（本文经PMI授权转载，侵权必究）
避免战略意外：提防潜伏者！
本文推荐理由
我们常说好的计划是成功的一半，可见计划在大家心中的重要性，但本文从另一个视角告诉我们：有时候越详细的计划反而会把团队束缚在错误的假设里导致项目偏离目标正轨，经验丰富的项目经理经常取消了详细的规划，转而采用仅包含最重要里程碑的粗略路线图。IT 以外行业敏捷的兴起表明，越来越多的组织意识到需要适应性方法，而不是严格的长期规划。本文详细告诉我们在没有详细计划的前提下如何不断更新对项目和世界的理解，视角很独特！
战略项目中最具挑战性的惊喜是那些从一开始就隐藏在人们视线中的惊喜。
通常，我们谈论战略项目中的两种类型的惊喜：那些像晴天霹雳一样击中你的惊喜，以及那些悄悄靠近你，一点一点地让你偏离正轨的惊喜。这两种类型都需要一种特定的管理方法——前者的有效应急计划和危机响应，后者的改进监测和检测。然而，当我们通过与项目和战略从业者一起举办研讨会并分析学术文献来开始调查项目中的意外时，我们发现了第三类意外：潜伏者！
我们观察到，最令人烦恼的惊喜是那些从一开始就隐藏在人们视线中的惊喜。它们与导致项目偏离轨道的缓慢恶化环境无关，也与突然袭击项目的不可预见（或可能预见但被遗忘）事件无关。潜在的惊喜与我们对世界、项目或我们所做的一般或基本假设有关——这些假设后来证明是错误的。
这些基本假设导致计划从一开始就有缺陷。你认为这只是一个简单的IT项目，却没有看到它的真正含义：一个影响整个组织的杂乱无章的变革项目。你以为这只是你的普通建设项目，但实际上，它异常复杂。或者：你认为你的韩国工程师和他们的丹麦同事有相同的项目管理理念——然而，你的“标准”标签和名字对这两个群体有着完全不同的含义。
这些类型的意外、对世界是什么样子的有缺陷的假设非常普遍——但很难管理。这些潜在的惊喜的问题在于，它们是我们如何计划、计划什么以及我们如何看待与计划的偏差的基础。作为基础，你不能简单地改变这些假设而不在项目或组织中产生级联效应。
改变关于我们是谁和我们做什么的真正基本假设是痛苦的，对我们大多数人来说并不自然。因此，当事情开始恶化时，组织经常会跳出熟悉但错误的误区，问“我们如何才能回到正轨？”，而不是探索痛苦的问题：“我们应该走上正轨吗？”。或者，我们开始责怪他人行为的愚蠢，而不是质疑他们是否比我们更清楚地看待这个世界。最终，当项目或组织内的基本假设发生变化时，这有时会非常接近转变为新的信仰 - 并且头脑会转动。
总体而言，我们看到纠正这些假设是通过组织内部理解错位的过山车而发生的，产生混乱的阶段，其中失去了时间、资源和动力。所以，你可以做什么？
让我们从一个坏消息开始：更多的计划不会拯救你。当然，你会在前端通过更多的努力来识别和解决更多的问题；然而，过多的计划会产生意想不到的副作用。你计划得越多，你在计划周围的假设中就越根深蒂固，你就会对计划产生更多的情感依恋，结果，它变得越难挑战（错误的）假设并让计划消失。与其将计划视为它的本质——关于未来的想法——我们开始将其视为世界应有的蓝图。因此，经验丰富的项目经理经常报告说，他们取消了详细的规划，转而采用仅包含最重要里程碑的粗略路线图。IT以外行业敏捷的兴起表明，越来越多的组织意识到需要适应性方法，而不是严格的长期规划。
那么，如果没有更多计划，该怎么办呢？与具有挑战性的管理问题一样，答案通常与文化和沟通有关——并且没有简单的技术解决方案。为了避免对有缺陷的基本假设感到惊讶，您必须增强组织的能力，以不断更新您对世界的理解，无论是作为个人还是作为团队或团体。为此，请问自己以下问题：
您是否了解整个组织的假设？
随着时间的推移和小道消息，一些人的假设变成了其他人的感知事实。在我们的研讨会中，我们观察到项目团队通常与他们的经理对项目的关键性有着截然不同的看法。
你最顽固地捍卫的错误假设是什么？
克服它们需要什么？许多组织开发了自己的一组特定盲点，使它们特别容易受到攻击。
意见领袖在您的组织内是如何分布的？
是否有少数人选择了对项目、组织或世界的规范解释，而这些解释是没有受到挑战的——或者您的组织是否为相互竞争的假设提供了空间？我们经常发现，组织中至少有一些人不同意占主导地位的叙述，但直到更糟的情况才被听到。
你如何应对错误？
组织中的人——无论是为了他们的职业生涯还是为了他们的情绪健康——承认他们有错误的假设是否安全？还是承认自己错了比错更糟糕——只要你能继续责怪别人?
