Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Planning

“Why does it seem that every one of our projects takes forever just to get out of the blocks?” asked Jack, Executive VP, HR.  Jack and Diane (apologies to Billy Joel) were having lunch at their favorite Italian restaurant and discussing the latest reorganization plans.  “I’ve never thought those IT guys were all that efficient, with all of their documents, checkpoints, signoffs, reviews, and meetings.  But they can sure get a project up and running a lot quicker than any other division.”  “It is strange,” responded Diane, CFO, “that we’re always complaining about how long it takes IT to finish a project, but we get grief for how long it takes us to start one.”
Planning is actually much easier in a shop that conducts many, similar projects and uses a standard project delivery methodology.  The corollary to this observation is that shops least qualified to plan are those that need planning the most.
These maxims are almost self-evident.  After all, when an organization has performed enough projects to build project delivery expertise, standardize their methods, tools, roles, and deliverables, and wean out the sources of failure, people know what to do, how to do it, and when.  Expectations are stable;  misunderstandings are reduced.  On the other hand, shops where each project is a novel endeavor have to negotiate roles and responsibilities from scratch every time and don’t have the luxury of knowing the best paths for avoiding project calamity.
These shops need planning the most, but, not knowing how much they don’t know, miss key elements.  It’s like a phonograph needle (remember those?).  An old, dull one sort of bounces off the top of the grooves while a new, sharp one gets into all of those little pits and pockets, giving a much more robust (and potentially noisy) experience.
So, should your shop commit the effort to plan or not?  There are two responses to this:
1)      Why bother?  After all, it probably won’t make much difference?
2)      Of course, because the project will turn out even worse otherwise.
Some might say that the best predictor of a successful project is good planning.  I say the best predictor of project success is having delivered lots of projects successfully.
Maybe that’s why a veteran project manager is so valuable.

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