Take on the “Impossible”
How the Just-in-Time Planning Process
Ensures You Finish Complex, Long-Term Projects
Next Offering:
Virtual (Video Conference)
Saturday, May 2 & Sunday, May 3, 2020
2:00 – 5:30 p.m. Eastern
This class teaches a revolutionary way to plan complex, long-term projects so you can finish them. I call this approach “Just-in-Time Planning,” because it rejects both the over-planning that bogs down many ambitious undertakings, and the arbitrary “just do something” approach, which leads to shoddy work and wasted effort.
How much time has gone down the drain in ambitious projects that are never finished? How many work projects limp along without results until mercifully canceled?
When there’s been time invested, but no progress, it can seem like the task is impossible. But that is rarely the case. Moreover, when you have a desire to do something you believe is impossible, that is a signal that there’s an important value at stake. Why else would you — or your company — want something that seems to contradict reality?
Sign up now!
Learn a flexible method for planning the most complex tasks.
In addition, you will receive:
- A laminated summary sheet with the key elements of the process
- A class workbook with all of the details of the process, including space for in-class exercises, as a downloadable .PDF file
- A 2-month free trial in the Thinking Lab
Cost $369
None of us can afford to waste our time on literally impossible tasks. For truly important projects, it’s essential to find a way forward that guarantees you will make progress if you put in the time, or at least clarify what can be done.
Jean Moroney’s “planned evolution” tool is immensely helpful both for completing projects on tight timelines, and for starting open-ended projects with no deadline. It helps you make progress even when you are waylaid by outside forces, such as new work or illness. I heartily recommend her courses on this topic.
— Lin Zinser, Intellectual Activist & Former Lawyer, Naples, Florida
This class offers a method that helps you identify and embrace what matters most, then follow through with determination. This is an approach that fuels your sense of pride and confidence.
In this class, you will learn:
- How to make tangible progress on open-ended projects so you never lose momentum on them
- First-Aid for dealing with overwhelming complexity when you first start a project
- A powerful tool for ensuring you get the best possible results within your time or budget constraints
- The key to defusing perfectionism that stops you from finishing
This class reflects my (Jean Moroney’s) distinctive perspective on planning. I generalized the method from my eclectic experiences. As an engineer, I made prototypes, wrote pseudo-code, and did proof of concept experiments. As a writer, I identify themes, make outlines, and write synopses. When I paint, I start with a sketch, then put in the major blocks, then the details. All of these processes have one thing in common: they get the basics done first, then build on that foundation. If you are an entrepreneur, you may have seen similar concepts in the “Lean” movement.
I found I could use this kind of approach on literally any project that was bogged down. But when I recommended it to my clients, they couldn’t “just do it.” There is a thinking skill involved — the ability to identify the essence of the project. Over a period of several years, I developed a system for teaching people this skill. That is the key to my Just-in-Time Planning process. When you can identify the essential value you are creating, you can find creative ways to build that value into every step of the process.
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— Testimonial Author
This is a process you will use for the rest of your life on every important project you undertake. Here is what you will learn:
In Unit 1: Get Your Mind Around the Project, you will learn my “fractal perspective on planning.” You will get fast tools for getting an overview on the most complex of tasks, so you can make strategic decisions about how to proceed.
In Unit 2: Plan to Evolve, you will learn a unique way of visualizing how your project will unfold — from this week to its end, months or years away. You will learn the two key models for breaking a task down to its basics and building it up again to the complete version. You will see how to do this on your own project.
In Unit 3: Manufacture Finishing Points, you will learn the secret to ensuring something useful gets done today, this week, this month, this quarter. You will learn the critical parameters you need to check to make sure your steps, key results, and objectives can be finished.
In Unit 4: Avoid Predictable Problems, you will learn how to do due diligence to ensure you are not setting yourself up for failure. We’ll specifically discuss perfectionism — a huge barrier to finishing.
This class is not for everyone. You should not take this class unless you have a specific project, that you care about, that you want to plan as part of the exercises in this class. You cannot learn this process in a vacuum. You need to see how to use it for yourself, on something of relevance to you.
Here are my standard suggestions for a major task you may need to plan, which are suitable to work on in this class:
- Plan a major event (kickoff meeting, company retreat, conference, wedding)
- Coach a particular person to success (train a new hire, get an existing team member to improve performance, get the kids to _____)
- Organize something (an office procedure, the filing system, the attic)
- Make a strategic plan (plan profits, plan new product development, make a personal financial plan)
- Write a major document (proposal, report, requirements document, book)
- Give a major presentation (to the customer, to your group, to your club)
When you choose a topic for this class:
- Make sure you pick a specific project to do, not “organize my whole life.”
- Make it a “doing” project, not a “figuring out” project. (So, don’t make your project something like, “figure out why so-and-so is not performing.”)
- Choose a project that you are qualified to do, not one that would require significant training.
- It’s best if it is an actual project on your agenda.
Sign up now!
Learn a flexible method for planning the most complex tasks.
