While planning a project is one of the first phases, it's extremely important. Poor planning can mean execution can go all wrong and put severe delays on the timeline, even resulting in cancellation. Do you have any experiences where you felt that the initiation of a project could have been better? What are some effects you've seen because of poor planning on a project?
I have had experience where the initiation of a research project was poor and that resulted in major time setbacks and increased costs because we had to restart from the beginning after a team member did not do their research and steered the team in the wrong direction. Consequently, I was working a lot more hours to help the team get back on track and we had to apply for additional grants to be able to keep the project alive. Through the poor planning we learned how crucial the initiation phase of a project is and how important communication is to raise any concerns of foreseeable issues and make sure everyone has an influence on/adheres to the timeline. I have never been involved in a project that needed to be cancelled, not because of COVID but due to poor planning, so I am curious if this has happened to anyone and what the outcome was?
Often times I find that upper management will make unrealistic expectations for engineers in an effort to meet customer needs. During meetings, it's often expressed that some processes may not be feasible and upper management will want to go through with it anyways. I found that this often leads to poor planning as many of the processes encounter multiple issues causing the team to fall behind on deadlines. It is best to bring up any foreseeable issues and obstacles in the very beginning as it can be taken into consideration when planning the project.
When in the initiation stages and planning I have experienced with my team that it is quite often that people who are quite higher standing and upper management oftentimes set unrealistic goals without consulting the team initially. This happens often, however, it is the responsibility of the project manager to relay this to the upper management. Many times it can be seen that people who assign tasks and give out the deadlines often have other projects that they are managing and because of that, they lose sight of how much time each process might take and set unreasonable timelines. Any obstacles or suggestions should be brought up as early as possible to ensure that there is proper communication between the team and upper management.
Though I have not had experienced any large set backs from poor planning I do believe that planning ahead is one of the most important part of the initiation of any project. I have seen what poor planning can result in, when I was a data analyst at a lab some of the data that was collected was not at a standard that was expected. After investigation the problem was due to how the data was collected by a clinical researcher at a different site. The problem was that the data collecting apparatus was never calibrated when a new patient would come in, the problem was also in part because the clinical researcher was new and had just been trained. This meant that a large portion of the data was discarded and the patients had to come in again for the data to be calibrated and collected. This was in part because there were no instructions or checklist for the clinical researcher to follow when setting up the data apparatus. This was later amended and all data collecting apparatus station had a printed sign that walked them through the steps for calibrating and collecting data from the patients.
I have been on both sides of the scenario where there was poor planning for a project and a great amount of planning for a project. It may not seem like much of a difference in the beginning when starting out with the project but looking back to the outcomes of both, it was a drastic change in the dynamic of the teamwork and how we were able to tackle all the assignments that needed to be done. Having a team carefully lay out the plans for the project before it even starts, accounting for changes that could occur along the way, and realizing that this plan will most likely be very different by the end, will help keep everything organized and everyone accountable for what they are doing. This order that comes from careful project planning can help the team avoid some major issues down the road such as deadlines not being met, parts of the project not being done, one person having to take on much more work than others, and so on. Being in a group where there was no project planning done beforehand created much more stress than there should have been in the beginning and ultimately resulted in a sub-par final product that could have been easily improved on if there was some kind of planning in the early stages.
There are numerous levels of fallout that can occur because of poor project planning.
One significant potential consequence is that the project will fail to meet the customers’ expectations. If the customer is dissatisfied with the outcome, they may forgo doing business with that organization in the future. This can result in a loss of revenue and a loss of reputation.
References
Cooper Team. (2016, July 5). Why poor planning can lead to project failure - copper project management software. Copperproject.com. https://www.copperproject.com/2016/07/why-poor-planning-can-lead-to-project-failure/#:~:text=Poor%20planning%20of%20a%20project,for%20the%20company%20or%20organization.
Poor planning of a project will not meet the expectations of the customers. They will be dissatisfied with the work done and will not consider the business for any job in the future. This will be a massive loss of business for the company or organization. I have had experiences where the project did not start on the right foot. I was at my very first job, and I think the director led with "ego" rather than conviction. This caused a rushed launch, and the proper finances were not allocated, nor the right team was developed.
I find a lot of times poor planning on a project happens when the right people are not included in a project from conception. I believe that before project can begin planning phase you must have a PM assigned with the expertise required to develop a project. The right PM for the job will include meeting with stakeholders and not only listening to their requests but presenting realistic expectations to the stakeholders. If stakeholders have unrealistic expectations any planning that you make is bound to disappoint stakeholders and will affect the project from the beginning, causing major cost waste, time waste and ultimate cancellation of projects.
poor planning will create a delay on final product delivery and cost waste. first time need to do is to select correct personal for this project. also create a detailed timeline to ensure every team members know their duty and finish time.
While planning a project is one of the first phases, it's extremely important. Poor planning can mean execution can go all wrong and put severe delays on the timeline, even resulting in cancellation. Do you have any experiences where you felt that the initiation of a project could have been better? What are some effects you've seen because of poor planning on a project?
During my capstone project, I realized that when things might go wrong, they always go wrong, which was primarily due to a weak schedule. When starting a project, it is essential to make sure you understand the project's overall goal, or else there will be times when you will be lost and have no idea what to do. However, if one understands the project and brainstorms with their teammates, the project will go very smoothly. While completing my capstone project, we realized we didn't include the details of the project in the schedule. So while we were coming to the end of the project, we were lost, which resulted in us getting stuck and having to work very hard to complete the project in the last few days.
Poor initiation of a project (planning the projects or even starting the first steps) sets the pace of the rest. I feel as though with poor planning, the tone can be set for the entirety, which would most likely be resulting in delays or decreased efficiency.
In previous experiences, I have had projects where the planning was good, and clear on what tasks were necessary by the dates. But not having a good start (starting the project right away or meeting the first deadline) caused the progress of the project to never follow the initial schedule. The pace was delayed off the start due to the slow work rate on the tasks necessary to propel the project to a good paced start.
Good planning can help, but if the group does not start strong to maintain good pace on the project, more delays then expected can occur or even the overall quality of the project could lessen.
In my opinion, good planning plays an important role for all projects while poor planning could affect the result of the projects. I have the experience of poor planning projects for research. At that time, we had some problems planning the whole project properly since everyone involved in the project lacked experience in that field and we weren't able to obtain the help outside . The project was over budget and behind schedule. We took much longer for each step since we made a number of mistakes. Also, the project was over budget because of the waste of sources. I think one of the most important things which could be helpful for avoiding poor planning is that the team member should be familiar with the field or they can obtain the help from the experts outside.
When I had started my thesis project I initially did not have a plan set out. This caused many deadlines to be stacked on top of each other creating many stressful weeks. Though I was able to handle the work load I learned my lesson very quickly and always had a plan setup weekly for the remainder of my project. Poor planning can result not only in delays but sometimes termination of the project entirely though I have not seen this happen I had heard about it in the lab that I interned in. The manuscript deadlines were approaching and their were many problems that were appearing due to data collection and the preliminary study were not yield fruitful results. The PI and the post-doc in the lab were able to thankfully turn this around after closer examination of the data input process and many plans had to change due to that.
I've definitely faced projects in the past where I've felt the initiation could've been better. Like anything, if a strong foundation isn't set to build upon, then the more you stack up the more likely it'll topple off at one point. A lack of proper initiation is a disaster waiting to happen. Professionally not structuring the project properly from the start will result in a lack of attention to detail. Not paying attention to detail will lead to certain things falling through the cracks and subsequently cause issues with the customer when they're not getting the product up to the standard they expected.
