Without much planning, there is very little hope for success. It is a summary of how the Jet Propulsion Laboratory set out and completed the successful deployment of the Sojourner robot on the surface of Mars. If you are interested, I list the publisher at the end of this article. In planning, set stretch goals to excite innovation and creativity. Take goals that have been completed in the past, then stretch them a little farther.
Stretch goals achieve two purposes.
First, it gets everyone's attention. Blazing new ground always excites the engineer's mind. Second, stretch goals can be used to anticipate future scope changes. Often a stretch goal can be used to anticipate specification changes, without impacting the project schedule, resources, or cost. For example in IC chip design, a stretch goal would be to design for both desktop and portable products.