this plan," I either draw a blank or come up with one vague worry
Practices that may help
- Plan for obstacles with coping plans
Anticipate the specific obstacles most likely to block your plan and pre-decide your response to each.
Action Planning - Protect the downside before chasing the upside
Ask what the worst realistic outcome is and ensure you can survive it before evaluating the upside.
Margin of Safety - Design decisions so they work even if some things go wrong
Ask: does this plan require everything to go right? If so, redesign it.
Margin of Safety - Run a pre-mortem from the outside-view perspective
Imagine the project has failed — then ask which base-rate failure type caused it.
The Outside View - Run the basic pre-mortem
Assume the plan failed, then have everyone write down why.
The Pre-Mortem: Imagine It Already Failed - Name the assumptions that must hold for the plan to work
Every plan rests on assumptions — list them and ask how likely each one is.
Margin of Safety - Build plans with slack for outcomes outside your model
Reserve capacity for events that are not in your risk model — because the most damaging events usually aren’t.
The Ludic Fallacy: When You Mistake Real Life for a Game - Run a pre-mortem before committing to a plan
Imagine the plan has already failed and ask what went wrong.
Confirmation Bias: Seeing What You Expect to See - Separate the planning session from the execution day
Do your planning in a dedicated session, never on the day you intend to start.
The Planning Fallacy — Why Your Estimates Are Always Wrong - Run a premortem before committing
Imagine the project has already failed and work backwards to find why.
The Planning Fallacy — Why Your Estimates Are Always Wrong
Related concerns
- Failure Modes Planning
Imagine the project has failed — then ask which base-rate failure type caused it.
Run a pre-mortem from the outside-view perspective
- Find Flaws In Your Plan
Before starting, assume the plan has already failed and ask why — then fix it now.
The premortem (imagine the project already failed)
- Backward Planning Technique
Imagine the project has already failed and work backwards to find why.
Run a premortem before committing
- Black Swan Risk Planning
Reserve capacity for events that are not in your risk model — because the most damaging events usually aren’t.
Build plans with slack for outcomes outside your model
- Contingency Planning Goals
Anticipate the specific obstacles most likely to block your plan and pre-decide your response to each.
Plan for obstacles with coping plans
- Find The Flaw In Your Plan
Assume the plan failed, then have everyone write down why.
Run the basic pre-mortem
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.