Step 3: Identify Critical Steps

From experience you sometimes know that a step means trouble! (Maybe you took that step before and it led to a disaster.) If a step is completely new to you, look out. “Murphy’s Law”: what can go wrong will/may get you. Major steps, with lots of parts and pieces, are especially vulnerable, particularly if you have no experience with the step. You have probably noted that problems can result when people must communicate over distances by phone, letter, fax or e-mail and when there are several people involved.

If a step means operating close to the limits of your space, time or money, you order a new item that’s exactly 1 meter wide and your door is 90cm, you'd better get an axe! Or, if someone tells you the items you ordered will be here Wednesday, and you must have it Thursday, it might be wise to assume that it won’t arrive until Friday.  If a step in your planning “will only cost R 99.95”, and you have exactly R100.00, then you know what’s going to happen!

The key question to ask here is: “When we perform this step in our plan, what could go wrong?”

All this potential problem analysis may sound negative. But the good news is that if you anticipate potential problems before you carry out your plan, you can often develop solutions that will greatly increase the chances that you will achieve your goal.

In the example of Elizabeth, she selected as a critical step in her plan, “Attend night classes and get the 24 credits I need to finish college.” She viewed this step as a potential problem because it was new for her (she had never attended college at night). It was also a very important one. She had worked for a boss who had once said to her, “Your chances of being selected as a manager in this organization are a lot better if you have a college degree. In fact, your chances of making it without one are zero!”