Failure to Plan is to Plan For Failure (2)

This past weekend, I watched the San Francisco Forty Niners played the Seattle Seashawks. It totally amazed me to see that the San Francisco's offensive coordinator had a difficult time, relaying a play to their quarterback.

There were other operational snafus that are too embarrassing to talk about. I usually expect most professional strategists to plan and prepare themselves with extreme precision.

You can read more about this situation, here and here

When the news media offered various strategic and tactical suggestions to the professional coach It is time for someone to commit professional seppuku.

Here are some of their tips:

• Take offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye out of the booth and put him on the sidelines where he can transmit the play directly in to the Smith's helmet. Plays must come in from the sidelines and not the booth, so Raye relays the call to quarterbacks coach Mike Johnson who then sends it to Smith. Should Raye take to the sidelines, the middle man is eliminated.

• Put the numbered plays on a wrist band and instead of communicating a long play such as "X call, hustle 2, I right slot, two man counter easy," three times, Raye simply calls out a number that Smith cross checks on his wrist band with the play that's being called. So then Smith is the only one communicating the entire play, which saves time and confusion.

• Make a set time when Smith eschews the call coming in and simply calls his own play. "We've talked about that," Smith said. For example, if Smith doesn't get the play with 24 seconds left on the clock, he then calls the play himself.

• Putting the play-calling, at times, completely into Smith's hands. That's not something Smith would like to do all the time. "I have to do a lot already," he said. "That's why we have an offensive coordinator."

Post Updated: More on poor logistics

49ers coach Mike Singletary said "I smell a rat" as he stood by his offensive coordinator, Jimmy Raye. He just doesn't have time to weed out the unnamed sources of a Yahoo! Sports story that said Raye struggles to get plays called in and sometimes garbles it all up. ... Raye said this about the miscommunication that led to three burned timeouts and a delay of game Sunday:

"It's my responsibility. I bear all the responsibility for the way we operate on offense. I'm the leader. It's my watch. I have the responsibility for the things that occur where it concerns the offense."

"I think it's important that all of you understand that this game has a human element to it. Of the games that were played last week, I would dare say that there was anyone in the position I'm in that was flawless. So, what could I have done better? I could have maybe had a better plan. I could maybe have made some better decisions. Hopefully the ones that I made were the correct ones. You hope they play out that way. Because of that there are any number of things that you always think back on when you lose that you could have done better. And if you don't, then you probably shouldn't be in the game."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ninerinsider/detail?entry_id=72480

Post Updated: More on poor logistics (09/27/2010)

In any economy, inadequate performance mean immediate execution.

49ers Fired Raye

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/27/SPNJ1FKBFO.DTL

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All championship bounded teams are usually properly organized and prepared to perform all of those above points with their eyes closed. ... Should the San Francisco Forty Niners have perfected that practice before the season began? ... Can anyone tell the Forty Niners fans what is wrong with this picture?

Compass Rule: Trust a strategist who carries more than enough lead in his pencil.

Compass Analysis: Returning to the drawing board means the strategic designer does not understand the big tangible picture from a top down view.

Any organization who thrives in this global economy, usually have a team of professional (process-driven) strategists who can stay focused on the current objective while understanding the state of the big picture.

Now, observe your team and identify who are the focused team team members. Ask yourself, are they getting the job done?