Sucking Eggs: How to Move Past the Thought
Have you heard of the phrase “Teaching Grandmother how to suck eggs?”
"Sucking eggs" is an idiom meaning to teach someone something they already know. It implies giving advice that is unnecessary or redundant. The phrase originated in the 1700s, referring to elderly people who lost their teeth and relied on sucking eggs through a small hole for protein. Therefore, telling someone how to suck an egg would be akin to teaching them something they already know how to do.
Every time I run an ignite big-room planning workshop, my good old friend Mr Imposter Syndrome tries to convince me that I am showing the group how to suck eggs.
Many in the room might be thinking, ‘We already know how to plan. Why are we here?’
It’s a fair question — and I get it. Introducing big-room planning can sometimes feel like I’m showing you how to suck eggs.
But here’s the thing: this process isn’t about teaching basics — it’s about making the obvious intentional.
💡 Why It's Not Actually Obvious
1. Alignment Isn't Assumed — It's Engineered: Most teams operate with hidden misalignment. Big-room planning surfaces conflicting priorities and gets buy-in from everyone.
2. Execution Requires Constraint: Drawing a “capacity line” and saying “no” to some work is not intuitive — it’s a learned discipline.
3. Planning ≠ Coordinating Calendars: This process connects vision, strategy, people, and resources — it's not about booking meetings, it's about orchestrating effort.
4. Team Involvement Is the Magic: The power of big-room planning lies in the collective conversation — not the plan itself. That’s what most people miss.
Most teams operate with good instincts but invisible misalignment. We all have priorities in our heads — but we rarely align them in the room, in real time, across roles and org units.
This is more than making a plan. It’s about creating shared focus, exposing silent assumptions, and cutting through noise together.
Robert Cass 🟢 🟡 / 🔵 🔴, Robert Hogeland, Annie Spiteri, Sushrut Kamath, Jason Wu, Devon White, Brendan Walker, Anna Gikovski, Betty Trajkovski, Anthony Kandi, Richard Beaumont
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