

Product planning is just a waste of time. - hajrice
http://emilhajric.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/product-planning-is-just-a-waste-of-time/

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ajg1977
Instead of an excess of planning it sounds more like the author approached his
startup without any real plan whatsoever.

After attributing failure to spending three months on mockups and market
research before doing any actual development, the author concludes with:

 _After the past experiences I don’t plan anything. I don’t even do market
research... We just jump in and start developing, after doing some sorta
brainstorming(what features we should add, etc). We ask a couple of target
users what they think and decide whether we’re gonna add that feature or not._

No, you ARE still making plans, they just happen to be ones that are better
and more appropriate.

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hajrice
You didn't really realize the point of the post. The point is you can't plan
on "third-party factors" nor can you plan on how the product will "act" a lot
upfront. You kinda just have to dive in and feel the vibe.

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ajg1977
If there was a point to be gleamed I think it's more that planning should
drive your goals, not planning just for the sake of having a plan.

Guess what: "Dive in and feel the vibe" is still a plan.

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a-priori
"Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential" -- Winston
Churchill

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ZachPruckowski
"No plan survives contact with the enemy" more or less sums this up.

I see it as a trade-off - you do need a lot of flexibility to adapt to
unexpected things and disappointments and successes, but at the same time, you
need to make good decisions fast. Planning is basically speculative decision-
making, and that's valuable.

The kind of planning that I think works better is a web-style plan - less
focused plans that cover more contingencies and are applicable in different
circumstances. Have a general idea of what to do as a response to major
stimuli, and have some ideas of things which build well upon each other.
"Well, if we have a lot of users, we can leverage that to do X" is a plan that
works somewhat independently of how you got those users, for instance. "If we
wind up needing to boost traffic at some point, our ace-in-hole can be Y", or
"If Z happens, we can capitalize on that by doing Q".

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jpwagner
Did he mean: " _Poor_ product planning is just a waste of time."

