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Planning: Systematic, Flexible Enough To Handle Unique Activities, Disciplined Through Reviews and

Planning is important for project success and involves establishing objectives, procedures and programs to achieve goals. Project planning must define all required work through a documented plan so tasks are well understood before execution to minimize changes. The project manager plays a key role in planning by ensuring it is systematic, flexible, incorporates multiple perspectives and occurs throughout the project life cycle. Successful planning answers questions about objectives, strategies, risks, forecasts and action plans to select the best course and monitor progress.

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154 views2 pages

Planning: Systematic, Flexible Enough To Handle Unique Activities, Disciplined Through Reviews and

Planning is important for project success and involves establishing objectives, procedures and programs to achieve goals. Project planning must define all required work through a documented plan so tasks are well understood before execution to minimize changes. The project manager plays a key role in planning by ensuring it is systematic, flexible, incorporates multiple perspectives and occurs throughout the project life cycle. Successful planning answers questions about objectives, strategies, risks, forecasts and action plans to select the best course and monitor progress.

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nuraina aqilah
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Planning

Planning, in general, can best be described as the function of selecting the enterprise
objectives and establishing the policies, procedures, and programs necessary for achieving
them. Planning in a project environment may be described as establishing a predetermined
course of action within a forecasted environment.

The project’s requirements set the major milestones. If line managers cannot commit
because the milestones are perceived as unrealistic, the project manager may have to
develop alternatives, one of which may be to move the milestones. Upper-level management
must become involved in the selection of alternatives.

The project manager is the key to successful project planning. It is desirable that the project
manager be involved from project conception through execution. Project planning must be
systematic, flexible enough to handle unique activities, disciplined through reviews and
controls, and capable of accepting multifunctional inputs. Successful project managers
realize that project planning is an iterative process and must be performed throughout the
life of the project. One of the objectives of project planning is to completely define all work
required (possibly through the development of a documented project plan) so that it will be
readily identifiable to each project participant. This is a necessity in a project environment
because:

 If the task is well understood prior to being performed, much of the work can be pre
planned.
 If the task is not understood, then during the actual task execution more knowledge is
gained, which in turn leads to changes in resource allocations, schedules, and
priorities.
 The more uncertain the task, the greater the amount of information that must be
processed in order
to ensure effective performance.

These considerations are important in a project environment because each project can be
different from the others, requiring a variety of different resources, but having to be
performed under time, cost, and performance constraints with little margin for error.

The logic of planning requires answers to several questions in order for the alternatives and
constraints to be fully understood. A list of questions would include:
1. Prepare environmental analysis
● Where are we?
● How and why did we get here?

2. Set objectives
● Is this where we want to be?
● Where would we like to be? In a year? In five years?

3. List alternative strategies


● Where will we go if we continue as before?
● Is that where we want to go?
●How could we get to where we want to go?

4. List threats and opportunities


● What might prevent us from getting there?
● What might help us to get there?

5. Prepare forecasts
● Where are we capable of going?
● What do we need to take us where we want to go?

6. Select strategy portfolio


● What is the best course for us to take?
● What are the potential benefits?
● What are the risks?

7. Prepare action programs


● What do we need to do?
● When do we need to do it?
● How will we do it?
● Who will do it?

8. Monitor and control


● Are we on course? If not, why?
● What do we need to do to be on course?
● Can we do it?

Reference

Kerzner, H. (2017). A systems approach to planning scheduling and controlling. In New York.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drudis.2010.11.015

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