"Stop Drawing Colorful Charts": How to Make Plans in an Era of Change

Entrepreneur and venture capitalist Andrei Doronichev has had to reinvent himself more than once. “Andrei the Computer Guy,” who made extra money installing Windows in the 1990s, is a Russian businessman and the founder of the “Tapok” ringtone store, the creator of the mobile version of YouTube, a top manager at Google, and now a co-founder of a Silicon Valley startup that uses AI to search for a cure for cancer—all of these are Andrei Doronichev. In his new book, *New Version: Change Yourself Without Betraying Yourself*, he explains how to bring about personal or career transformation using a product-oriented approach. With the author’s permission, Oninvest is publishing an excerpt from the book.

Read the full version of the interview with Andrei Doronichev here.

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Hundreds of books could be written about planning, but they’d all help with only one thing—procrastination. For years, we plan to quit drinking, change careers, move, and find love. We come up with all sorts of complicated plans in our heads, but in the end, we retire and get drunk in the garage with the guys.

Many people who have ever seen a Gantt chart sincerely believe that this is exactly what a good plan looks like. Everything is perfectly organized by date: step one ends here, a neat little arrow leads from it to step two, resources are allocated, and risks are accounted for. In the pre-web era of the IT industry, this was the prevailing approach. It came from the construction industry and was called “Waterfall.” It worked like this: first, managers spent an entire year writing the technical specifications—a thousand-page manual. Then programmers spent two years writing code, sticking to the plan to the letter. And in the third year, the company released a product that—guess what?—often turned out to be something nobody needed anymore. The world had changed, technology had raced ahead, and people wanted something different. And that was it. Thousands of brilliant products now rest in the graveyard of perfect plans.

People often do the same thing in real life—they map out plans for the next ten years: “I’ll work as a junior analyst for two years, then get a promotion; in five years, I’ll take out a mortgage; in seven, I’ll have a baby; and by thirty-five, I’ll be a director”—it sounds as reliable as the clang of a gate bolt, doesn’t it? But then reality rears its head—an unplanned pregnancy, someone gets sick or dies. Or an economic crisis turns the world upside down. Or you’ve worked your way up to director, but the job isn’t fulfilling—it makes you sick. And your carefully laid-out plan goes in the trash, leaving only a sense of a life wasted.

When I think about my plans, I always remember getting ready to move to Prague. For a whole year, I thought it over: how we would make a living, what kind of business to start, and how to handle our current one.

To expand “Tapok” beyond Russia, we pivoted to B2B—from a ringtone store to an SMS notification system for banks. Back in 2006, when you made a transaction and received a debit notification—something almost no one was doing at the time (just like with the cards themselves)—we could confidently target the local market first, and then the EU. Just as planned.

At the same time, my cousin suggested I invest in a customs scheme. It promised decent returns and required nothing but cash. I invested—almost all of my savings.

At the same time, in Prague, we incorporated a company, rented an office, got our visas, and I came up with what was, at the time, a super-innovative idea—a virtual office. I designed a system using OpenVPN, IP phones, and email domains so that, while in Prague, we could use the office phones and all network resources as if we were sitting in Moscow.

Basically, according to the plan, we were supposed to make the move in a year’s time with our bases covered, a functioning business, and a clear growth strategy.

But right before I left, my partners (as you already know) insisted that I sell my stake in the business. A few months later, my brother called: “Andrei, I’m sorry, the money’s gone. The guys—the FSB—were here; I barely managed to get away myself,”—I remember how my hands started shaking. I was standing in the middle of the living room, unable to comprehend that I’d lost everything.

That was when I first realized that, aside from the illusion of control, such detailed and long-term plans are useless. And that the only right way is to plan in short sprints, act through safe experiments, and, after gathering data, adapt for the next sprint.

That experience changed my attitude toward planning forever. Our brains love to create a false sense of security—opening Excel and mapping out our lives all the way to 2050. But all of that will become obsolete before you even finish filling out the spreadsheet. Especially today, when artificial intelligence and neural networks are turning entire industries upside down every six months.

That's why it's pointless to map out your life for the next ten years. You can't predict how your profession or the economy will change in three years, let alone over the course of decades.

It was in the field of programming that people were the first to grasp this harsh reality. Engineers realized that planning years in advance was a recipe for disaster. And so, the Waterfall model was replaced by the Agile methodology.

In essence, it’s not even a set of rules, but a philosophy of survival in chaos. Agile acknowledges the fundamental truth: we don’t know the future, and any inflexible, long-term plans are nothing but illusions.

In Agile, work is broken down into short, manageable time periods called sprints (usually two weeks to a month). And the only thing you can actually control is the list of tasks for the upcoming sprint.

The main rule of a sprint is this: while you’re working on it, don’t daydream about great achievements or make plans for decades into the future. You jot down new ideas, but don’t get sidetracked by them, no matter how brilliant they may seem. You focus solely on what you’ve set out to do in the sprint.

Keep moving forward. And at the end of each run, be sure to take time to reflect. Rhythm and discipline are crucial here. Your sprints shouldn’t be haphazard. You can’t tell yourself, “Well, I’ll analyze it once I’m done.” That’s a fast track to sabotage—to abandoned projects and broken promises. If your sprint is a month, then sit down with a notebook once a month. If it’s a quarter, do it once a quarter. Personally, I prefer seasons. Once winter is over, I open my notebook, assess what worked and what didn’t, and identify my priorities for spring. At this point, it’s important to review the tasks from the previous sprint by asking yourself:

What turned out well?

And why didn't I do this?

Be brutally honest. For example, did you not do it because it was scary and the task turned out to be too difficult? Okay, then why not break it down right now into three smaller, less intimidating steps and include them in the next sprint? Or are you sabotaging the task because, deep down, you don’t actually want to do it at all? Did you suddenly realize while working on it that this isn’t your priority? Then you need to have the courage to cross the item off your vision—and thus, off your to-do list. Don’t drag it around with you for months like a burden of guilt—just cut it out. And, based on this new insight, readjust your goals for the next season. Take on new ones—the tasks you consider most important—and move into the next sprint.

Instead of the illusion of control over the next decade, you gain real control over today. And your strategy is to adapt to reality with each new season.

To sum up: in a world where the only constant is constant change, a flexible approach works best. It works not only in business but also in life. So stop drawing colorful diagrams, set sprint goals, and start taking the first steps—we’ll talk about those in the next chapter.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor