Planning and the Rule of Three

There’s really no rule of three but when things are not going well often an explanation is needed. Three is a good number of factors to list

Here are three factors, supervision, materials and crew.

For example say the food is not too good. The three factors are: supervision - the steward has to be good, materials, -there has to be good food in the lockers and freezers. and crew - you need a good cook. One out of three missing and the results are going to be poor.

Same thing on deck, need a good bos’n and ch mate. Tools and supplies, and a crew that wants to work. Another factor might be the weather but stick to three in any case, sounds better.

Planning comes into play because if things get out of hand then people outside the ship will get involved. The most common explanation shoreside will believe is the crew doesn’t realize that things are not going well and the crew just needs a work list.

This needs to be headed off. It’s important that office personnel, auditors, and inspectors etc can be shown that the crew is aware of problems and has a plan to deal with it. Best if this is done IAW the SMS if possible. But it’s critical to be able to show that the problems is understood and being dealt with.

Long term the top four officers are key. The higher the rank and the longer a key crew is aboard the more difficult to get rid of them. Need to act fast, first trip is best. Tell the office that the crew that needs to go is a “good guy” and a good shipmate and you like him even if it’s not true. Make sure it’s understood the issue is they can’t do the job. Otherwise the office will see it as a personality conflict.

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I understand your point about the personality thing but…

I’ve often heard this “but he’s a really good guy” line when discussing personnel and competency. Usually right after someone is documenting some dramatic lack of competency. I’ve heard it so much that I now wonder if “he’s a really good guy” is the best thing you can say about someone or the worst.

Planning is little understood in my end of the business especially by those who should know better. Good planning that can save real money may often be looked down on. Yet we abide the old rule “never enough time to do it right but always enough time to do it over”.

But oops I think your main point was personnel.

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I’m not saying “but he’s a nice guy”, I’m saying “he’s a nice guy but”. Not trying to defend the “nice guy”, trying to get rid of him.

Just saying he’s a nice guy (even if he’s not) to avoid the office defaulting to thinking it’s a personality thing.

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For me the “Rule of 3” usually means it will take 3 times longer and cost 3 times more than my original estimates.

Isn’t the an old saying that “good planning is half the job”?
So I plan twice.

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I’ve mentioned this before, but for those who missed it:

“Plans are worthless, planning is everything” – Dwight Eisenhower

His point is that the effort of planning prepares you for the inevitable surprise. It’s basic to the “Orient” step of the OODA loop.

The speech in which this quote appears is worth reading:

Eisenhower Remarks

Cheers,

Earl

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There are some good tools out there. A good exercise is working through an upcoming dry dock using a good critical path analysis comes to mind

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How to Use the ‘Rule of Three’

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Came across this today; an effective message will have 27 words, in 9 seconds and three points. So 3^3.