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Chapter 1
Creating a Project Plan
e importance of project planning cannot be overemphasized. Without adequate planning, projects
tend to sway and wobble, and frequently get deected and go down unwanted rabbit trails.
I recall one project; I was called on to turnaround, which had derailed, whereby the state-
ment of work (SoW) was not clear to a variety of support resources.
Project background: is commercial o-the-shelf (COTS) deployment was categorized
as one of the top three “mission critical” projects in the project portfolio. Because it was
a COTS solution to reduce cost, management leadership chose to assign a junior project
manager.