Project Planning – One of the Most Essential Steps to Take in the Management of Your Project

Project Planning is one of the most essential steps to take in the management of your project. Produce a good Plan and go for it!

However, before I get into the specific ideas concerning planning and how I recommend that you do it, there are a number of things that I would like to say about the subject at an overall level.

First of all, when I talk about a plan, I define it as a scheduled list of interrelated Stages, Products, Activities, Milestones, Tasks, etc. along with assigned resources, estimated effort and planned elapsed time.

I believe that having a proper Project Plan is probably the second most important thing that the Project Manager must have in place. I say the second most important thing but I know  you can’t have two most important things. But if you could it would be the Requirements Specification and the Project Plan. I worked as Program Director for the CEO of a bank in London once who told me that the most important thing was the successful completion of a program I was managing while at the same time telling me that the other most important thing was a second program I was leading. There you go – two most important things.

In terms of Project Planning, I’m a firm believer in what Zig Ziglar says and he was probably not the first one to say it. “Failing to plan is planning to fail”.

Without an agreed, integrated Project Plan in place how does anyone on the project have any idea what they are supposed to be doing, when they are supposed to be doing it, who is depending on them doing it, when the various Milestones are going to be met, when the project will be delivered, and I’m sure I could think of loads of other reasons for the plan if I took the time. But, I think you get the picture.

If you want to ensure project failure, discontent on the project and chaos, just refuse to put a good Project Plan in place. By the way, in my experience, the lack of a detailed, well-structured Project Plan on a project is the second of the top 10 reasons that projects fail. The first reason is the lack of a detailed, agreed Requirements Specification.

And lastly, I’ve found that for a plan to be accepted and agreed to by the Project Team, the customers and all other stakeholders on the project, they must be part of the production of the Plan itself.  One of the worse things that a Project Manager can do is create the Project Plan without the assistance of those involved or affected by the plan and then expect them to be committed to it. It just won’t work.  You must have their involvement to get their commitment..

So join me on my next few articles when we’ll talk about the structure of the Project Plan and the steps you need to go through to prepare it.

Richard Morreale is a professional speaker, author, trainer, and c-suite consultant specializing in Program and Project Management, Change Management and Success Strategies. For more information or to book Richard as a speaker email him at richard@richardmorreale.com or ring him at 336 598 2793.