[jeddy3]

I feel like you are talking about something more like roadmap.

Of course long term plans/road maps have their place when everybody agrees on that it is an "idea of what's coming"

However most long term plans I have encountered at my last two companies have absolutely been treated as commitments to detailed plans two years ahead of time, before we have no idea what we really want.

This is causing project members constantly stressing/hurting about not meeting plan still years after everyone knows that the plan does reflect real life anymore.

[worldsayshi]

I think there's a lot of confusion in this area. A long term plan tends to become too rigid, making us unable to respond to change. If we are dealing with a complex problem where the outcome is hard to predict this is a death sentence to the project.

On the other hand having only short term "agile" plans can on the extreme end turn us reactive and without any focus. If we are dealing with a "big" problem this is a death sentence for the project.

If the project is big complex and hard to predict we have to be able to be agile on both the short term and the long term, and sometimes on the really really long term, all at the same time. Oh, and also for the group and the whole organisation at the same time.

[d--b]

No, in my team we've been doing 1y actual plans for the past twelve years, with time estimates and project breakdowns and who's going to do what and when.

It just works very well for us.

[kqr]

What does work well mean? Compared to what, and is that a fair comparison?

Long term plans "work", but by sticking to them you might be giving up opportunities to do something more profitable. They can also "work" in the sense that the culture encourages abandoning them if something more profitable comes up, but then you've spent time planning for something that doesn't happen.

How often do you decide to abandon your long-term plan for something more profitable? And how often do you decide to pass up on something more profitable to stick to the plan?

[specialist]

> something more like roadmap

Yes and: Strategy & Tactics

Beyond the inability to reason about stuff, not even asking Who What Why When Where and How, the inability to divide & conquer, the hostility to verifying assumptions (eg will any one buy our stuff?), etc. etc.

I've met very few people, any where, in business or politics, that can war game scenarios. Much less reason about tactical decisions. Or even know the difference between strategy and tactics.

My hunch, totally unvalidated, is a strategic thinker isn't especially smart or talented, so much as everyone else is fantastically, tragically inept.

I always marveled about the rise of Microsoft. Sure, they did some good stuff, made some good moves. (And then later was simply criminal.) But OMG their competition was terrible. Ashton-Tate, WordPerfect, Novell, Lotus, and probably a zillion others. So many defeated themselves. Microsoft was like the Bolsheviks; they found power lying on the street, after every one else imploded.

[gadders]

>> However most long term plans I have encountered at my last two companies have absolutely been treated as commitments to detailed plans two years ahead of time, before we have no idea what we really want.

That is an issue with your company, not plans themselves. I'd agree with avoiding long term plans in a disfunctional organisation.