Building Moonshots

WAY 21Reason Back: Working backward from your best end game helps to create better, bolder milestones.

About the Way

Traditional planning starts with the present conditions and then lays out a logical string of decisions forward in time to achieve a desired end goal. Unfortunately, a common problem is that teams can become overly focused on their short‐term tasks. Moonshot work requires a more long‐term approach. A different way to plan is to start from the finish line, which might feel counterintuitive, but this way of visionary planning has existed at least for several decades.

In the military sphere, US Army training manuals discuss both forward planning and reverse planning. Although each approach begins with an achievable goal, reverse planning works backward in time from an operation's end state, where leaders begin by identifying the last step, the next‐to‐last step, and so on, until they have reached today. In doing so, a military team lays out a plan that ensures milestones are set at every major interval.

In the classic book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which has been in reprint since 1989, personal leadership consultant Stephen Covey introduced the second habit for “beginning with the end in mind.” Although his advice is geared for self‐growth, Covey describes the importance of starting with a clear understanding of your final destination. Writing with a coach's gentle touch, he explains, “It means to know where you're going so that you better understand ...