If you want to demonstrate the levels of integrity, accuracy and clarity you want in written work, try asking these questions of the documents you receive from others... or of those you write yourself ! Train your staff in the practical methods and then establish these principles as the standard you require for planning and other critical written work in your organisation!

1. NUMBERS
Why isn't the improvement Quantified ?

Does the proposal in front of you promise that if it is adopted, something will be 'better', 'improved', 'enhanced' ? That's great. But exactly how much will the 'something' be better, improved, enhanced (or reduced) ? From what, to what ? From what amount, to what amount ?

By insisting that all claims of this kind are quantified with a numeric scale of measure, you are not asking for an unknowable degree of precision. You are however, asking that ballpark figures accompany any such claims.

It will clarify just what degree of better, improved or enhanced was intended and lead to a shared understanding, shared expectations and the basis for measuring the objectives and alternative approaches.

Of course, you are likely to be met with the objection "these things can't be quantified". What they are really saying, is that they don't know how to quantify them. But help is at hand !

All aims can be quantified. As a start in that direction, here's an introductory article on how to do it.

2. RISK
What is the risk or uncertainty and why ?

It is one thing to put a number on an objective, but quite another to quantitatively estimate how much the reality might vary. "The requirement from our customers is 99% portability at least!" How sure are you? Well, nothing is absolutely for sure! But that is the number Marketing came up with.

But if you insist on knowing what variation that number could be subject to, you could get this kind of answer... "Most of our customers only need 90% or less. A few new market areas probably require 99% or more. One prospect has been identified who wants 99.99% or better". Suddenly, the game has changed.

We need to understand the variation, not just some average or maximum. Insist as a normal practice, that all estimates include an uncertainty estimate, and a reason in writing for that uncertainty.

Uncertainty is a way of expressing how wrong you would be if you only used the one number in your planning. Above all, this question makes people think about what they know, to inquire more deeply, and to plan for the variation.

3. DOUBT
Are you sure ? If not, in what way are you not sure ?

Most planning these days is done under conditions of great uncertainty. New markets, new competitors, new regulations, new technology - yet we cannot let these factors be an excuse for sloppy planning. In fact, those are the very reasons we need the discipline of recognising and advising that we can't sure, and why not. For example...

"UNIX is the standard of the future". Are you sure? Of course, everybody in the industry says so. What % of systems in OUR marketplace in five years will use UNIX ? "I don’t know"! Then please make an estimate and break it down by customer type. Then say after the analysis, it turns out that: "Less than 40% (plus or minus 20%) of our customers will require or use UNIX in five years".

It gives an understanding of uncertainty and risk, and feeds into your informed decision-making.

4. SOURCE
Where did you get that information ? How can we verify it ?

All too few planning and business documents (in our experience) take the trouble to credit their sources. If sources are not documented, they cannot easily be checked. If they are not checked, they can easily be wrong, outdated or not credible.

If people know that sources can and will be checked, they will take more trouble to be accurate in the first place.

You can use a little left arrow "fact < source" as a simple shorthand for giving the source, and insist that every critical fact has its source documented briefly. For example: "Our present service level is 80% < Quality Audit May this year page 65."

5. IMPACT
How does your idea affect my goals ?

It's human nature. Everybody has an opinion about their favourite strategy, technique or product. But, few can give you substantiated numeric facts about how their suggestion will impact all of your critical success factors: benefits, qualities, time and costs. But that's what we need for effective operational and project management.

By exactly how much do you expect your proposal to help ? By what amount and in what time scale ? Sometimes just getting a number and an uncertainty estimate and a source, even if shaky, is useful, For example...

"the impact on our reliability quality objectives is 50% of the target (±20%) <Wild Guess by Jones.". Now we have the beginnings of an objective idea of what is expected, and we have an idea of the degree of uncertainty with the proposal.

6. ALL CRITICAL FACTORS
Did we forget anything critical ?

There are many dozens of factors which can cause the death of the best laid plan. There are too many factors to pretend to identify and control them all directly. Some are so obscure and improbable, that we just have to await their first warning signs, structure our plans to be able to respond as best we can, and hope we can act in time to avert failure.

Total control over even a few critical factors (for example meeting deadlines, budgets and two critical quality areas) is actually quite difficult for most organisations. A practical approach is for planners to limit themselves to planning for a "top ten" critical success factors with numeric control. Full control even of these few is beyond the capabilities of all but the most practiced organisations.

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