我们发布了一份（免费）研讨会指南，其中收集了最适合我们和我们合作的组织来管理意外的做法。它旨在帮助您发现具体的行动要点，以改进您的规划、监控和沟通实践。
最后有一个好消息：根据我们的经验，识别和管理意外的有效方法与意外本身一样多种多样。但是把这个话题提上议程可以让你避免——并更好地管理——意外。
英文原文
The most challenging surprises in strategic projects are those that have been hiding in plain sight from the beginning.
Usually, we talk about two types of surprises in strategic projects: those that hit you like a flash out of a blue sky, and those that creep up on you, nudging you off track, bit by bit. Either type requires a specific approach to manage – efficient contingency plans and crisis response for the former, improved monitoring and detection for the latter. However, when we started to investigate surprises in projects by running workshops with project and strategy practitioners and analysing the academic literature, we discovered a third class of surprises: the lurkers!
We observed that the most bothersome surprises were those that had been hiding in plain sight from the beginning. They were not related to a slowly deteriorating environment that leads the project off course, nor where they unforeseen (or maybe foreseen but forgotten) events that suddenly strike the project. Lurking surprises relate to general or fundamental assumptions that we make about the world, the project, or us – assumptions that later turned out to be wrong.
These fundamental assumptions lead to plans that are flawed from the beginning. You thought it was just a straightforward IT project and failed to see what it really is: a messy change project that affects the whole organisation. You thought it was just your run-of-the-mill construction project, but actually, it is unusually complex. Or: you thought that your Korean engineers had the same ideas of project management as their Danish colleagues – yet, your ‘standard’ labels and names bear entirely different meanings for those two groups.
These types of surprises, flawed assumptions about what the world is like, are incredibly common – but very hard to manage. The problem with these lurking surprises is that they lie at the foundation of how we plan, for what we plan, and how we perceive deviations from the plan. Being that fundamental, you cannot simply change these assumptions without creating a cascade of effects in the project or organisation.
Changing a truly fundamental assumption about who we are and what we do is painful and does not come natural to most of us. Thus, when things start to deteriorate, organisations often bark up the familiar, yet wrong tree, asking “How can we get back on track?”, rather than exploring the painful question: “Should we even be on that track?”. Or, we start blaming the stupidity of the actions of others, rather than questioning whether they might see the world more clearly than we do. When, eventually, fundamental assumptions change within a project or organisation, this sometimes comes critically close to converting to a new faith – and heads will roll.
Overall, we saw that rectifying these assumptions happens through a rollercoaster of misaligned understandings within organisations, producing phases of confusion in which time, resources, and momentum are lost. So what can you do?
Let us start with a piece of bad news: more planning will not save you.Certainly, you will identify and address a few more issues by more diligence in the front end; however, too much planning creates unintended side effects. The more you plan, the more entrenched you get in the assumptions around the plan, the more emotionally attached to the plan you will be, and in consequence, the harder it will become challenge (wrong) assumptions and let the plan go. Instead of treating the plan as what it is – an idea about the future – we start treating it as a blueprint for what the world is supposed to be. Experienced project managers therefore often report that they abolish detailed planning in favour of rougher road maps featuring only the most important milestones. The rise of agile in industries beyond IT indicates that more and more organisations realise the need for adaptive methods, rather than rigorous long-term planning.
So what to do instead, if not plan more? The answer, as so often for challenging managerial issues, relates to culture and communication – and does not have a simple technical solution. To avoid being surprised by flawed fundamental assumptions, you have to enhance your organisation’s capabilities to continuously update your understanding of the world, both as individuals and as teams or groups. To do so, ask yourself the following:
Are you even aware of the assumptions held across the organisation?
l Over time and whispered through the grapevine, assumptions of some become the perceived facts of others. In our workshops, we observed that the project teams often had diametrically different perceptions than their managers regarding what makes the project critical.
What were the faulty assumptions that you defend most tenaciously?
l What was necessary to overcome them? Many organisations develop their own set of specific blind spots that make them particularly vulnerable.
How is opinion leadership distributed within your organisation?
l Do a few select individuals create a canonical interpretation of the project, the organisation, or the world, which goes unchallenged – or does your organisation provide room for competing assumptions? Often we discovered that at least some people in the organisation did not agree with the dominant narrative yet were not heard until worse comes to worst.
How do you cope with being wrong?
l Is it safe for people in your organisation – both for their career and their emotional wellbeing – to admit that they have had wrong assumptions? Or is admitting that you are wrong worse than being wrong – as long as you can keep blaming others?
We have published a (free) workshop guide that collects the practices that worked the best for us and the organisations we worked with to manage surprises. It is designed to help you discover specific action points for improving your planning, monitoring, and communication practices.
A bit of good news at the end: In our experience, effective ways to identify and manage surprises are as varied as surprises themselves. But putting the topic on the agenda gets you halfway to avoiding – and better managing – surprises.
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