I am biased as a planner and project manager and so feel that having a plan is useful however there is no denying that sometimes it is easier to just get on with it, especially when under time pressure. There is a amusing quote from Sir John Harvey Jones which sums this up:
"Planning is an unnatural process; it is much more fun to do something. And the nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression"
So why have a plan? I feel that good planning has two phases of benefit:
- When setting up the project plan
- When using the plan
Setting up the plan
Discover and Confirm scope; if you deliver everything on the plan will you be judged a success? Have you left anything out?
Full disclosure / discovery of all the tasks; avoid hidden or assumed tasks (of course you need a specification before you can code everyone knows that).
Consider all the dependencies; within the project (before I can do task B I need to have done A) and outside your control (we'll need Project X to have done Y before we can do task B) and exactly how they impact your project.
Once you've got a fully fleshed out plan and it doesn't land when you need it to you can consider the risks you're willing to take (for instance originally your plan was no to order any materials until the design was signed off however you're willing to plan to order a very long lead time item after the 1st review to protect the end date)
Buy in from all parties, joint planning – all in it together and consult all the actors and involved parties around their tasks and dependencies. A plan which is only formed from one person's opinions will often fail as the rest of the team either don't know about it or don't believe it.
State all the assumptions; usually there will be a point at which you will have to make an assumption (how long is a piece of string) - state this and clearly show where this is in the plan. Ideally you'll be maintaining a log of assumptions and the actions needed to convert each one from an assumption into a fact.
Identification of issues / risks / resources required before you arrive at the crisis.
Management of expectations; If the dates don't align with the stakeholder's expectations you have a tool to either manage the expectations, manage down the scope expectations or increase resources until you have a plan which both you and the stakeholders are comfortable with.
When using the plan
The plan is a crystal ball which helps to predict the future – when you have a realistically linked plan it allows you to see the impact of changes rather than being blind sided by something which was missed whilst concentrating on the current fire fight.
All plans have to ' breathe' with the changes you will experience – the military have a saying "no plan survives first contact with the enemy" however having the plan allows you to see all the impacts of today's change.
Your plan continues to be a tool to help manage expectations and communicate the impact of changes and progress. It provides important evidence when assessing changes to scope or resources and the impacts of issues which need to be reported.
The plan must be the single source of the truth for all things date related. If you have a report of Key Milestones you should be able to copy and paste the information directly into the report rather than interpret the plan. Use SummaryPro to produce any 'plan on a page' or exec friendly plan.
Use the plan to remind yourself of what is coming up in the next few weeks / months and what should be in flight at the moment.
Avoid having more than one plan – if you, or members of the team, are running back of an envelope plans in parallel with the "main" plan consider why this is and what is wrong with the "main" plan. There should be only one plan otherwise the envelope plans will slip out of synch with the main plan and confusion will reign. Even if your program has many project managers with their own plans these should still be directly linked to the overall program plan so that all the moving parts stay in synch.