Project Planning and Project Success

61

11

Planning and Success in General

Project Management

A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan

next week.

George S. Patton

Now we review the more general project management literature to see

what it has to say about planning.

IMPACT OF PLANNING FROM

ACONCEPTUAL STANDPOINT

omas et al. (2008) state that the front end of the project has received

less attention in the project management literature than the subse-

quent phases that deal with detailed planning and execution: “[T]he

most eective team cannot overcome a poor project plan” (p. 105), and

projects started down the wrong path in the early stages can lead to

the most spectacular project failures. Morris (1998) similarly argued

that “e decisions made at the early denition stages set the strate-

gic framework within which the project will subsequently develop. Get

it wrong here, and the project will be wrong for a long time” (p. 5).

Heargued that the role of the initiation phase in dening the project

and its inuence on project success or project failure poses a strong

argument for integrating the initiation phase into the project manage-

ment domain. is has now largely occurred with the planning and

62 • Project Planning and Project Success: e 25% Solution

initiation phases now encompassing many project and scope denition

tasks. e PMBOK

®

Guide now has the following task: “4.1 Develop

Project Charter and 10.1 Identify Stakeholders” (p. 43) as part of the

initiating process group of PMBOK

®

Guide (PMI

®

, 2008).

In my own career, I was brought in to manage an initial outsourcing

engagement at a major bank. is engagement was planned to include

some radical innovations including the use of open source tools for the

majority of systems and the full outsourcing of design and coding to a

vendor. e vendor was both a local agency and had oshore resources.

Entering the engagement, we were told that there would be some resis-

tance from the regular teams in the department but that because we were

being brought in by the CIO, he should be able to overrule any objections.

However, what was not understood in the planning of the project was that

some of the stakeholder groups did not in fact report to the CIO. On top

of that, they were the teams who would need to support the applications

aer the project was done. In the end, those teams managed to delay,

question, and block progress to the point that the project was halted and

all the work done to that point scrapped. e stakeholder analysis part

of the planning phase was not done eectively and the project was not

successful.

Ensuring the project is set up for success prior to the execution stage is

important. Jorgensen and Grimstad (2011) note that estimation failures

occurring during the planning phase including misestimating required

timelines and budgets will of course aect project success. Besner and

Hobbs (2011) similarly state, “e most important analysis and initial

plans are done during the front-end of the project. If the wrong direction

or no clear direction is taken during the early denition phase, it is always

dicult to get the project back on track” (p. 21). Munns and Bjeirmi (1996)

make a point in stating that a project which is awed from the early stages

is unlikely to be saved by good execution. In fact successful execution may

matter only to the project team, and the wider organization will see the

project as a failure.

e strategic information systems (SIS) literature also examines the role

of planning in enterprise success. Premkumar and King (1991) noted that

organizations with higher quality planning processes have better perfor-

mance in their planning processes which leads to better performance of

the IS function and greater contribution of IS to the organization’s suc-

cess. In another paper they note that organizations where IS is considered

strategic have better planning processes (Premkumar and King, 1992).