In my alliance there are two accepted types of skill training plans:
Aiming for a specific ship or item, getting the required skills to III or IV ( or V if necessary for T2 ) and then hopping immediately onto the next ship or item on the list.
Planning out a full year/multiple years of consecutive skill training based on attributes and prerequisites to cover a wide swath of things without training anything in particular ( i.e., training Per/Will for ships/Gunnery/Missiles then Mem/Int for Engineering/Science/Industry/Electronics, then ...).
Is one of these inherently better or worse than the other? Are they just two different playstyles? Do they have positives and negatives that are not obvious?