Project Management Checklists For Dummies

Chapter 8

Creating the Plans

In This Chapter

Planning as a foundation

Solving problems on the plan, not in the project

The levels of planning

Checklists to help you get the plans right

Fail to plan: Plan to fail

It’s an old saying but it’s true. Like many people, you may be under pressure to ‘get on with the real work’ of the project and so be in danger of cutting back on planning. However, planning is real work. With a good plan you’ll be in control, you’ll avoid firefighting problems that were avoidable and you may even deliver earlier. The plans give you a clear view of what you need to produce, how and when. Then you can check that everything fits together and that you really can deliver. The idea is to find and solve problems on the plan, not hit them in the project. A major cause of failure in projects is poor planning, or not planning at all. Now the answer to under-planning isn’t over-planning, but good, well thought-through plans for the level of control that you’ll need this time around.

You’ll often need to work at two levels of planning and sometimes three. You do the ...