Many people become stressed when asked to plan a project or activity. They start at the beginning and quickly become mired in specifics and detail. This is particularly true of people in operational roles, where the normal work within their day is to react to situations as they arise.

The best way to counter this is to over-index on describing what the outcome of the project or activity will look like and feel like to the people affected by it.

Once a tangible vision has been shared, and critically, once we capture how achieving that vision will make us FEEL, we can deliver the plan in reverse, by describing what needs to happen the week before that feeling is delivered, and the week before that, and so on until we reach the present.

The added advantage is that, with a clear vision of what success looks like and feels like, we can adapt the plan as required to operational realities, whilst all the time keeping the end goal in mind.