I wanted to share a story about project planning that happened earlier today.  One of our managers has been working with her team on a plan to improve how we track and respond to production performance.  It is a pretty ambitious plan.  It impacts every production department and covers 2 or 3 key processes in each area.  The plan has 10 major steps to complete for each process, making for roughly 100 key actions.

The team crafted an aggressive plan to get all these steps done in a relatively short time frame, so I asked her how certain she was with her plan.

As with any good plan there is never 100% certainty because all good plans are meant to be guides to results, but as of now she really likes it.  Importantly, her team is ready to stand behind the plan and make it happen.

The conversation that ensued regarding the plan led to some insights you may find useful.

With this particular plan, the first half is pretty certain.  These actions are foundational and should be executable without much deviation.  However, I anticipate that the first half of the project will induce a lot of learning.  The steps included in the second half of the plan will undoubtedly be enlightened by what we gain from executing the first half.  At this point the plan will need to be revised.  It cannot be revised any earlier, nor should it be revised any later.  The plan doesn’t really warrant any revision discussion until we reach that point because all those foundational actions are necessary before we can truly understand how to attack the remainder of the action items.

This may seem a little strange to even plan beyond this revision point, but I am glad the team did.  The plan that is laid out is one perspective on what may happen and is a reasonable conclusion at this point.  It also forced the team to think about all the actions necessary to fully achieve the desired results.  The next steps, detailed scope of work for each process and specific actions for improvement are yet to be determined.  This is where the deviation from the plan will likely emerge.  This is also where the project becomes really exciting because it is where we start to make production better.  Once the specific improvement actions are identified, which are impossible to predict now, can be determined, we will begin to make meaningful impact.

Thus, some suggested steps for good planning are:

• Plan all the way through the project
• Anticipate the revision points where progress and learning will inform the next steps
• Execute all the way to or at least really close to the revision point before worrying about changing the plan itself
• Change the plan to make it better
• Anticipate the next revision point, execute, revise, repeat until results are achieved

So in this case, the correct answer to the question?  How certain is your plan?

“I am about 50/50 on this particular plan revision, with 100% certainty we will learn how to make it better and 100% certain we will achieve the desired result.”