In addition, you will receive:
- A laminated summary sheet with the key elements of the process
- A class workbook with all of the details of the process, including space for in-class exercises, as a downloadable .PDF file
- A 2-month free trial in the Thinking Lab
Cost $369
You will be using this project during all the class exercises, so choose something that is interesting and timely to think about. Feel free to email me for advice on choosing or refining your topic before you begin.
Free 1-hour Sample Webinar
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This is a hands on class. During the class we will step through a workbook using a combination of lecture, discussion, group exercises, and individual exercises.
In addition, you will receive a laminated summary sheet with a convenient summary of the process, plus a workbook with details of the process for quick review. You will also have access to soft copies of all of the materials.
After class, you get two months in the Thinking Lab, where you can access:
- Live virtual classes going deeper on the skills
- Over 100 hours of additional course material
- Write-ups on dozens of related thinking tactics
- One “Thinking Day” – a day you can join other Thinking Lab members virtually to work on a high priority project, ask questions of Jean, or just get encouragement to stay on task
- Unlimited email feedback on work you submit for review during your time in the lab
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— Testimonial Author
Next Offering:
Virtual (Video Conference)
Saturday, May 2 & Sunday, May 3, 2020
2:00 – 5:30 p.m. Eastern
Why is this class so different? Because it is based on a rational view of productivity.
Productive work is effort devoted to creating values — values that support human life. It is the greatest, most creative use of your time. Logically, it ought to be self-motivating and self-sustaining. But it won’t be if you don’t finish what you start.
The value only comes to be if you finish something. The joy of work comes when you complete some objective result. If you don’t have a way to see your own progress, you will lack the emotional fuel to keep going. Work will become a slog.
Nobody ever achieved a truly ambitious goal by slogging through. It can’t be done. When you’re slogging, your mind is starved for values, and you don’t have the creativity you need to solve the challenging problems.
But when you use the Just-in-Time Planning process, you gain the confidence that you can finish any project you care about.
So how does it work? The bottom line is: Focus on the basics.
The basics are not “small steps” or “what’s easy.” Yes, the basics need to be simple and easy, but they are also fundamental. They are “that upon which everything else depends in the context.” How do you find those fundamentals? That is a thinking process.
First, only you can figure out what is fundamental in this context. You know the goal. You know the value of achieving it. That is the context you need to strip the goal down to its essentials. But identifying the essential value of a project requires critical thinking that nobody teaches you.
Second, only you know the exact state of your own knowledge. How many times have you been given an allegedly step-by-step process, only to discover you have no idea how to take one of the steps? You need to figure out a plan to complete your project that factors in what you know and what you don’t know — without turning research into an end in itself.
Let’s sum up what you get for you investment:
- A planning process that makes the most complex projects tractable
- Powerful tools for finding a place to start that ensure you don’t bog down
- The secret to resolving time and quality conflicts, including perfectionism
- The key to making objective progress you can show yourself — and your boss — without driving yourself crazy
- A chance to work through the process on a project of your own during the workshop
- Surprising insights about what you really want to achieve with your project
- My Thinking Tactics manual: The Thinker’s Toolkit
- A 2-page summary sheet for quick reference
- Complimentary membership in the Thinking Lab from the time you register to two months after the class so you can get more tactics, more practice, and more help
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— Testimonial Author
Still unsure? Here’s my money-back guarantee:If you have not already discovered one way you can be significantly more effective by the end of the first unit, you can walk out then with a 100% refund. So what are you waiting for?
One goal of this class is intangible: That you gain the conviction that you can make progress on your most ambitious goals. Instead of seeing the difficulties, the obstacles, the barriers — you see the possibilities, and that they are within your power. You see them, not because you are chanting an affirmation to yourself. Not because so
me abstract theory says it’s possible. But because you see your way forward, and that it will pay off — at least to some degree — sooner rather than later.
This is a radically empowering perspective. When you gain the conviction you can get results, you see your own power to create your future.
I’m not saying that everyone taking the class will gain that confidence in just 7 hours. But in the class, you will see that it is possible, and lay the foundation to gain it over time.
Sign up now!
Learn a flexible method for planning the most complex tasks.
In addition, you will receive:
- A laminated summary sheet with the key elements of the process
- A class workbook with all of the details of the process, including space for in-class exercises, as a downloadable .PDF file
- A 2-month free trial in the Thinking Lab
Cost $369
The Just-in-Time Planning process involves a new thinking skill — an ability to identify the fundamental value of a project. It’s not enough to just grasp the overall concept. And to transform the way you work requires automatizing this new idea.
That’s why I always include time in the Thinking Lab after the class — so that you have support to further learn, practice, and automatize this approach. In particular, there are half a dozen recorded classes available, in which we work through a wide variety of cases using the Just-in-Time Planning process.
Sign up now and learn how to plan your complex, long-term projects so that you always succeed.
Next Offering:
Virtual (Video Conference)
Saturday, May 2 & Sunday, May 3, 2020
2:00 – 5:30 p.m. Eastern