Project Planning Not All It's Cracked Up to Be

OK, everyone relax, I haven't lost my mind. Of course planning is important. But, as I've been saying for years, circumstances change the minute a plan is put on paper and a good project manager needs to expect uncertainty and know how to deal with it when it arises.

There's a great article in Projects@Work by Roger Bly that supports this approach. Bly talks about how project managers must manage the entire end-to-end process, and recommends taking a collaborative approach, using tools that enable frequent two-way communication and the ability for resources to keep the plan current and reflective of reality (something I completely agree with).

Here's an excerpt...

"A collaborative project execution application can make this process a reality in organizations of all sizes by allowing project teams to successfully tackle multiple concurrent projects. Projects are no longer constrained by static plans produced and updated only by project managers.

A project execution approach also frees project leaders from the mundane work of updating project plans, collecting progress information and reformatting information into status reports. Project plans can be collaboratively built and updated by the project team, often by reusing collateral, deliverables and templates from previous projects."

Far too often, a project manager will create an elaborate plan, and struggle to keep it current, ignoring the real issues that occur during project execution. If the team is trained to contribute frequent updates of remaining time (and any changes to the plan), the project manager can spend more time leading and monitoring as opposed to administrivia.

Of course, another easy way to accomplish this is to update the plan and percent complete collaboratively at a weekly meeting on an overhead projector, but it's ideal if the resources can update their own activities electronically.

For more about the need to focus on execution and communication, read the full article...

http://www.projectsatwork.com/content/Articles/231152.cfm