We all have to dabble in long range planning from time to time. An example in our personal lives is forming an agenda for next summer, picking a course to improve our skills, or choosing a town for our next move. In a similar way, the demands of the workplace might require us to predict changes in consumer tastes, forecast the growth of the economy, or anticipate breakouts in technology. 

Regardless of the domain, we need to prepare for the future if we hope to gain any measure of control over our lives. Without a plan for the long haul, we could end up like the eager tomboy who jumped on her horse and rode off in all directions.

The Future is Everybody’s Business

A basic task in long range planning is to scan the environment and seek out clues for the conditions down the line.  Unfortunately, the future is a foggy and shifty place where nothing is clear-cut as we look upon it from our vantage point in the present.

On one hand, the conditions downrange are shaped in part by a host of events in the present as well as the past. For instance, the courses we take today will determine the lineup of options available to us at the end of the course. In a similar way, the investments made in the past by all manner of companies will have a large impact on the state of the economy down the line and even the affluence of the nation as a whole.

To compound the challenge of prediction, the future is also subject to forces that have yet to play out. An example in the natural environment is an earthquake that erupts a couple of months down the line, or a landslide that occurs in the throes of a flash flood. In a similar way, a sample in the human domain is the outcrop of a seminal technology for automating production, or the outbreak of a devastating virus that clobbers the information highway.

In spite of the difficulties, though, scanning the environment for pointers to the future is a routine task in daily life as well as professional work.  On occasion, the planner has the good fortune to sketch the landmarks of the terrain downstream with great accuracy.  More often than not, though, the mapper turns out to be partly or even entirely off the mark.

It’s difficult to picture the future when the environment is so complex as well as roily. For this reason, making mistakes is par for the course for amateurs and professionals alike.

Bugbear of Planning

As we scour the environment in order to gather clues, certain tasks are clearly defined while others are not. An example of a straightforward task is the rise and fall of the tide in line with the movements of the Moon. Another sample is the number of teenagers in the population next year.

Granted, the forecasts in many cases can only be approximate rather than exact. Even so, the information sought can be identified before setting off on the quest.

On the other hand, there are numerous settings in which the object of the search is fuzzy at best. An example is the task of picking out the best town to live in for the next phase of our lives. Another sample is the array of prospective competitors that will jump into a newborn market.

In the first example, we have only a vague idea of the features that would make for a good choice of town. However, the best choice of destination will depend in part on what kind of work we plan to do; but the latter decision will depend in part on the choice of locale.

In the case of market strategy in a pristine market, we have scant idea where the rivals could come from. In fact, we don’t even know for sure what the market itself will look like a year or a decade down the line.

The lack of certitude, though, doesn't spare us from the need to make plans of one sort or another. Any type of reasonable plan is bound to be better than none at all.

In line with the earlier points, however, long range planning is a knotty task that is vulnerable to fumbles of all kinds. As a result, we’re sure to make a raft of mistakes along the way.

Pointers for the Future

The task of drumming up a long range plan has a number of similarities with the work of a detective. Moreover, the mistakes that can crop up arise also share a bunch of kindred traits.

To begin with, a routine form of blunder is the wrong choice of target. For instance, we could pick out one of the existing competitors in the current environment and point to it as the main threat in a budding niche. In due course, however, we may find that the biggest competitor turns out to be a brand-new venture that popped out of nowhere.

In that case, the slipup is a case of mistaken identity. The goof is directly analogous to a similar type of flub in detective work; namely, the case of a suspect who turns out to be innocent.

The same type of error could of course occur in the opposite direction. As a case in point, a planner might dismiss a particular technology as a minor factor within the industry. Yet the new-fangled scheme may take hold and in fact come to play a dominant role in the marketplace.

Shrinking Machines and Wilting Firms

The problem of hasty rejection is all too common in the realm of information technology. For instance, IBM was the pioneer and kingpin in the market for mainframes during the 1960s. Given its dominant position at the frontiers of technology, the heavyweight turned up its nose at minicomputers when they were introduced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) during the 1970s.

By the time IBM recognized its blunder and ventured into the budding market, it was too late. IBM never did manage to dislodge DEC from center stage during the era of minicomputers.

