Achieving Value with Planning

Project planning is pervasive and widespread in the IT industry, but there is a common misunderstanding of its real value and purpose. Meeting the project schedules and timelines is all too often seen as the only measure of project success. The result is that planning becomes extremely conservative, project budgets are bloated, standards are kept deliberately low, and project decisions are driven by project plans rather than by sound business reasons.

Good planning is primarily about informing the plan authors about objectives, resource requirements and risk. Only when planning is thorough, is it possible to understand what these really mean. Without good planning it is hard to understand what should be done and who should do it. For example it is common practice in movies to plan a scene in detail, because that is the only way to assemble all the crews and equipment necessary to actually shoot the scene.

Plans do help predict the future, but their value lies in getting the most out of resources and making adjustments as necessary when planning assumptions fail (which is the norm). Aggressive but realistic planning assumptions allow projects to be staffed with small, lean teams; resources are allocated to projects only when needed or when failed planning assumptions require a boost in resources.

For the highest staff utilization, best practice is to plan so that half the projects will exceed their initial estimates, but to compensate by maintaining a reserve of skilled staff which can be allocated to projects as necessary. This allows organizations to achieve both low delivery cost and timely delivery.

Lean teams are only possible with good planning. Otherwise, it is difficult to know when and how to make adjustments in time to meet customer commitments or to adjust for risk actualization. Some customers may also be willing to trade off delivery dates for lower prices, if they are given the choice.

Common industry practice is to lock up excess resources early in a project. This means either that the project is carrying unnecessary people OR it can't start because the people required are just not available. Organizations which can use planning as described have a decisive, strategic advantage which cannot be easily duplicated.