Overview

There are many reasons why projects fail but survey after survey has found that one of the top reasons for failure is lack of planning. Conversely, studies have found that a major reason for success is proper planning. Upfront planning is very important but, as with the very successful agile programming methodology, planning should remain as painless as possible and iterative.

A forward-looking philosophy should be employed to ensure that you are prepared for taskings but concurrently ensure enough flexibility to accommodate changing task priorities. In essence, the upfront planning should provide the basic strategy by which a Process Improvement effort operates. It's a matter of pay now or pay more later.

Managers can avoid the common mistakes made when a project is managed using reactive, firefighting methods of decision making rather than proactive. In a reactive environment, staff are frequently reacting with no time for fact-based planning, forecasting, decision making and improving. When planning takes a more proactive perspective, there is much less impact when things don't go as planned, thus it minimizes any surprises.

Iterative planning ensures that all aspects of activities are considered throughout the effort. As the effort evolves so should the plan. When an effort is in the early stages you don't fully understand all ramifications of the effort but, as it evolves, new things come to light so an iterative plan will enable the effort to take advantage of this additional information.

In the words of Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland