Index:
The Rules of Planning
Found on a wall in a Planning Office.
Good Planning analysis is best done with numbers. Analysis without numbers is, at best, only an opinion.
Planning is an iterative process. The necessary number of iterations is one more than the number you have currently done. This is true at any point in time.
Everything is logical if drawn with a fat magic marker.
When in doubt, estimate. In an emergency, guess. But be sure to go back and clean up the mess when real numbers come along.
The odds are greatly against your being immensely smarter than everyone else. If your analysis says everything needs to be changed, the chances are better that you've screwed up.
At the start of any planning project, the person who most wants to be team leader is least likely to be capable of it.
In nature, the optimum is almost always in the middle somewhere. Distrust assertions that the optimum planning solution is at an extreme position.
Not having all the information you need is never a satisfactory excuse for not starting the analysis.
Your best efforts will inevitably wind up being useless in the final plan. Learn to live with the disappointment.
Sometimes, the fastest way to get to the final plan is to throw everything out and start over.
There is never a single right solution. But there are always multiple wrong ones.
Planning is based on requirements. There's no justification for planning something one bit "better" than the requirements dictate.
"Better" is the enemy of "good".
Sometimes, the fastest way to get to the end is to throw everything out and start over.
The ability to improve a plan occurs primarily at the reviews. This is also the prime location for screwing it up.
The previous people who did a similar analysis did not have a direct pipeline to the wisdom of the ages. There is therefore no reason to believe their analysis over yours. There is especially no reason to present their analysis as yours.
The fact that an analysis appears in print has no relationship to the likelihood of its being correct.
The previous people who did similar analysis did not have a direct pipeline to the wisdom of the ages. There is therefore no reason to believe their analysis over yours. There is especially no reason to present their analysis as yours.
Past experience is excellent for providing a reality check. On the other hand, too much reality can doom an otherwise worthwhile design.
A bad plan with a good presentation is doomed eventually. A good plan with a bad presentation is doomed immediately.
Past experience is excellent for providing a reality check. On the other hand, too much reality can doom an otherwise worthwhile plan.
Half of everything you hear in a classroom is crap. Education is figuring out which half is which.
When in doubt, document. Documentation requirements will reach a maximum shortly after the termination of the project.
All Planning offices operate a "Work Breakdown Structure" because the Work remaining will grow until you have a Breakdown, unless you enforce some Structure on it.
At the start of any planning project, the person who most wants to be team leader is least likely to be capable of it.
The first 90 percent of the project takes 90 percent of the allotted time. The last 10 percent of the project takes the other 90 percent.
Project teams detest progress reports, because these reports vividly manifest their lack of progress.
One advantage of fuzzy planning objectives is that they let you avoid the embarrassment of estimating the corresponding costs.
Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.
When management smiles at you, be very, very afraid ...
For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
The perfect
planner for the job will apply the day after that post is filled by some semi qualified
idiot.
Corollary: You hear about the perfect job the day after you accept another
one.
And the
Catch-22 of Planning is:
If you're running around horribly busy, you're unorganised and need to prioritise,
but if you're not running around horribly busy, you're lazy and need to find
more work to do.
and
finally, did you know
To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass
is half empty. To the Planner, the glass is twice as big as it should have been
planned.
Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than expected. Carefully planned projects take four times longer to complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their planning to reduce the time it takes.