Project planning as the majority of the posts above indicated is important and overall sets the foundation and path moving forward for the project. The planning phase I do agree that returning to activities at an earlier phase doesn’t mean we are moving backwards. There are things within a project that may not necessarily be accounted or predicted which would require a team to get back to the drawing boards and rethink some aspects of the project. Essentially, this is progress even though it is within an earlier phase of the project. Overall, within the initial phases of setting up a timeline there should be some buffers that would allow for unforeseeable circumstances to be accounted for. A schedule should not be solely constructed based on the idea that everything goes according to plan. There should be some form leeway allowed within the schedule to allow for circling back to the planning phase if something unforeseeable were to occur.
I believe that the planning phase of the project and critical and one of the most important steps in implementing a project. Project planning gives a concrete foundation and security. Poor project planning shows that you're intending to fail and the project is not at the top of your priority list. During this phase, the team takes into account risk management, scheduling, and budget. When entering the initiation phase and realizing that your plan might not work the way you want it, there is nothing wrong with going back to the planning phase to rework what you have done. This does not set you back, it just means that you have to start using your problem solving skills to take another route.
Going back on a project is a step backwards but it’s a necessary action to commit. Trying to continue a project without going back and correcting prior mistake will lead to a larger issue further down the road. Also, if the schedule change is coming from higher management it would be hopefully understood if the timeline of the project changes. If they are not it will fall on the PM to fix the schedule to be more rigorous and allow the staff to pick up the extra weight from the project change.
I agree that the planning phase is one of the most important phases and is extremely critical on the success of the project. However, the planning phase will just set up the guidelines and time schedule for the project and it is up to the other phases and groups to execute. I think the execution phase is a lot more important because planning is great but it your team can not effectively act out the desired tasks then the project will slow down and could possibly fail. If a lot of time is spent planning a project and then a couple unexpected changes, the project can become dismantle and project management will be forced to revise and possibly start over. Therefore, I think amble time should be spent in planning to set up a solid foundation but it should not consume too much time as acting out and executing the plan is just as important, and there should be enough time left for the execution phase to work so that they can properly handle changes. Also, putting too much time into the planning phase will make the team too committed to the process that they may not be willing to go back and revise certain areas.
The planning phase is the foundation of the entire project. It really is how you will execute. If you don’t plan a head, you are bound to fail at some point during the project. The planning phase will determine how the project can end up. There are many things to consider like you stated budget and completion dates, etc. Remember a lot of money goes into these projects, and the company is relying on the team to execute a game plan to make sure these projects can be a success. Yes there will be certain fall backs that will occur, however planning a head and coming up with contingency plans can help cover up from any falling backs and team might have.
Sometimes the planning phase consists of a lot of guessing, as stated above. I have experienced this at my internship over the summer and one of the engineers had overlapping tasks and projects within the main project. This was a large amount of responsibility and he had to plan his days weekly according to importance and project priority. During meetings there was a lot of "no updates" listed since there was not enough resources to have the overlapping pieces completed in sync.
The planning phase is very crucial and dictates the direction into which the team will take to accomplish the project goals. Overlapping tasks and projects is a common thing that sometimes inescapable. Communication between teams and project leads is essential to meeting deadlines and not leaving any lingering action items. Planning for a project will usually need to be changed because of priority actions, date changes, unpredictable/unanticipated events. Instead of planning around these events, have a plan in place when these unanticipated events happen.
The Planning phase is imperative since it will set the establishment of how you will handle the project. A very much planned project can have impacts limited by unanticipated conditions. Plans prepared by colleagues for areas such as communications, test, and security, are moved up into a groundbreaking strategy that the program administrator facilitates. The team's objective during this stage is to report the solution for a degree that the group can deliver and convey the solution in an opportune and cost-effective way.
Planning phase is one of the most essential roles in helping team, stakeholders and the project manager throughout the project phases. Planning is required as it helps in identifying desired goals, reducing the risks, avoiding the deadlines, deliver the agreed product. If the project planning is not done properly, the performance of the project will suffer. Project planning is heart of the project life cycle which describes how and where the project is going to complete successfully. The planning phases describes how projects are documented, deliverables and requirements are defined. Planning is important because it helps to manage time, money, quality, risks, changes.
In this scenario, Project should be well planned. If the crucial employee is not available, the back up employees should have been appointed. But in most of the cases, project manager relies on the employee, forget about such situations.
In certain there will be a emergency cases for the employee and they are bound to leave the job. So in such cases project manager should already have a back up plan which leads to no delay of the project.
Planning is one of the important phase like many said. It is basically the game plan if the team does not have a plan, there will chaos because there is no order which they can follow. The team will be walking blind and the project will not be done and/or there will be many errors done. The Planning phases helps distribute all task making it easier for the members to complete. Plans will always be altered throughout the project phase because it is the safe net. If an incident happens which disrupt the plan there should always be a back plan just in case where the team can switch gears without any problems.
The planning phase in our company is crucial for any project. This is because the projects we take on are government funded projects and any mistake in the planning phase would risk us losing the entire project. This is why planning at my company is taken very seriously. We hold meetings and discuss daily/weekly/monthly goals. We outline action items, setup deadlines, assign tasks, go over funding and approximating number of people per project. We throw out ideas on how to start a project, propose those ideas and implement them. If during the middle, something happens like more staffing is needed or resources become unavailable, we go back and revise the plan. We propose our revised plans again and once they're accepted, we re-implement. This means, we setup new meetings, communicate changes to individual members as well as outside corporations. This is to ensure that everyone is in line with the new changes and that there's no miscommunication.
@alexandrabuga I don't think that this is completely accurate. Depending on the company and how it is structured, sometimes employees wear many hats at once, being the critical members for many, many projects at the same time. This often is the case if there is only one or two people who are the subject matter experts on something and their expertise is needed by many. Because they are bogged down by the sheer amount of responsibility and projects they work on, they are only going to work on those projects that are highest priority to the company. Planning can only get you so far, some times there are real road blocks that are not easily moved by just planning more effectively. One might argue, why not get the SME to train others to increase the amount of SME's. That would be great, except that means the SME now has to take out time that they could be doing work on their many critical projects to train people, which can take weeks; that cascades greatly into delay and sometimes money lost. I speak on this kind of example as there was one coworker I had that fit exactly into this scenario. She knew so much about the systems, manufacturing processes and regulations that she was relied on by so many projects. She was the critical person needed for so many activities and getting her time was a very hard thing to do. Unless you were on a project that was top priority by management, you would have an extremely hard time getting her help.
"By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail". The planning phase is the most important phase for any project. Thorough planning takes into account the possibility of staff leaving or not being available. There will always be something that can go wrong and a project manager that allots for this during the planning phase is preparing for a smoother ride. This is the time to consider everything that can slow down the project. Once a project has begun, going back to initial stages can mean lost resources and wasted time. Once again communication is key in making sure the planning phase is productive. Employees should notify of vacation days, or other major tasks that they are working on.
As said above planning phase is the most important phase of a project as every other phase of a project is dependent upon by this phase. Planning involves a lot factors before putting into practice this involves checking on a lot of things that involves availability of employees and the estimating the time required for a particular task with the available employees. This is important to consider so that you do not have to go back to make any changes to the planning phase as this would have a bad impact on the project and the people associated with the project. However, for a worst case scenario a backup plan and substitutes should be kept in mind while going ahead with the planning phase.
