Long term plans do not work out, because we have the wrong format for them.
A long term plan should be not a linear chain of events. But a scenario-tree. You are always at root - the now. Now you gain a new a capabilitz or the world changes around you, and the tree adapts. Its branches thicken were they become more likely. Unlikely scenario branches wither away. The whole structure is recursive, one capability reached makes other capabilities more reachable, but might introduce risks, that shrink the whole tree down.
This scenario tree is not focused on a single product, as a product is just one of many expression of a capability. But when the capability is reached, the whole thing has changed, including your view on risks and rewards while moving on. So pivoting might be in order. Meanwhile others move to similar trees, and change the world around you for the better and the worse.
To compress this structure down into a "historylike" sequence of events, is the main fallacy. The past may be a linear graph, but none the less a ever changing root-recursive-tree was traversed by those moving within it.
I think this is asking too much of people. Like what are you saying? We literally create a possibility tree as a plan? That has so little utility compared to just creating the next two possibilities and choosing between the one that is most likely.
I think the problem with the long term plan is the destination. If your plan is based on being in a specific state (“I want us to have made this product in one year.”), it’s doomed because it’s very hard to target something that accurately that far away with everything that comes along as the posted article elaborates.
We should be shooting for an outcome. “I want us to have a way for our users to do X in a year.” That way, you’re less trying to wrestle a shoe onto a goose, and more coaxing something into shape based on where you want it to go. It also prescribes less so the path toward completion can always be optimal. For example, I know that for our users to be able to do X, we need to house the data in a certain way and expose these other services in a certain way. After those steps are achieved (or maybe they fail), we now know where we are in this moment and can take the next optimal path.
You dont have to map out the entire probability space, but for each stage maybe you can have 3 scenarios the good, the bad, the nominal. Then you can start adding decisions to each stage and see how different decision strategies (decision sequences) have different outcomes (expected, worst case, best case, value at risk etc).
A long term plan should be not a linear chain of events. But a scenario-tree. You are always at root - the now. Now you gain a new a capabilitz or the world changes around you, and the tree adapts. Its branches thicken were they become more likely. Unlikely scenario branches wither away. The whole structure is recursive, one capability reached makes other capabilities more reachable, but might introduce risks, that shrink the whole tree down.
This scenario tree is not focused on a single product, as a product is just one of many expression of a capability. But when the capability is reached, the whole thing has changed, including your view on risks and rewards while moving on. So pivoting might be in order. Meanwhile others move to similar trees, and change the world around you for the better and the worse.
To compress this structure down into a "historylike" sequence of events, is the main fallacy. The past may be a linear graph, but none the less a ever changing root-recursive-tree was traversed by those moving within it.