Planning

I like planning. To-do lists give me joy. Jumping in and performing a task without planning is a no-go.

Module 9 of Amazon Web Services’ Academy Cloud Foundations Course “sparked joy” in the plan-lover part of me. Module 9 introduced the AWS Well-Architected Framework.  The course provided questions whose answers are meant to help plan an AWS system. Seeing these all laid out as part of the Foundations class makes me hopeful that careful planning is commonplace in my newly chosen career.

Thinking about the benefits of planning time reminds me of a “teacher story.” One of my mentees shared her work on a fantastic lesson plan for her class.  She revised, added layers, and got feedback before teaching it. In short, she had time to plan thoroughly and thoughtfully. It was a beautiful product, and her class enjoyed it. It took her two weeks to prepare and only two class days to teach.  She found the time for this careful preparation of one lesson because she had a certification candidate teaching her class for two weeks.  Having her class covered by someone else gave her the luxury of planning, not something she usually had in her routine.

When you have time to reflect and plan, the work is of far higher quality than when you rush. Diving in and just starting without an organizational schema is a lot like a building created by the lowest bidder; lots of time will be spent fixing things later that could have been done more easily and at a higher level of quality if only they had been planned well at the outset.

I know that there is never enough time to complete tasks perfectly. Getting a good product that you can be proud of is essential. Sometimes, the end product is the minimal viable product due to time constraints.  Being introduced to the “Well-Architected Framework” reminded me that I want to work with people who make plans and planning time a priority in the default process. I can, without a doubt, be flexible when something comes up, but having a clear plan makes those hiccups much easier!