There's a naïve notion on the web that Plans are not needed, Plans are a waste. The classic is its by doing the work we discover the work. It's actually worse than naïve, it's an idea that is simply wrong.
Plan Before Starting Anything
- Plan before starting anything, it’s going to go wrong, so know that up front and be able to recognize the train wreck is coming and get out of the way.
- The plan is the strategy for the successful completion of the project
- Without the plan, you don't know how to assess progress in terms meaningful to the decision makers. Measures of cost and schedule are measures of effectiveness. Measurers of stories produce, features delivered aren't measures or capabilities produced.
- A Capabilities-Based Plan is that measure. What capabilities doesn't the customer need to accomplish the business case or fulfill a mission?
- In education, Blooms Taxonomy with TLOs and ELO's define the capabilities the student will possess at the end of the course.
- Have a notion of what done looks like, so when you get there, you can stop and move on.
- Done is defined as possessing a capability to accomplish something
- Write this down in units of Effectiveness and Performance
- Then you recognize it when it shows up
- Have your Plan B always ready to go and then start thinking of Plan C when Plan B is underway.
- No Plan A ever lasts too long in the presence of uncertainty.
- Since there is chaos, caused by uncertainties - reducible and irreducible, performance Risk Management. As Tim Lister tells us Risk Management is Project Management for Adults
- Make sure you’ve got all the right resources lined up and ready to spring into action when things go wrong. Classroom aides, class leaders, parents, staff all ready to go when the plan goes in the ditch.
- Resource planning is a Critical Success Factor for all projects and product development
- Know what can go wrong before you start, steer away from trouble and trouble will stay away.
- Risk planning and planning
- Planning is Strategy
- Apply good risk management to all activities on the project
- Perform some formal Risk Management process. Pick one. My favorite is the SEI Continuous Risk Management process
And Now The Punch Line
Risk Management is Project Management for Adults. Risks being managed come from Uncertainties. Uncertainties come in tow flavors. Aleatory uncertainties come from naturally occurring random processes, modeled as statistical processes. The risks from these uncertainties can be handled with margin. Cost margin, schedule margin, technical margin. Epistemic uncertainties come from probabilistic events. The risk created by Epistemic uncertainty is handled by risk buydown work. Actual work performed to remove, reduce, protect the risk.
In the presence of Uncertainty and the Risk it creates, Estimates are needed.
So if you're going to be an adult, then manage risk. And that means being an adult, and that means you're going to have to make estimates
Anyone claiming you can make decisions in the presence of uncertainty without making estimates needed to handle those risks is uninformed how the world works
