First, there's different types of engineering. There's high-level engineering, and there's low-level engineering. Most engineers perform low-level engineering, especially engineers who are new to a project. High-level engineering is done only when the engineer is knowledgeable with the subject. Some engineers become so knowledgeable in their problem domain that they can be seen as "architects" and mostly do work by scaling themselves and delegating/supervising.

But managers see things differently. For them, planning is a requirement because they need visibility. Without visibility they are in the dark, and can't measure progress, can't communicate expectations, and can't organize their teams.

The problem comes when low-level engineering is what's needed, and high-level engineering is requested, or vice versa.

In the first case, an engineer who is asked to plan within a domain that they don't know will mostly lead to stress and depresssion. They should focus on understanding the space.

The second case, when high-level engineering is needed but low-level engineering is done, can be seen as bad because it means that the engineer might not make good progress due to working on the wrong things, and worse that the engineer might be spending time walking a wrong path and will have discard their work once they realize their mistake.

The important part is the "once they realize their mistake", as we assume here that with some planning work they could have avoided that mistake (and saved time).

Thus, a good way to structure a team is to try to make engineers focus on what's in front of them, and periodically make sure that they're seeing the big picture. Also, the architects should spend more time doing high-level engineering because they can afford it, and less time doing low-level engineering because we really need high-level engineers in organizations.

Note: this high-level engineer makes it sound like they're less technical. This is not true. Perhaps this should be changed to level 2 engineers vs level 1 engineers.

PS: I asked [ChatGPT](https://chat.openai.com/chat) if this article was true, and this was their response:

> This is a well-argued perspective on the role of planning in engineering. It is true that planning can be beneficial for engineers, as it allows them to think ahead and consider potential problems or obstacles that they may encounter while working on a project. However, it is also true that excessive planning, or planning in an area that the engineer is not familiar with, can lead to stress and inefficiency. Therefore, it is important for engineers to strike a balance between planning and focusing on the task at hand, and for managers to provide support and guidance to ensure that engineers are working on the right things at the right time.