Rethink Your Approach to Business and Development Planning

​Many teams use a linear approach to planning that limits their ability to adapt to an ever-changing world. To drive success, advocate for iterative learning, small bets, and continuous refinement.

Have you heard of the waterfall model for planning? You spend weeks making a plan for next quarter or next year, and then simply execute the plan. Sounds simple enough. Unfortunately, this approach fails to adapt to necessary changes.

Winston Royce documented the waterfall model in 1970. The flow was logical and straightforward to explain. Soon, waterfall planning became deeply ingrained in both software development and broader business planning.

Many read his paper, but few recognized that he explicitly stated the model wouldn’t work in real life. He warned that a purely sequential approach, without iteration, is “risky and invites failure.” Unfortunately, that crucial warning was largely ignored, and waterfall planning is still in use decades later.

The Problem with a Linear Approach

The issue isn’t with the individual steps — research, requirements, analysis, design, coding, testing. The flaw lies in failing to learn at each stage, making the entire process inherently rigid and ineffective. Yet, many teams today still follow a similar approach: learn, describe, design, develop, test, and ship. Even in so-called agile environments, many implementations merely shrink the cycle from months to…