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TunnelCamp.com - Coaches Corner
PEDL - Planning, Execution, Debriefing, Learning
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Over the past decade, Airspeed has amassed a broad assortment of
achievements and victories. These result, in large part, from our ability to
draw as much learning as possible from each endeavour. The ethic of constant
improvement surrounding this team is not accidental – it is something we have
purposefully created and nurtured. We have devoted countless hours and many
thousands of dollars to developing a system that facilitates learning.
The process or system we have developed applies equally well to all of
the various challenges we face or projects we undertake; only the scale
changes. We approach a single skydive the same way we approach a training camp,
or the entire training year. We divide the process into four distinct steps – PLANNING,
EXECUTION, DEBRIEFING and LEARNING. We often use the
acronym “PEDL” to refer to the entire system. This fits well given
cyclic and iterative nature of the process. Simply put, once you get to the
end, you return to the beginning and repeat. The more often you cycle through
the steps of PEDL, the better your result.
PLANNING:
Our first step is to make a plan. Different organizations create plans
in different ways; no single way fits every group or situation. Because of the
nature of our endeavour and the relationships between the members of Airspeed,
we create our plans by consensus. We do this at meetings specifically scheduled
for that purpose. We start in an open-ended fashion to prevent the limiting of
options or stifling of ideas. We collect input from the quietest members of the
team first. Our natural talkers wait. Once all suggestions have been elicited,
we begin to debate and to weigh different ideas. Eventually, we come to a
consensus that we can all agree on. In this way, everyone responsible for
executing the plan has had a hand in its making. Everyone is informed. No one
feels excluded or ignored. All of us have ownership in the plan.
EXECUTION:
After we have reached agreement on a plan, we consciously transition to
execution. This requires a deliberate switching of gears for the entire team.
In this phase, we no longer formulate, discuss or consider alternative plans.
We do not question, analyse or debrief the plan. We simply execute! It seems
simple, but most teams and workgroups we come across lack the discipline to do
this.
Simply executing allows the plan a full and fair chance to succeed.
Each team member gives 100% of his effort to the success of the plan. No one
subverts the plan by consciously or unconsciously undermining it. After having
executed in this way, you truly know where you stand. If, on the other hand,
team members are “second-guessing” or debriefing during execution, when you
arrive at the end of the task you never really know what lessons to draw out of
the experience. When you fail to execute purely and completely, you rob
yourself of this opportunity to learn.
Separating execution from planning and debriefing is a skill that
eludes most organizations, teams and working groups. Keeping
the execution pure requires a great deal of trust – trust in the system, trust
in one’s teammates and trust in the collective discipline of the group. By definition, when a group
accepts a consensus plan, each team member settles for something less than the
whole of what they had originally thought was best. Human nature tempts us to
“second-guess” the consensus plan as soon as things go a bit awry. Discipline
and trust get us through these tough patches. Once we have seen the system work
time and again, trust comes a bit easier. Until that time, we urge you to rely
on our past experience and to have a little faith in axiom that many heads are
better than one.
DEBRIEFING:
We schedule a formal debrief for each cycle of PEDL. When each
group member knows that a thorough debrief will be held at the conclusion of
the execution phase, it allows them to set aside any criticisms or new ideas
that might pop into their heads during execution. Team members feel more
comfortable “shelving” their feedback until the appropriate time and place,
knowing that they are not just “sweeping it under the rug”. The style of
debrief varies depending on the subject matter. How you do it is not as
important as that you do it.
Many business organizations that invest considerable time creating
consensus plans and then seek to faithfully execute them, fail miserably at the
debrief. More than once, highly motivated, well-intentioned professionals have
told us that, in the real world, there is simply no time to “sit around and
talk about the work they just finished”. Rather, they have new patients to see,
code to write or buildings to design. What they are actually saying is “we are
as good as we intend to get - we have no desire to be any better at this
tomorrow than we are today”. These organizations are frozen in time, doomed to
repeat the same mistakes again and again. Somehow, in a headlong drive for
short-term achievement, they have lost sight of the real reason for their
existence – to improve. Either you grow, or you die. Skipping the debrief may get
you onto the next task sooner, but in doing so you cheat yourself out of the
opportunity to learn from your past performances.
LEARNING:
If debriefing is asking oneself what happened, learning involves asking
why. There is a group component and an individual component to this. Often we will adjourn from a debrief and agree to spend some time
thinking about the new information before we meet again to make new plans. Some of our most powerful
learning comes during these times of quiet reflection.
Again, each of us learns differently, what is important is that we ask
the question why. Why did this work? Why did that not? For
example, if you are brainlocking repeatedly during skydives, owning up to it in
a debrief is an important start but it is not enough. You must go further and ask
why. If there are others around you in a position to help you may ask them. If you prefer, you may engage in an inner dialog with yourself - what
commonly happens before I brainlock; how was my prep; was I properly rested,
etc.. If you
are honest with yourself and diligent in your approach you will eventually
figure it out. You will learn and the next time around your plan will be better
for it.
REPEAT:
It is important to note that this is an iterative process. The more
times we run the cycle of PEDL on an issue or on a problem the better we
get at handling it. For example, we have a very detailed and comprehensive Competition
Plan covering all aspects of how we conduct ourselves right before and then
during competitions. Before each meet we restate the Competition Plan.
We then execute. At the end, while still on site we debrief the meet. And in
the days that follow we take what we learned and revise the plan accordingly.
Each time we go to a meet, our Competition Plan gets a bit better. That
is a major reason that we attend so many. We have “run PEDL” on our Competition
Plan so many times that it is now highly refined and well adapted to our
individual personalities and group dynamic.
WHERE TO APPLY PEDL:
We apply PEDL to our Training Plan, Continuity Plan,
Physical Training Plan, Leadership Plan, Daily Schedule, Business
Plan, and to each individual jump; only the
length of the cycle changes. In the single jump example, planning includes all of the time spent
engineering, creeping and visualizing. Once our feet leave the floor of the
aircraft, planning is over. From then on, all we do is execute. During
execution we stay totally connected to the task at hand. Our thoughts are
completely in the moment. We do not think about how to tweak a particular move
or what went wrong with that last block. During execution there is no time for HOW
(plan) or for WHY (debrief), there is only WHAT - what
is next. Our best performances come when we trust our preparation and
simply execute. In contrast, most brainlocking results from thinking about
technique or from debriefing during the jump. Once we land, we collect
ourselves and walk back together. We know that we have a formal debrief
scheduled so we refrain from debriefing in the landing area or during the walk
back. We then conduct an orderly and frank video debrief. From this we learn
what, if anything, needs to be changed and we begin the process again.
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