0223 Project planning (OPEN Units 5-6)

In project management, we sometimes refer to the triple constraints as a trilemma – kind of a three way dilemma – for it is often said that given stakeholder expectations of fast delivery (time), low cost and every possible feature (scope), you can only ever realistically expect to achieve two out of three.

And even that is often ambitious!

Whether or not you can meet or manage these expectations comes down to the quality of your project plan.

The science of planning is what truly distinguishes project management as a profession from traditional forms of management.

It is at once both complex and simple: a comprehensive project management plan can run for hundreds of pages, with the schedule alone stretching several metres when viewed end-to-end; while the theory that underpins it is almost embarrassingly simple.

Yet many project managers do themselves a disservice by going straight to the complex, using past project plans as templates (and compounding the mistakes of their predecessors), without ever understanding the ‘why’.

In this session, we introduce you to the theory of project planning using quite simple, illustrative examples.

The lessons learned here are as relevant to planning the company picnic as they are to planning a manned mission to Mars – the only difference is one of scale.