Why perpetual planning matters

There will always be a time period over which it is impossible to plan with any degree of reasonable accuracy or beyond the planning horizon. As former US president, Dwight D Eisenhower, once said “in preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable”.

This invaluable insight and advice applies equally to any project, programme and portfolio if strategy objectives are to translate into benefits realization. Like the ‘Managing Benefits by Steve Jenner’ guide¹ states, planning is ‘not simply form filling, but a mindset that drives accountability for delivery.’ Since the focus is more on planning as an activity than plans as documents.

Planning is perpetual regardless of the project management methodology or product development framework used. The term ‘project’ is used to cover projects, programmes and portfolios unless it is necessary to make a clear distinction. Effective project management, therefore, relies on efficacious planning as, without a plan, there is no control.

But having an end date is one thing; how accurate and realistic it is can often be something quite different! Hence why, planning to the horizon or to what you can see is so important. Planning should ideally only be done to a level of detail that is manageable and foreseeable. It is seldom possible to plan with any degree of accuracy beyond the planning horizon.

A great deal of effort can be wasted on futile attempts to plan beyond a sensible planning horizon. This is why the Strategy Implementation Institute² advises to use ‘the magic of 90 days’ to ensure new strategic objectives through projects are successfully executed. Taking action in 90-day timeframes makes the strategy objective realistic to the people responsible for implementing it and creates quick wins that the commissioning organization can see.

The reason being is that Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton³ have found in their extensive research into knowledge management that people often do not follow through. That is, doing planning and having a plan is one thing, while implementing (whilst continually learning) is quite another.

Dividing a project into a number of manageable stages makes sense as it enables better control and decision-making in terms of continued capital investment based on business priority, risk and complexity involved.

Shorter stages by its very nature offers more control, while longer stages reduces the time burden on senior management directing and governing a project. Having shorter, distinct stages allows us to take heed of where we are now (the “baseline”), where we want to be (the “desired target state”) and determine how best to get there with a flexible plan. By having firm start and end dates for shorter stages, commissioning organizations can decide either to continue, discontinue or vary the scope for implementation based on available funds and resources.

By working incrementally and in iterations, a project is more likely to deliver a minimum viable product (the maximum amount of validated learning with the least amount of effort) to the customer and better able to respond to changes through frequent feedback loops.

Planning is invaluable because plans help us recognize when things have changed; they help us understand the implications of change, how we need to adjust and the likely cost of that change. The important thing is that, as we make plans, we understand that the plan may have to change depending on the velocity of the project team based on what is known.

As the Praxis Framework⁴ states “planning simply determines what is to be delivered, how much it will cost, when it will be delivered, how it will be delivered, who will carry it out and how all this will be managed”. Planning as an activity is therefore essential, regardless of project type or size. It plays an integral part in the success of any project as it ensures proper expectations are set around what can be delivered, by when, and for how much.

Every project is going to be different as the strategic objectives will be different. Most of the work in planning is thinking about what you need to do to get everything done and putting the structure in place to make that happen.