The last version of the
plan is not covered in most
books on project manage-
ment, but I’ve found it to be
quite real and very vital to
achieving success. It occurs
near the end of the project,
when it becomes apparent
that a number of work
items (sometimes referred
to as a punch list) must be
taken care of in order for
the project to be considered
complete. When you reach
this stage, you may find it useful to create a new plan, just for
completing all remaining work. This allows for a highly focused
and efficient effort and will help you avoid being associated with a
legendary “project that never ends.”
Beware! Common Planning Failures
Before diving into the details of creating project plans, it might
be worthwhile to look at some of the common mistakes that
some project managers make in their approach to planning. This
will not only help you to avoid them, but also provide valuable
background for what we’ll cover in this chapter and the next.
Failure to Plan. As we’ll soon see, many factors influence the
degree to which you should plan your project. Sometimes, a
relatively small amount of planning effort will suffice. However,
some project managers feel (or are pressured into feeling) that
planning is not worth doing at all. Some project managers—
particularly new ones—are extremely action-oriented. They feel
that time spent in planning is lost. Others are pressured by their
management, their organizational culture, or some stakeholders
into cutting short any meaningful planning effort. To those
groups, when people are sitting around planning, it simply
doesn’t seem that progress is being made. However, project
An Overview of Planning and Estimating 101Planning Is Not a
One-Time Event!
It’s inevitable that condi-
tions will change during your project:
someone may be pulled off your team,
resources may become unavailable
when you need them, the business cli-
mate may shift, material shortages
could occur, and so forth.As condi-
tions change, your original plan must
be modified to reflect those changes.
The project plan is a living document
and you should expect to be planning
throughout the life of your project.