'Plans are just another word for ideas on the shelf'.

I came across this phrase in Hackers & Painters by Paul Graham (my personal Book of the Month). He is writing about pace and creativity in the programming world. About how quickly it is possible to move from concept to implementation and how essential this pace is to competitive success.

A lot lies behind this. A willingness to take risks, certainly. An acceptance that failure is an acceptable price to pay for speed to market. The ability to innovate and make mistakes. And I wonder about the degree to which what we call 'business practice' or 'change programme management', is in fact an obstacle to change and innovation.

Here we have a brilliant idea that will change the face of our organisation and make us a market leader. And here we have our Project plan or, even worse, our Programme. Then we install ranks of programme managers all of whom have a part to play, even though that part largely consists of having meetings with other programme managers. We may even throw in a sprinkling of highly paid consultants. End result - huge amounts of wasted energy as everybody talks to everybody else and email volumes increase exponentially. A nightmare of organisational inertia and an horrible place to work.

Of course, you need project management if you are building a bridge, or trying to integrate change across a global business. But we have to watch out that it doesn't become an end in itself. We have to get clever about how we use the tools we have available to increase the pace of doing business and unlocking the knowledge of our organisations.

The constant question should be: how much of this management clutter can we strip out? How can we genuinely be quicker, smarter and more creative? How quickly can we get those plans off the shelf and into the marketplace? Do we have the courage to take risks? Do we have the kind of culture that is going to attract the makers, the creators and the innovators?