Plan, Plan, Plan, then Execute

So three days at the Sales Conference. Someone has to do it, right! Well the great speaking event this year was two 20+ year old adventurers. Justin and James a couple of ordinary guys that think big and go for their dreams.

They had kayaked 3318km, braved 10 metre swells, faced howling winds of over 50 knots, endured severe food and sleep deprivation, wasting muscles and adverse winds and currents to become the first kayak expedition across the Tasman Sea as well as become the longest trans oceanic kayaking expedition undertaken by two expeditionary individuals.

But was was more interesting to me was that while it took 62 days to complete the mission there was 4 years of planning and hard graft that went into making the execution happen. I had the pleaseur to speak to Justin just before dinner and told him the math.

For every day of rowing there was in rounded terms 23.5 days of planning, and boy did they plan. They started by created pages of questions to which they had no answer and then set about looking to acquire through experts and from their own inquiry the answers necessary to create a blueprint for success.

Then having a list of question they then set about looking to build a virtual team of experts that would share the vision and who couldprovide them with the best minds and materials for answering the questions and propelling them forward towards success.

Having got the team and the questions starting to be nailed they also focused on making sure that they had a risk plan that covered off all the likely events that would or might happen while in their execution phase.

Great stuff guys ! and a great lesson for ECM'ers that are heading into the dream of content management, do the plan, work the plan, do the plan and then execution is simply a playing out of the moves that have already been set in place.

In fact if you take the 4 years *365 days and add 62 days and then do the division.

Planning = 96% of total
Execution = 4% of total

No wonder success was achieved, because as they stated we had the blueprint. For more information on this amazing feat check out James and Justin at their site crossing the ditch.