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April 28, 2006
Power of the Natural Planning Model
I was in NYC this week doing a two-day seminar for a financial services company on Wall St. On the second day, we dove into the Natural Planning Model, which is David's five step model for project planning (starts on page 56 of the GTD book). What I love about this model is that it really "demystifies" project planning and gives people some structure--starting with "what's the purpose?" down to identifying clear next actions. One participant shared with me that he's had a project stuck on his plate for about 4 months. Spending ten minutes running his project through the Natural Planning Model gave him a clear plan and steps to move forward.
I've run all sorts of projects (and problems) through this model, including healing my elbow. Some of you know I've had an elbow injury for about two years. It finally occurred to me to treat it like a project. So I broke it down into pieces with the NPM and saw solutions and ways to go about healing it that I had not seen before. A participant in the seminar yesterday ran the situation of "what will my son do this summer?!" through the model. He was so excited because he saw more options and opportunities than he realized and had some do-able next actions for moving forward.
Waiting for my flight out last night at Newark Airport, I caught this shot on my Treo:
Posted by Kelly at April 28, 2006 09:24 AM
Comments
Kelly:
Thanks. I consider myself a pretty good GTD'r but don't consider the NPM very often! Go figure. I have had several projects festering on by Project List. After review my GTD book and templates, they are finally moving forward.
Posted by: Jeff Heath at April 28, 2006 01:35 PM
