With many engineering offices and construction sites internationally, projects that may look promising could suffer delays, increasing the overhead costs and missing projected outputs. Regularly most will react by blaming "bad planning" as the main excuse.
If bad planning is responsible for failure, it stands to reason that "good planning" should be the savior. And by "good planning," conventional wisdom means "more planning": more pages of tasks, more lines of specifications, and many, many more details.
After 27 years of working on several intricate production systems as a process consultant and operations analyst, on a global scale, for example: automobile, off-shore drilling and airplanes; I certainly know what good planning is- well at least- what one perceives it to be and frankly it is not a solution but more often the problem.
Fine tuning details are the real dilemma.
What goes askew? Most scheduling schemes work according to a method of earned significance whereby effort is separated into a structure that easily assesses the collective costs. But on paper figures often look perfect until it comes to trying to implement them. Naturally, most of these work schemes are linear and somewhat hierarchical in nature- they forget to allow "hand-offs" that is part and parcel of completing any such job. While "model" planning defines the tasks, it unfortunately does not identify working interaction, although it attempts to define all of them.
But relationships are precisely what a project manager manages. Excessive detail creates a needle-in-the-haystack situation that inhibits corrective action by obscuring the truly relevant. The more details in the plan, the more difficult it is for people on the ground - project managers and their teams - to make the on-the-fly adjustments that are absolutely necessary for successful implementations.
Just as no one would advise commencing a project without planning, I am not advocating planning without details. But I do believe in setting the right level of detail: only as much as an organization can manage. Much of the project detail should be defined in simple checklists and work instructions - and not much more. When the level of plan detail is appropriate, project teams can anticipate the consequences of any change in a given line item; when projects are over-planned, consequences are impossible to forecast and managers become incapable of responding effectively. They become (to borrow a metaphor) lost in the forest, incapable of finding the right trees. As problems arise, the project becomes susceptible to delays. The project team can't see the right course of action. Deadlines are missed, and to compensate, project meetings become long, tedious affairs in which managers defend past actions to deflect blame. The planning everyone once praised as "thorough" is now exposed as "unmanageable".
Forget "planning" focus should shift onto "actions".
Problems are not only a possibility, but in truth inevitable. Things will go wrong, and strict plans almost always turn small shortcomings into much larger ones. Subsequently, more planning, can, in itself, never add to completed projects. Heavy laden with details, large tactics become like boa constrictors squeezing the life out of any process, ultimately suffocating its chances of success.
The path to success, therefore, is not more planning, but a focus on effective execution that anticipates problems and has the flexibility necessary for addressing them. Consider football: no amount of planning can dictate success on the field; in fact, excessive adherence to a plan would constrain a coach, not help him. What the coach needs is the ability to implement plays - intelligent execution - appropriate to the immediate situation on the ground in front of him.
So as to intelligently execute plays, the coach requires:
1. A clear surveillance of the situation: What is midpoint to the situation of any venture? Superior managers/ coaches have the capability of clearly setting out tasks at hand and possible obstacles in order to advance. When teams have a clear vision, it becomes easy for them to use resources and time available to accomplish small tasks that they can complete competently and thus add to reaching their desired goals.
2. Common goals: Every player concerned needs to focus on being a team player and cannot try to advance their own "stats". Success equals faultless placement of each team member. In projects, "balanced" scorecards are not possible. Replacing calculated metrics (efficiency by separate jobs) with a lone metric which is concentrated on productivity that aligns all the work done by the team, with the objectives of the project.
3. Collaboration: The team has to agree on general action strategies and what their role is. Instead of individuals pursuing their own agendas, the team must cooperate towards a common goal through crystal clear communication of the status of the project and what steps must still be taken to move forward in the project.
Planning for dynamic action
Planning should be continuous. But more planning doesn't necessarily mean it is good planning. Over the top planning ends up burying a team in unmanageable details. If frustration is to be replaced with success, then smart job plans have to fit the team size that drive the carrying out of the tasks and manages the grey areas. Planning should simply serve as a guide on how execute the work and not be an objective as such. Better planning can anticipate problems and give project managers tools that they may need to set corrective procedures in place. By substituting active execution for inert adherence to exceedingly detailed plans, visual project management enables one to obtain control and make work flow smoothly.
