Plan A isn’t working out, so you decide to move on to Plan B.
That may be the best course of action, but before making the call to scrap Plan A entirely and jump right into Plan B, it may be worth considering:
- Did you give Plan A a fair shake in the first place?
- Is the problem with Plan A itself or with the implementation of Plan A? If the latter, can you improve the implementation?
- Are there parts of Plan A that are working well? Can you leverage those to remedy what isn’t working?
- Why isn’t Plan A working as expected? Will the same issues affect Plan B (or C, or D, or E)?
- While Plan A might not have led to a specific desired outcome, how did it impact the entire system?
- What’s unexpected about the implementation of Plan A? What insights can this offer?
Before you decide to move on to Plan B, understand if Plan A merits an iteration. Even if you determine that it doesn’t, you’ll gain insights that will support your efforts with Plan B.
