(^144) 97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know
Documents Are a Means, Not an End
Patrick Kua
London, UK
EISEnhoWER onCE SAID, “PlAnS ARE WoRThlESS. Planning is essen-
tial.” Successful project managers understand how to reap the benefits from
planning without the overhead of meticulously updating their plans in minute
detail. They actively use documents to help spark meaningful conversations,
not as the replacement for all communication methods, or worse yet, as a way
of pointing out when people breach an agreement.
Planning and tracking will remain essential activities for a project manager,
though always framed in the context of achieving a particular goal. Many
organizations (incorrectly) measure project managers on how well they stick
to a plan, or how thoroughly a particular set of documents has been com-
pleted, distributed, and archived.
In organizations that misunderstand planning, project managers are asked,
“How accurately did you meet the plan?” Beware of enterprises that ask this
micromanagement-centered question instead of the more important ques-
tion, “Did you deliver the most value in the desired timeframe?” Value may be
judged as achieving the right goal within a given budget, delighting customers,
or exceeding expectations. With the wrong yardstick in hand, sometimes it’s
all too easy to forget what the end goal truly is intended to be.
Focusing on just developing plans and the perfect set of documents creates
a false sense of progress and accomplishment. It implies that the execution
of the plan is the easy part and that the plans are accurate, both of which are
hardly ever the case.