The article itself advocates that one should "split complex requirements into multiple simple ones." So I don't disagree here, at least I don't think I do.
If we have a differing interpretation of what the article is motivating for, then please take the opportunity to contemplate an additional perspective and let it enrich your own.
There are two extremes, having everything you do planned up front, and literally planning nothing and just doing stuff.
The power of agile is supposed to be "I don't need to figure this out now, I'll figure it out based on experimentation" which doesn't mean nothing at all is planned.
If you're not planning a mission to Jupiter, you don't need every step planned out before you start. But in broad strokes it's also good to have a plan.
The optimum is to have some recorded shape of the work to come but to give yourself space to change your mind based on your experiences and to plan the work so you can change the plan.
The backlash against waterfall is the result of coming up with very detailed plans before you start, having those plans change constantly during the whole project requiring you to throw away large amounts of completed work, and when you find things that need to change, not being able to because management has decided on The Plan (which they will decide something new on later, but you can't change a thing).
For some decisions, the best time to plan is up front, for other decisions the best time to design is while you're implementing. There's a balance and these things need to be understood by everybody, but they are generally not.
I like to split out exploration and discovery (research) as a third step (the first step) in the process. Before a plan can be devised research needs to be conducted. The more time between research, planning, and execution increases the likelihood of rework or failure.
The best time to plan is dependent on how stable/unstable the environment is.
There are some things that just can't be discovered until you're in the middle of things. Try it one way and discover that another way is much better.
That is, without spending 10x to 100x the time up front to get it right the first time. But if you're not building space ships or nuclear reactors, it's so much faster and better to just do it and figure out things along the way. So much time spent planning and guessing about the future is time wasted and that's why early stage startups can do something in a week that would take an old enterprise 5 years.
"no plan survives first contact with the enemy"
And that's the source of agile and why too much planning is just wasting time for management to have something to do. No I don't know exactly what I'm going to do or when it'll be done, and if you leave it like that I'll get it done faster.
I agree. "Plans are worthless, but planning is invaluable." Its the process of thinking thru things, identifying risks, and having a few possible backup plans.
