Natural Planning Model: Organizing

Michael Ramone

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Something that has been bothering me.

I have several projects that I have been planning with the Natural Planning Model. The first 3 steps—defining purpose and principles, outcome visioning, and brainstorming—are straightforward and came naturally to me, as the name of the model suggests. Step 5, identifying next actions, is also straightforward and will likely give me no grief.

But step 4, organizing, has me confused. The book reads as follows:

* Identify the significant pieces
* Sort by (one or more):
* Components
* Sequences
* Priorities
* Detail to the required degree

Right off the bat, I'm confused. We do this effortlessly in our heads, of course, but I'm more concerned about what it means when I'm doing it on paper. I don't know that to which "pieces" is referring; I don't know what I am sorting and why I would be sorting it; I don't know what components, sequences, or priorities are; I don't know what detailing to the required degree looks like.

Anyone have an example of going from brainstormed list to organized structure? Any examples will be appreciated.
 

Gardener

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I have no clue, but that never stops me. If I imagine that I have an umbrella project, "Early Year to Late Year garden transition", I could imagine it having the following components, each of which would spawn a number of actions or smaller projects. Then as I come up with things I need to do, they will likely sort into one of those areas, or I'll realize I'm missing an area.

* The crop plan--What, when, and where crops are coming in and out.

* Getting stuff to plant--raising seedlings, buying seeds/roots/plants.

* Completed crop harvesting--Getting out and processing the bulk-harvest stuff I want to eat/keep. (Example: Onions)

* Clearing--Getting out the stuff that's waste at the end, and getting it disposed of. (Example: Tomato plants)

* Prepping the ground for new crops--obtaining amendments, flipping beds, new T posts, debugging and adjusting irrigation.

Again, I have no clue. But I post in case this is useful, if just for people to point out how I've gotten it wrong. :)
 

Cpu_Modern

Registered
Let's take a carpenter and as our example project "building a custom tailored kitchen cabinet."

After talking to the client the outcome vision is something like "client X is thrilled to cook in a most fashionable kitchen build out of over five different tropical exotic sorts of wood."

Now, the components would neatly fall into a sequence of milestones:

1. blueprint for cabinets is signed-off by client X
2. all needed exotic materials have arrived,
3. date for construction is set
4. construction is successfully finished
5. client X has payed every bill

So at this point the Next Action would be something like @calls - make appointment with client X to take measurements of kitchen, which would bring us towards completion of the first milestone above.

Priorities for this project could be:

1. Envise fashionable, exotic and original kitchen cabinet.
2. Do not save costs, save utility.
3. Should be ready for Thanksgiving at the last.

You know, all the specific things that are important to be true to have completed the project successfully.
 

mcogilvie

Registered
Something that has been bothering me.

I have several projects that I have been planning with the Natural Planning Model. The first 3 steps—defining purpose and principles, outcome visioning, and brainstorming—are straightforward and came naturally to me, as the name of the model suggests. Step 5, identifying next actions, is also straightforward and will likely give me no grief.

But step 4, organizing, has me confused. The book reads as follows:

* Identify the significant pieces
* Sort by (one or more):
* Components
* Sequences
* Priorities
* Detail to the required degree

Right off the bat, I'm confused. We do this effortlessly in our heads, of course, but I'm more concerned about what it means when I'm doing it on paper. I don't know that to which "pieces" is referring; I don't know what I am sorting and why I would be sorting it; I don't know what components, sequences, or priorities are; I don't know what detailing to the required degree looks like.

Anyone have an example of going from brainstormed list to organized structure? Any examples will be appreciated.
OK, let’s unpack this. David Allen says no two projects are ever exactly the same. He also has no idea what your projects are like, but is dealing with general principles. In fact, this is the piece of the model that is what most people mean by project planning.

Suppose you are reorganizing your company. Or your home. You have components. The question is: what goes where? Do we move marketing and sales into one unit? Does the couch stay under the window?

Suppose you are putting in a garden. You can’t plant seed you don’t have, so sequencing (and timing) are key.

Now suppose you are planning an ad campaign or remodeling your kitchen, in either case with a budget in mind. What are the priorities? How much on social media? If we keep the old refrigerator, can we replace the stove?

In larger projects, you will deal with project components, sequencing and priorities many times. We remodeled our kitchen a year ago, and that was surely the case.

Hope this helps.
 

Michael Ramone

Registered
OK, let’s unpack this. David Allen says no two projects are ever exactly the same. He also has no idea what your projects are like, but is dealing with general principles. In fact, this is the piece of the model that is what most people mean by project planning.

Suppose you are reorganizing your company. Or your home. You have components. The question is: what goes where? Do we move marketing and sales into one unit? Does the couch stay under the window?

Suppose you are putting in a garden. You can’t plant seed you don’t have, so sequencing (and timing) are key.

Now suppose you are planning an ad campaign or remodeling your kitchen, in either case with a budget in mind. What are the priorities? How much on social media? If we keep the old refrigerator, can we replace the stove?

In larger projects, you will deal with project components, sequencing and priorities many times. We remodeled our kitchen a year ago, and that was surely the case.

Hope this helps.
Perhaps keeping such low-level details out of mind is best. I'll just follow my instinct and organize my projects by whichever definitions of components, sequences, and priorities suit them.

I like your suggestion of using the passive periphrastic for project names from the other day, by the way. As a practitioner of Latin, I appreciate the out-of-the-box thinking. Although I don't use it—I reverted to using the imperative, as in "Stock medicine drawer with bandaids"—the thought still interests me. Tibi ago gratias.
 

PeterByrom

Registered
The simplest way I would put it is to draw a distinction between brainstorming and planning:

Brainstorming: capture every single idea or piece of data that comes to mind about the project, and don’t make any judgements or decisions about them.

Planning: take everything from the brainstorm and start judging and make decisions about it!

The big problem is that when people plan, they often judge and try to formalise too early what is a “good” idea or a “good” plan. So, hold back from this during the ideas stage, and then once you’ve gathered all of the ideas, now is the time for you to unleash the critic and lay into what you will do with the raw material that is the brainstorm.

So it’s all about when the critic and the decision-maker are allowed to come out. Before stage four of the natural planning model, they’ve been chained and gagged (or at least waiting in a green room to be called for when they can participate)! :)
 
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