How Much Planning is Enough?

As my program manager likes to say, he’s yet to meet anyone who reached the end of a project and said, “Gee, I wish we hadn’t done nearly so much planning.”  I suppose if I have to ask the question, I haven’t planned enough. 

Project Planning vs. Project Scheduling

For the longest time I thought project planning was what one did in Microsoft Project.  When I finally realized that what Project really produces is a project schedule, it made me recognize that there was a whole lot more to project planning. Some may say this is semantics, but for me, it gave me a whole new perspective on project planning, and spurred me on to learn more.

 

What else happens in project planning aside from the producing a schedule? First, let’s take a look at what goes into a building the project schedule, then we can take a look at all of the other activities.

 Project Scheduling  

• Define Scope
• Produce Work Breakdown Structure
• Identify Dependencies
• Determine Estimates
• Build Schedule

So what else is there?  A lot!  Here’s a sampling of some of the other key deliverables of project planning: 

• Budget
• Quality Plan
• Communications Plan
• Determine Roles & Responsibilities
• Risk Management Plan
• Procurement Plan
• Process Improvement Plan

Many of these activities will actually cause changes in the project schedule. The good news is they all serve to make the schedule more realistic and make it easier for you, the intrepid project manager, to be successful and deliver on time.

 

We’ll go into many of those activities in more detail later, but for now start thinking of what comes out of Project as the schedule and you’ll be ready to see how other activities can help you build a better plan.

Welcome

There is a lot of great information out there for project managers and the goal of this blog is to make some of that more accessible to people trying to run their projects and deliver on time.  As the title suggests, the focus will be on the practical application of good project management tools and techniques.  There may be a little theory mixed in for background, but my goal is to share real experiences that can help you be more successful.

Ultimately, we are all measured on our ability to execute, and to me project management represents the single best tool available to help a manager deliver on time.  I hope you will find some of this useful and your comments are always welcome.  ‘

Onwards and upward!