The Code Whisperer

There are books and books about planning projects, and I’m not going to attempt to replace them in one short posting!

I have a few observations over the years I would like to share.

Planning not taken seriously. For a plan to be of any use it has to be thought out, realistic, published and have tracking of time spent and progress of the task. In my opinion task need to be split down to a daily level for the plan to be worthwhile, otherwise it’s harder to know if the progress is behind the plan. If any of these don’t apply, and normally it’s most of them not just one, the planning process isn’t being taken seriously enough for it to be a worthwhile exercise.

Tasks missing. It’s easy to omit tasks from a plan and often they are common run of the mill activities that would take place as a matter of course. However omitting them from the plan has an effect - it’s time spent not allocated, which could cause the project to slip. I look at a plan as any other project document and have it peer reviewed and/or reviewed by the project team. If tasks are identified later in the project it’s crucial to add them in for three reasons. 1, you are more likely to remember them next time; 2, it allows you to adjust the plan and, if required, delivery dates; and 3, there’s an indication the task has been carried out.

Not revising estimates. Often estimates are carried out by the wrong people - sales staff, senior managers or customers. Estimates produced by developers sometimes are under the actual time required. We all know this, but revising estimates and the plan is very rare. Why?

Abandoning the plan. I’ve seen this time and time again. A project is late or chaotic, so any attempts to maintain the plan or any measured progress of the project are abandoned. The project then goes out of control, with any delivery dates a stab in the dark. It is possible to regain control of a project in this state, but take a special project manager. I have met a project manager that recovered what appeared to be a hopeless project. Possibly the most irritating chap I’ve met, but at the same time was interested in one thing - delivery of the project in the shortest possible time. He wasn’t afraid to tell the customer it would be a week late, and he delivered it when he said it would be delivered. Pure genius.

I’m sure there are more. If you have any observations on planning failure, I would like to hear them, so drop me a line at nigel(at)code-whisperer.com.