Why plan?

One of my favorite things to read is a good tell-all article about how one decision caused a series of cascading failures. Seeing humanity respond to a crisis brings me great joy and, because of this, I have often been described as a proponent of chaos. What is more chaotic than the reactions of people (and systems) to failures? When I tell people that I enjoy planning and organizing, I usually get at least one raised eyebrow in response. I believe deeply in the Scout motto of be prepared and capacity planning is just that: being prepared for eventual change. The theory behind the Scout motto is finding the balance between having all of the tools necessary to deal with problems and the mental fortitude to improvise to deal with the fact that you did not bring all of the tools you need. You can never be fully prepared for risks that you do not know about. So, instead, you should build a plan that has rough edges, that has room for improvisation, and that also solves the issues...