Chapter 2. Planning a Project
If youâre out for a leisurely drive, you can take any road and see where it takes you. But when youâre heading to scary Aunt Edithâs house for Sunday lunch, youâd better know where youâre going. Drive as fast as you like; if youâre on the wrong road, youâre not going to get there on time. If you want to make Aunt Edith happy, you need to plan how and when youâre going to get to her house.
Youâve probably worked at a few places where people think they donât have time to plan, as the box on Get Enough Planning Time explains. Managers breathe down your neck asking how much youâve finished, while youâre still wondering what youâre supposed to do. You may have to do work over because no one agreed on how to do it right in the first place. Critical deadlines slip by, and the pressure to finish is even greater this time.
Thereâs a better way. Planning ahead helps you do the right things the right way the first time around. A project plan acts as the road map to your destination. The less time, money, or resources you have, the more you need to plan. Think, for example, about those time-share presentations where a company rambles on for a few hours about the benefits of âowning the dream.â Then, think about the 30-second commercial selling the same dream. Squeezing the message into a brief commercial actually requires far more planning than putting together a 2-hour sales pitch.
This chapter provides a quick introduction to project ...
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