Half planned is well done

I continue to come across digitalisation projects where there is too much emphasis on planning - leading to slow progress and lack of flexibility once started. Sometimes people refer to the wisdom from housebuilding where "Well planned is half done." This is certainly the case there - my own experience also.

But in the digital world we should rather see many - if not even most  - of the projects as "Voyages of Discovery". In the digital space everything is changing so fast that anything can and will happen during your trip. So if you have a mission and even a rather vague vision -  start moving with the first small steps and soon you will learn what can be done next - that you could not have foreseen with any mass of planning. 

It is of course clear that the best discoveries happen when you move ahead as a team - in the best case as a network. Diverse viewpoints produce creative solutions and a commonly felt need to x-use data and standardise content and interfaces create a sustainable platform for the next steps.

Then there is also much less space for vested interests that go against the common good - and less excuses for the public sector to NOT join the team work when their data is needed and all sorts of reporting should be automated.