Don’t Miss the Second Step: Planning Is Practice for the Main Event
August 8th, 2004 by HalThe AEC world can learn from those people doing information technology projects. I hear people in IT say, "Construction is straight forward; everything is visible and predictable." That shows how little they know about construction! But hidden in that statement is the recognition that IT projects must deal with high levels of uncertainty. While the IT world inherited the practices of project management from the AEC world, they have adapted those practices to accommodate some of the same challenges prevalent in AEC projects.
Planning is practice for the main event. Let's practice with the people who will perform.
All but the trivial construction projects are uncertain. The nature of engineer-to-order one-off products nearly guarantees that a group of strangers will have one heck of a challenge designing and building. Bill Heldman, Director of Operations for the City and County of Denver Office of Information Technology, writes in Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine That First Step Is Tricky. The article is worth a read, particularly if you are not an IT professional. You'll see something about how another large group of project folk see the world. Bill describes approaches for dealing with poorly articulated project requests, something that is oh-so familiar in the AEC world.
Bill's basic message is to set your project up for success by taking the time to define outcomes, time tables, budgets, team members, and project roles. While he misses at least one important element — practices for planning — Bill's emphasis on getting the project started well is on the mark. Projects that start well are more likely to finish well.
I have one beef with Bill. He recommends that a project manager
"…whip up a project plan for almost any IT undertaking of any size".
It's exactly that way of working that gets us into trouble in the AEC world. Project planning is effective when we include the team of performers. When we engage the performers in an on-going planning process we not only expand the knowledge, talents, and judgement available, but more importantly we prepare the performers to operate in the uncertain future. Planning is practice for the main event. Let's practice with the people who will perform. Planning is a recurring conversation that produces a coherence of the promises of the performers with the overall promise of the project. While the first step of starting well might be tricky, don't miss the second step of collaboratively planning.
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