97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know

Chapter 72. Documents Are a Means, Not an End

Patrick Kua

EISENHOWER ONCE SAID, "PLANS ARE WORTHLESS. Planning is essential." Successful project managers understand how to reap the benefits from planning without the overhead of meticulously updating their plans in minute detail. They actively use documents to help spark meaningful conversations, not as the replacement for all communication methods, or worse yet, as a way of pointing out when people breach an agreement.

Planning and tracking will remain essential activities for a project manager, though always framed in the context of achieving a particular goal. Many organizations (incorrectly) measure project managers on how well they stick to a plan, or how thoroughly a particular set of documents has been completed, distributed, and archived.

In organizations that misunderstand planning, project managers are asked, "How accurately did you meet the plan?" Beware of enterprises that ask this micromanagement-centered question instead of the more important question, "Did you deliver the most value in the desired timeframe?" Value may be judged as achieving the right goal within a given budget, delighting customers, or exceeding expectations. With the wrong yardstick in hand, sometimes it's all too easy to forget what the end goal truly is intended to be.

Focusing on just developing plans and the perfect set of documents creates a false ...