Project Plan – Initiating, Planning, Execution, Control, Procedures and Deadlines.

A Project Plan (PP) should contain the track of all these activities mentioned above. Few days back, I was reading a book about Project Management and Planning. There was a statement which says “Every professionally managed, successful project is driven by a project plan and every un-successful project is driven by the project itself”.

Initially, I was a little bit confused for this statement. But after giving a second thought on it, I found it very realistic and relevant statement for Project Management (PM).

All the action items covered in the PP can be tracked in a better way if they have defined in a proper way. In one of my previous company where I worked in my earlier carrier phase, my manager always used to ask the question” What are you doing today?” Once I said to him that since there is no PP defined for this project, so better not to fire this question to me on daily basis. I asked him to first make a PP and define the tasks and action items against me, so that I can tell you in a better way. But I believe he was not convinced with my answer as most of the managers are not convinced with their subordinate’s answers. After two three days, he again came to and an interesting conversation between us went like this:

Manager: What are you doing today?

Myself: I am going to listen songs today.

Manager: What?

Myself: Yes, I will listen songs today. In fact I have done this exercise yesterday also.

Manager: This is not expected from a resource like you. You are one of the most critical resources in my testing team.

Myself: So what sir. I have no tasks assigned in Project Plan. In fact there is no Project Plan as such for me. So I can do anything what I want.

Manager: If there is no Project Plan, that doesn’t mean you will do whatever you want.

Myself: Agree. But in that case, you should assign me some other work related to project and then better come to me asking for what I am going to do today.

Manager: Ok.

And then he left my place. After one week, he again came to me with a Project Plan and also some additional activities for which he allocated me as a primary resource. I was pleased to see that change. This time, I have to answer his question “What are you doing today?”

This incident gave me a lesson that if your team is not performing, the managers are responsible primarily for this state.

The whole event comes to a conclusion that making a PP can definitely track the team activities in a better way and at any time of the project, it can be measured that how much percentage of work has been done against the project.

I have seen in some companies that managers are not interested in updating the PP on regular basis. They are only interested in making it once and forget to update. They should understand this fact that updating the PP is their primary task. If they are not doing this activity on regular basis, better not to say them managers. They are only a front desk employee of the company with a Manager’s salary.

Last month, I was discussing some quality processes for an accurate PP with one of my friend who is a Project Manager in a reputed MNC. He said that PP is one of the most important tasks that a Project Manager should perform. He also added that this is also one of the most cumbersome tasks in Project Management. According to his statement, he is going to leave the IT industry only because he has to update and maintain the PP. I tried my best to convince him that there are n numbers of ways to perform and execute this task in a better way. I personally share some of my views about the PP and Project Management with him. Somehow, he was convinced with me but not by the processes and techniques that his company is following with respect to the Project Plan and Project Management. We discussed about 4-5 hours for the same and then went off to our places. Last week, he called me saying that he has resigned from his current company and going to join a small IT company. He said that he will now check these management practices in a small company.

Anyways, small, mid and large companies don’t mean that there is a difference in the Project Planning and Management. The only difference is the attitude of the middle and higher management. The middle and the higher management should be responsible for anything that is going in a wrong direction in any project.

It is your attitude not the aptitude that decides your altitude.

-- Sanat Sharma