Project Planning and Project Management

This post is for all my past and future clients who think project planning has nothing to do with project management. (The guilty know who they are.)

1. According to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), issued by the Project Management Institute (PMI), the function of project management has five main processes: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling (M&C), and Closing. The PMBOK breaks these five down further into 42 sub-processes. Of those 42, 20 fall under Planning. That's right - nearly half, and none of the other four processes comes even close. The remaining 22 sub-processes are parceled out as follows: Initiate - 2, Execute - 8, M&C - 10, and Close - 2. (per table 3.1, pg. 43)

2. If you compare the duration of the planning phase to the entire project duration, planning extends over about 80% of a project lifespan. (See Figure 3.2 in the latest PMBOK for the graphic.) This happens because plan, execute, and M&C form a continuous loop of on-going activity throughout a project. Planning is not a stand-alone, once-only, written-in-stone activity. We all know circumstances change over time for a million and one reasons. The executing and M&C processes result in changes to plans which then feed back into execution and M&C, just like the "plan-do-check-act" cycle that Deming wrote about years ago.

If you are a consultant, the first or next time a client tells you that planning is not part of project management, whip out the PMBOK and teach them something new. That old catchphrase "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." may be obnoxious and patronizing, but it is TRUE.