If bad planning is responsible for failure, it stands to reason that "good planning" should be the savior. And by "good planning," conventional wisdom means "more planning": more pages of tasks, more lines of specifications, and many, many more details.
After 27 years of working on several intricate production systems as a process consultant and operations analyst, on a global scale, for example: automobile, off-shore drilling and airplanes; I certainly know what good planning is- well at least- what one perceives it to be and frankly it is not a solution but more often the problem.
Fine tuning details are the real dilemma.
What goes askew? Most scheduling schemes work according to a method of earned significance whereby effort is separated into a structure that easily assesses the collective costs. But on paper figures often look perfect until it comes to trying to implement them. Naturally, most of these work schemes are linear and somewhat hierarchical in nature- they forget to allow "hand-offs" that is part and parcel of completing any such job. While "model" planning defines the tasks, it unfortunately does not identify working interaction, although it attempts to define all of them.
But relationships are precisely what a project manager manages. Excessive detail creates a needle-in-the-haystack situation that inhibits corrective action by obscuring the truly relevant. The more details in the plan, the more difficult it is for people on the ground - project managers and their teams - to make the on-the-fly adjustments that are absolutely necessary for successful implementations.
Just as no one would advise commencing a project without planning, I am not advocating planning without details. But I do believe in setting the right level of detail: only as much as an organization can manage. Much of the project detail should be defined in simple checklists and work instructions - and not much more. When the level of plan detail is appropriate, project teams can anticipate the consequences of any change in a given line item; when projects are over-planned, consequences are impossible to forecast and managers become incapable of responding effectively. They become (to borrow a metaphor) lost in the forest, incapable of finding the right trees. As problems arise, the project becomes susceptible to delays. The project team can't see the right course of action. Deadlines are missed, and to compensate, project meetings become long, tedious affairs in which managers defend past actions to deflect blame. The planning everyone once praised as "thorough" is now exposed as "unmanageable".
Forget "planning" focus should shift onto "actions".
Problems are not only a possibility, but in truth inevitable. Things will go wrong, and strict plans almost always turn small shortcomings into much larger ones. Subsequently, more planning, can, in itself, never add to completed projects. Heavy laden with details, large tactics become like boa constrictors squeezing the life out of any process, ultimately suffocating its chances of success.
The path to success, therefore, is not more planning, but a focus on effective execution that anticipates problems and has the flexibility necessary for addressing them. Consider football: no amount of planning can dictate success on the field; in fact, excessive adherence to a plan would constrain a coach, not help him. What the coach needs is the ability to implement plays - intelligent execution - appropriate to the immediate situation on the ground in front of him.
So as to intelligently execute plays, the coach requires:
1. A clear surveillance of the situation: What is midpoint to the situation of any venture? Superior managers/ coaches have the capability of clearly setting out tasks at hand and possible obstacles in order to advance. When teams have a clear vision, it becomes easy for them to use resources and time available to accomplish small tasks that they can complete competently and thus add to reaching their desired goals.
2. Common goals: Every player concerned needs to focus on being a team player and cannot try to advance their own "stats". Success equals faultless placement of each team member. In projects, "balanced" scorecards are not possible. Replacing calculated metrics (efficiency by separate jobs) with a lone metric which is concentrated on productivity that aligns all the work done by the team, with the objectives of the project.
3. Collaboration: The team has to agree on general action strategies and what their role is. Instead of individuals pursuing their own agendas, the team must cooperate towards a common goal through crystal clear communication of the status of the project and what steps must still be taken to move forward in the project.
Planning for dynamic action
Planning should be continuous. But more planning doesn't necessarily mean it is good planning. Over the top planning ends up burying a team in unmanageable details. If frustration is to be replaced with success, then smart job plans have to fit the team size that drive the carrying out of the tasks and manages the grey areas. Planning should simply serve as a guide on how execute the work and not be an objective as such. Better planning can anticipate problems and give project managers tools that they may need to set corrective procedures in place. By substituting active execution for inert adherence to exceedingly detailed plans, visual project management enables one to obtain control and make work flow smoothly.
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