In due course, however, DEC committed exactly the same blunder when personal computers came of age during the 80s. The former upstart was too hidebound to see the typing on the wall. As it turned out, DEC never got a chance to correct its mistake.

As the personal computer chewed up the market for minicomputers, the kingdom ruled by DEC began to disappear. As the fusty company lost its vigor and teetered toward bankruptcy, it was bought up by a merchant of personal computers named Compaq.

This vignette illustrates the fact that the ignoring the real threat is a common goof-up in strategic planning. In the realm of police work, the analogy is clear enough: dismissing a felon who ends up going scot-free.

Hiding in Plain Sight

The bulk of the population has no connection to a particular crime.  For this reason as well as the problem of limited resources for a given investigation, the detective has to leave out most of the potential candidates from consideration.  The policy of overlooking just about everyone can lead at times to a muck-up.  An oversight arises when a party to a crime is considered but rejected as a suspect. There may even be times when the actual felon is not even considered at all as a potential suspect.

So far we’ve been talking about blunders of category. In other words, the decision maker chooses a particular prospect over the others. In that case, an error of commission crops up if the chosen candidate does not fill the role that was typecast. In the converse case, a flub of omission occurs if a prospect that was ignored turns out to be a major factor in reality.

The second class of mistakes deals with degree rather than category. In other words, the error stems from the scale or extent of a forecast rather than the choice of a particular candidate over the others.

Slippery Figures

A numeric botch arises when the sleuth misgauges the extent of a crime.  For instance, an overreach crops up when the suspected number of hoodlums exceeds the true size of the gang behind a heist.  On the flip side, an undershoot can ensue from an underestimate of the financial loss resulting from the robbery.

A faulty placement of an event in time is a widespread cause of flubs. In certain cases, the planner could be deemed to be partly correct if a prediction happens to be slightly misplaced in time.

A temporal flub could have a big or small impact depending on the particular context. If a cone of ice cream melts away faster than expected, then the fumbler might regret the loss of a slurp or two; but the world will continue to turn anyhow.

In a different setting, though, the impact of poor timing could be more serious. For instance, an overestimate of the timeline for hijacking a plane could be tantamount to a total failure. Even a few minutes might make the difference between preventing the calamity or watching helplessly from the sidelines. 

The converse of a lax bungle in time is moving oversoon. An example crops up when the good guys conduct a premature raid on a suspected powwow of foul fiends.  The mistiming simply alerts the hoods to the bust and prompts them to hold their summit elsewhere at a later date.

Everyone is a Sleuth

Although our daily lives might not match the drama of a crime fighter, we are all gumshoes to some extent. Each moment of every day, we have to stay on our toes just to make sure that the ground ahead will be firm enough to hold our weight. All day long, we piece together a rough picture of a shifty scene while making use of solid facts and wispy clues as well as and woolly tips and hazy hints. 

The need to scope the terrain ahead applies to decisions both large and small.  The same is true whether the planning horizon happens to be the near term or the far frame. 

Decisions with a long-term impact abound in our personal and professional lives.  A student has to select a major with only partial knowledge of his own aptitude and interests as well as economic conditions and professional prospects in store after graduation.  A parent has to counsel their child with sketchy information on trends and opportunities, whether in the current environment or the ensuing decades.  A manager has to decide on a project based on patchy dope on the likely costs and potential profits, not to mention the future actions of clients, partners and rivals in response to the very same initiative.

In these and other ways, planning is all around us. We can try to run from it, but we won’t get very far if we do.

Moving Right by Dodging Wrong

This article has talked about a broad framework to classify the host of fluffs that can beset a trekker on the way to the future. The task of surveying the landscape ahead is as challenging as any other form of activity in our daily lives.

The voyager has to seek out a sound path while taking into account the potential slips and likely costs of each choice. In plotting a course to the future, spotting the stumpers is a first step toward in moving in the right direction.

In a hazy and shifty landscape, the planner is sure to stumble into lots of pitfalls as they survey the ground ahead. With scanty — and often faulty — information at their fingertips, the mapper can’t hope to perform the task with a lot of accuracy or assurance.

Even so, the bogies of prediction do not relieve the tripper from the need to perform the task. For this reason, the trekker has to press ahead while lifting the odds of success by taking up the best tack at each stage. In a number of ways, long range planning calls for the skills of a sleuth.