To a certain extent, the dream is a restorative for the brain, which, during the day, is called upon to meet many demands for trained thought made upon it by the conditions of a higher civilization. – We may, if we please, become sensible, even in our waking moments, of a condition that is as a door and vestibule to dreaming – Human all too human (1878)
What and why is the team trying to accomplish? Produces a list of possible objectives that the team need to convert logically into an organized objectives list.
But, How will the team measure success? Each clear objective requires some kind of planning – imagining some desired future conditions – then thinking backwards about the cause-and-effect steps needed. What other conditions must exist? Puts into a larger strategic context – (I) Necessary training (II) Meshing with already ongoing processes.
So, How do the team get there?
The brain, when the eyes are open and the senses awake, is accustomed to perceiving the cause of every impression of light and colour made upon it. Here again, the imagination is continually interposing its images inasmuch as it participates in the production of the impressions made through the senses day by day: and the dream-fancy does exactly the same thing – that is, the presumed cause is determined from the effect and after the effect: all this, too, with extraordinary rapidity, so that in this matter, as in a matter of jugglery or sleight-of-hand, a confusion of the mind is produced and an after effect is made to appear a simultaneous action, an inverted successor of events, even. – Human all too human (1878)
- Clear Objectives
- Identification of “If-then” logical links
- Definition of strategic hypothesis
- Definition of purpose (Why), before How/what
- Scan the environment for circumstances
- Understanding of internal and external context
- Identification of risk elements
- Make, test, manage and monitor assumptions
- Choose a common planning model and language
- Plan top-bottom
- Test bottom-up
- Use logical framework as a central model
- Involve people who matter – People support what they helped to create
- Understand the perspective of others
- Build consensus and commitment
- Treat project documents as a living, organic in nature
- Cycle logical – Think, plan, act and assess
- Iterate and update in predetermined learning cycles
- Refine constantly the strategic hypothesis
- Build in payoffs – learn and fun rewards
- Grow team while grow plan
Linking two objectives into a logical “If-then” forms a “Hypothesis” – a predictive statement of cause and effect that involves uncertainty.
From these considerations, we can see how late strict, logical thought, the true notion of cause and effect must have been in developing, since our intellectual and rational faculties to this very day revert to these primitive processes of deduction, while practically half our lifetime is spent in the super-inducing conditions. – Human all too human (1878)