Few things cause as much low-level friction as two people planning differently. One wants the holiday booked in January with every day accounted for. The other wants to see what turns up. At work it's the colleague who needs the project plan signed off before they'll start, sitting next to the one who has three versions of the plan and is already halfway through the second.
R.K. Kovalenko and N.A. Zvonaryova sort the sixteen types into four planning styles that describe exactly this: how a type sets goals and handles time. They recommend them for choosing a comfortable work schedule, for setting and checking work, and for settling disagreements about planning in families and teams.
The four styles
| Group | Formula | Types |
|---|---|---|
| Stable | Rational · Farsighted · Judicious | LII INTj ESE ESFj EII INFj LSE ESTj |
| Staged | Rational · Carefree · Decisive | EIE ENFj LSI ISTj ESI ISFj LIE ENTj |
| Variant | Irrational · Farsighted · Decisive | IEI INFp SLE ESTp SEE ESFp ILI INTp |
| Free | Irrational · Carefree · Judicious | ILE ENTp SEI ISFp IEE ENFp SLI ISTp |
Each style is defined by three dichotomies: Rational or Irrational, Farsighted or Carefree, and Judicious or Decisive. Underneath, the authors tie the styles to where each type's intuition and sensing elements sit in Model A: the information about time, plans, opportunities and comfort. That's why the descriptions centre on deadlines, schedules and openings rather than on personality in general.
Stable: LII, ESE, EII, LSE
Stable planners set their goals in sequence and plan ahead, thinking through in advance how the situation is likely to unfold. They discuss the options and methods beforehand, agree a plan, and then stick to it closely.
What they need: the plan agreed early, and changes flagged rather than sprung. A last-minute change of course isn't just inconvenient for them; it undoes the thinking they've already done.
Staged: EIE, LSI, ESI, LIE
Staged planners also set goals in sequence, but break them into stages. They work well to tight deadlines, take the openings a situation offers, and often aim to finish ahead of time, adjusting the plan as they go.
What they need: clear milestones and a firm end date, with freedom over how they reach each stage. They're the people to give a deadline that matters.
Variant: IEI, SLE, SEE, ILI
Variant planners think ahead and plan, but they run several goals in parallel, each with its own plan. Unlike the Stable style's single detailed plan, theirs are built for quick switching and decisive execution, and they move from one to another as circumstances change.
What they need: room to keep options open. Forcing them down to one plan too early removes the thing they're good at, which is being ready whichever way it goes.
Free: ILE, SEI, IEE, SLI
Free planners hold many goals at once and wait for the opportunities that changing circumstances bring. A fixed plan is often missing altogether. They handle time situationally, so they can take up as many openings as possible.
What they need: goals rather than schedules, and someone to agree the few things that do have to happen by a date. Imposing a detailed timetable rarely gets a better result. It mostly gets a worse mood.
Stopping the planning argument
Most planning arguments are two styles talking past each other. A few pairings come up again and again:
- Stable and Free is the classic clash. One hears "we'll see" as "you don't care"; the other hears "let's fix the dates" as "you don't trust me". The fix is to agree which few things are fixed, and leave the rest open on purpose.
- Staged and Variant both move fast, but Staged wants one route in stages and Variant wants several routes at once. Agree the end point and the deadline, then let each work their own way.
- Stable and Staged are both sequential, and usually get on. The friction comes when Staged adjusts the plan mid-way and Stable feels the ground move.
The point isn't that one style is better. It's that each is a reasonable way to handle time, and naming the difference turns "you're impossible to plan with" into "we plan differently, so let's agree what's fixed".
Planning styles and relaxation groups
Kovalenko and Zvonaryova give "relaxation groups" as another name for the planning styles, which can cause confusion, because this site's relaxation groups are Reinin's squares, a different grouping. The two only partly overlap. For the irrational types they're identical: Free and Variant are exactly two of Reinin's squares. For the rational types they split differently, Stable and Staged dividing on Farsighted or Carefree, where the squares divide on Subjectivist or Objectivist.
Each type's careers page reads its planning style through that type's own Model A positions, alongside its stress resistance and implementation groups.