I like this quote: If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six sharpening my axe.” — Abraham Lincoln

There is a lot to be said for preparation.  It goes a long way and without it there is much reduced chance of success.  The key is to know where the balance is between enough and too much.  It is the law of diminishing returns.  If you spend 6 hours sharpening your axe and it saves you a lot of time on chopping down your tree, then that’s good preparation.

In the digital world, the management of a digital team who is creating a digital product, then the management of being prepared is essential, because if you spend 12 months ‘sharpening your axe’ you will turn around to find that not only has your tree been chopped down by someone else, but that there are no trees because someone invented the digital equivalent of a chainsaw.  Your axe now looks pretty useless and all that time getting to a state of ‘readiness’ all turns out to be wasted time.  The key is in digital, yes, plan, but don’t hang about, otherwise you’ll be left sitting like a chump with a VHS tape in a world of iTunes.  Be agile, have an idea and act upon it now.  If you need to get a beta out to canvas opinion in the real world, do it – don’t sit around in isolation waiting for 10 years of ‘refinement’ to come to fruition with no bugs.  Remember that there are a lot of people out there working on open source axes/ chainsaws which are much better than yours.  You’ll release your product and feel like the caveman who just came out of a cave to proclaim the invention of fire and find you’ve stood on someone’s ipad.

Readiness then.  Plan, but don’t get left in the dark ages, just go for it.