The creativity in planning a project

You can deal with far more than the mere project at hand at the planning stage. You can also shape the overall pattern of your team's working using the division and type of activities you allocate.

Get their ideas too

Your team also should be involved in the planning of the projects, especially in the beginning levels of the project. Not only will they provide information and ideas, but also they will feel ownership in the final plan. And let them feel the belongingness about the project.

Plan the project based upon all the available experience and creative ideas. This does not mean that your projects should be planned by committee. As an initial approach, you could attempt the first level of the work breakdown structure to help you communicate the project to the team and then ask for comments. Then, using these, the final levels could be refined by the people to whom the tasks will be allocated. However, since the specification is so vital, all the team should vet the penultimate draft.

Risks in analysis

There is nothing without a slightest risk. The project review also is covered with these kinds of risks. And these risks can be occurred recurring and sometimes they can be too severe.

The regular filter of new information can lead to a fierce cycle of planning and revising which shakes the team's confidence in any particular version of the plan and which destroys the very stability which the structure was designed to provide. It is you who hs to maintain a balance between. Pick a point on the horizon and walk confidently towards it. Decide objectively, and explain beforehand, when the review phases will occur and make this a scheduled landmark.

It is important to recognize the work which has been accomplished during the interim, even though the situation may have changed since the last review:

1. You do not want to abandon it since the team will be demotivated feeling that they have achieved nil.

2. This work itself is part of the new situation: it has been done, it should provide a foundation for the next step or at least the basis of a lesson well learnt. Always try to build upon the existing realizations of your group.

Aim at the target

Questions to the point: Avoid useless quests for perfection. If you have motivated your team well, they will each take pride in their work and want to do the best job possible. Often this means polishing their work until is shines; often this wastes time. If it is clear at the onset exactly what is needed, then they are more likely to stop when that has been achieved. One important this is to avoid simplifications and to specify limits.

Use the exact tool: Use what is available whenever possible unless the difference in the new version is worth the time, money and the initial, teething pains. The same is also true when choosing the tools or building-blocks of your project. While it might be nice to have use of the most modern versions, or to develop an exact match to your needs; often there is an old/existing version which will serve almost as well and the difference is not worth the time you would need to invest in obtaining or developing the new one.

Don't be too spirited: Dispirit too much effort on aspects of the project which are personal to that one job. In the specification phase, you might try to eliminate these through negotiation with the customer; in the implementation phase you might leave these parts until last. The reason for this advice is that a general piece of work can be tailored to many specific instances; thus, if the work is in a general form, you will be able to rapidly re-use it for other projects. At the planning phase, a manager should bare in mind the future and the long-term development of the team as well as the requirements of the current project. On the other hand, if you produce something which is cut to fit exactly one specific case, you may have to repeat the work entirely even though the next project is fairly similar.

Planning for error

There will be errors: Don't think that there will be no errors in the implementation: in effect, the schedule is derived on the basis of "if nothing goes wrong, this will take ...". Of course, recognizing that errors will occur is the reason for implementing a monitoring strategy on the project. Thus when the inevitable does happen, you can react and adapt the plan to compensate. However, by carefully considering errors in advance you can make changes to the original plan to enhance its tolerance. Quite simply, your planning should include time where you stand back from the design and ask: Search for errors and it will be excellent way of the analysis of your plan.

Foretell: Try to foresee where the errors will come about. You can usually pinpoint some activities which are risky by examining the activities' list and those which are quite secure. The risky areas might then be given a less stringent time-scale - actually planning-in time for the mistakes. Another possibility is to apply a different strategy, or more resources, to such activities to lessen the distraction.

Inquisition

Allocate time to reviewing the lessons and information on both the work itself and the management of that work at the end of any project. An open meeting, with open discussion, with the whole team and all customers and suppliers will be useful. If you think that this might be thought a waste of time by your own manager, think of the effect it will have on future communications with your customers and suppliers. Try for it.

Qualification test

Testing and quality is important in project planning. This should be part of each individual phase of the project. This means that no activity is completed until it has passed the (objectively) defined criteria which establish its quality, and these are best defined (objectively) at the beginning as part of the planning. So you must include allocated time for this part of each activity. Thus your question is not only: "how long will it take", but also: "how long will the testing take". By asking both questions together you raise the issue of "how do we know we have done it right" at the very beginning and so the testing is more likely to be done in parallel with the implementation. Create this philosophy for your team by include testing as a required cost.

Importance of time

On time: Show on an alternative schedule that the project could be delivered by the deadline if specified resources are given to you or if other projects are rescheduled. Thus, you provide a clear picture of the situation and a possible solution; it is up to your manager then how he go forward.

A practical Time table: Control the anxiety and work load which is imposed upon your team; you must protect them from the unreasonable demands of the rest of the company. Once you have arrived at what you consider to be a realistic schedule, fight for it. Never let the outside world deflect you from what you know to be practical. If they impose a deadline upon you which is impossible, clearly state this and give your reasons. You will need to give some room for compromise, however, since a flat nothing will be seen as obstructive. Search for different points.

Manage time: The complexity of the product, or the total number of units, might be reduced. This might, in some cases, be sufficient for the customer's immediate needs. Future enhancements or more units would then be the subject of a subsequent negotiation which, you feel, would be likely to succeed since you will have already demonstrates your ability to deliver on time there.

Offer a model: You could offer a prototype service or product at an earlier date. This might, in some cases, be sufficient for the customer to start the next stage of his/her own project on the understanding that your project would be completed at a later date and the final version would then replace the prototype.

Upcoming plans

The projects should be get done, but seldom in the predicted manner and often as much by brute force as by careful planning. The point, however, is that this method is non-optimal. Customers feel let down by late delivery, staffs are demotivated by constant pressure for impossible goals, corners get cut which harm your reputation, and each project has to overcome the same problems as the last. Projects can run on time and interact effectively with both customers and suppliers. Everyone involved understands what is wanted and emerging problems are seen long before they cause damage. If you want your projects to run this way - then you must invest time in planning. And it will so much useful for the future of your project.

Have a nice time!