The Plan

The Project Plan is effectively the only tangible deliverable a project manager does within a project. Everything else is a supporting activity to the actual deliverables. The ability to make a good plan therefore shows the difference between a good PM and a so-so PM. It would be easy to think that as long as you have all the information you need, planning becomes better. To an extent that is true. Unfortunately, you will never have all the information that you would need in creating a plan.

So now what?

There is a concept in Project Planning known as " Rolling Wave Planning" which states that there is a constant need to plan and replan in waves based on the information gathered at every wave. A common misconception by noob PM's is that you plan once and then execute. However there is rarely the situation and unless the project is soooo simple this would rarely be the case. Planning is an ongoing and recurring activity. There is no shame on replanning since we need to accept that we cannot run with the previous plan. It should however be noted that constant replanning is also a sign of ineffectiveness of the PM. We replan because there is new information or events that need to be considered in the project not because we forgot or did not include these information from the start.

It's 2009. Time to start (re) planning.