Planning is something we all do almost instinctively in everyday life, as we prepare for a day trip, a night out, a dinner party or a wedding. Yet, work planning is notoriously poor in both the business and public sectors. The Channel Tunnel, for example, may have been a success from an engineering standpoint - the holes from England and France aligned within a half-meter’s precision - but the cost of the project was nearly twice what was budgeted.
The 'Natural Planning’ method is a brilliant approach advocated by productivity guru David Allen. The framework below is based on the same thinking and can be used to plan almost anything. The outcomes of the seven steps should be captured in a project plan, which then becomes a key reference for the team throughout the project. PURPOSE AND VISION A successful project starts with everyone being clear about its objectives and what must be delivered. Project managers should provide a vision of what the end result should look and feel like, and define the success criteria precisely. TASKS The next step is to brainstorm everything that might need to be done at any stage, in order to meet the project’s objectives. At this early point in the process, don’t drill down too specifically into what needs to be done, by whom and by when. What’s important is to identify all the pieces of the jigsaw, even if it isn’t obvious how they’ll be put together. Once all the tasks are on the table, you can start sorting them into buckets that different people/teams can work on. You can then put the tasks into chronological order, providing a preliminary project timeline. ACTION PLAN The action plan captures who will do each task, and when. It should specify everyone who needs to be involved, and how. (Use the 'RACI’ framework it’s a complex undertaking.) It’s crucial to identify what the very first actions need to be; deciding on further steps can often wait. RESOURCES The project leader needs to obtain estimates for the time and resources required, and the associated costs. The plan should also highlight potential problems that might cause time or costs overruns. The plan needs to say how each risk would be addressed and what will be done to make it less likely to happen in the first place. This is known as risk mitigation. SCHEDULE This specifies when each task will be started and finished, and when the start of a task depends on the completion of another. If complex, the schedule can be illustrated using a Gantt chart - a project management tool that graphically illustrates the schedule and how some activities depend on the completion of others - to make it easier to follow. Schedules often highlight key milestones along the way, such as when a whole phase of work is due to be completed or a prototype product will be ready for testing. MONITOR Project teams need to define how all parties will keep in touch, review progress, flag issues and resolve conflicts. Regular review meetings are often useful. The core team typically meets each week to determine whether everything is progressing as planned and on schedule, highlight any possible risks and decide what to do about them. Progress and actions can be recorded in a project status report - many templates are available online. REVIEW After the project has been completed, the team identifies what went well, what they’d do differently next time and how these lessons should be communicated to other parties that might benefit from them. |