managers who don’t plan chronically suffer from an interesting
irony. Because they don’t plan, they spend a great deal of time
“fighting fires,” so they’re always going full speed. Since they’re
going at full speed, they’re able to rationalize their negligence in
planning because they’re too busy and don’t have the time.
Don’t let this be you!
Failure to Plan in Sufficient Detail.Sometimes project man-
agers make an attempt to plan, but don’t do it in enough detail.
It’s a question of how they size and compose elements of
work—specifically the ones that they then put on their schedule
and attempt to watch closely. Failing to plan and schedule proj-
ect work in enough detail can result in three significant, undesir-
able effects, which you can avoid by asking these questions:
- Will all involved participants readily understand what it
includes?
You should describe and defineelements of work in enough
detail that there’s no confusion. I’ve seen many cases where
defining work elements poorly has resulted in rework, as people
simply misunderstood what was expected. For example, let’s
assume Brad’s project contains an element of work entitled “ana-
lyze existing production lines.” Brad may think that he knows
what this element entails. It certainly seems like something he or
a member of his team should do. However, think about it for a
moment: would you be able to make an intelligent guess as to
exactly what’s included in this element? It’s simply not defined in
sufficient detail to make it unambiguous to all concerned. This
element of work is too big; it should be broken down. - Can you prepare a reasonably accurate estimate of dura-
tion and cost?
If a reasonably accurate estimate is needed, the work must
be broken down to a point where you can estimate its duration
and cost with a high degree of confidence. In other words, the
less time and effort you put into defining your project, the
greater the uncertainty in your estimate. We’ll discuss this point
in more detail later in this chapter.
102 Project Management