Iterative planning is a quality management concept that follows a defined repetitive cycle until an acceptable design is achieved which balances: HSE, risk, cost and company exposure. Iterative planning is part of the Initial Planning Cycle when decisions are made about the most appropriate Source Control operations and the Daily Planning Cycle when each milestone is evaluated as the team proceeds. The repetitive cycle in condensed form is:

• Gather onsite and archived data concerning the incident
• Define the problem including uncertainty based on the data
• Define constraints on solutions that cannot be controlled
• Define possible solutions for detailed investigation
• Perform preliminary technical analysis on the proposed solutions
• Discard proposed solutions that appear not technically practical. Loop back to proposed solutions as required.