Planning is Practice for Planner-Doers
September 20th, 2002 by Hal
I'm in the process of writing a paper with Greg Howell titled Projects, Planning, and Promising. In the paper we are setting out to show what isn't covered today in the accepted practice of project management while offering a new definition of what needs to be covered and how that might occur. In the course of a conversation with two project managers using the Last Planner System® this past week, I made the claim that while planning is temporal — it has an often-short shelf-life — the exercise of planning is a make-ready activity for the planner-doers.
Planning is a practice session that gets planner-doers ready for later on being in action. One go through a planning session is ill preparation. It is like hitting one golf ball and thinking you are ready for the game. The more often one is in planning conversations, the more practice one gets, and therefore the more ready one is to act in the future that is surely to be different (in some way) from the planning scenario. Yet, when the planners are also the doers, then these people will be prepared to plan again on-the-fly.
Unfortunately, the current practice separates planning from execution. A few smart and experienced people do the planning. Once the plan is accepted by the customer and management, then it is baselined (frozen) and published to the team. By that time the shelf-life may have expired leaving the doers in the situation that they can't be guided by the plan, yet they will be measured and controlled to it. For them it is a double whammy. They missed the practice session so they are not prepared for dealing with the unanticipated and they must still perform to the baselined plan.
What could they be doing? Planning could be connected tightly to execution. Planning cycles could be short — one-week intervals rather than the usual 90-180 day planning intervals. Finally, they could be learning as they go, adjusting their plan as their competence increases and the future unfolds. Such a shame…
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