Planning (or scheduling), in any environment, involves a disciplined approach to work, through which decisions are made, recorded and communicated to all concerned. Colin Capper explains that planning will define an organisation’s objectives, establish an overall strategy for achieving these objectives and develop a comprehensive hierarchy of plans to integrate and coordinate activity.

In other words, what is to be done, how it is to be achieved, by whom and with what resources. In business organisations the Plan, becomes a statement of intent and a means of control.

THE PURPOSE OF PLANNING

Planning involves the establishment of business policies - rules laid down to provide guidance for decisions by managers. It assumes that alternative courses of action exist and so assists managers in the process of organising, forecasting, coordinating, controlling communications and motivating people - planning then becomes a key management ‘tool’.

SOME MYTHS

1. Planning that proves to be inaccurate is a waste of management time
The end result of any form of planning is only one of its purposes. The process itself can be even more valuable than the end product even if the results miss the target.

Planning requires management to think through what it wants to do and how it is going to do it; this clarification can have a significant value in itself. For example, the preparation of a detailed method statement is a mandatory requirement of most construction contracts.

A programme often forms part of the plan of what is to be done, however, the method statement explaining how the works are to be carried out and by whom is very often overlooked and not developed into a comprehensive document particularly at the start of a project.

Management that does a good job of planning will have direction and purpose and the planning is likely to minimise the misdirection of energy; this will happen despite the possibility of missing the ultimate objectives.

From my experience, delayed completion and disrupted progress is more easily avoided or controlled by firms who use effective planning techniques.

2. Planning makes future decisions
Planning does not make future decisions. It is concerned with the impact of current decisions on future events. So while planning is concerned with the future, planning decisions are made in real time.

3. Planning can eliminate change
Planning cannot eliminate change. Changes will happen regardless of what management does. Management engages in planning in order to anticipate changes and to develop the most effective response to them.

4. Planning reduces flexibility
Planning implies commitment, but it is a constraint only if a plan is produced but not developed as circumstances require. Planning is an on-going activity. The fact that formal plans have been reasoned out and clearly articulated can make them easier to revise than an ambiguous set of assumptions.

PITFALLS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Level of detail
A plan or programme may contain too much detail for some users and too little for others. It would be inappropriate to provide a full network analysis to a ganger or foreman on a construction site - he is unlikely to want to decipher a computer generated logic linked critical path analysis programme. Likewise, an unlinked bar chart would be inappropriate for a complex project where the project management team is required to consider the time, cost and resource implications of alternative solutions.

A common trap is to attempt to plan the whole project, activity by activity. As soon as the project gets off the ground, more information becomes available. Some activities are no longer required, new activities become apparent and the project manager can be sucked into a spiral of planning and re-planning; he may then cease to manage the plan and the plan quickly loses credibility.

At the highest level, an overview of the plan is appropriate, with progress milestones. On a building project, there might be:

• Completion of design development. This is often a key milestone when the full scope of the Works to be carried out is realised.
• Effective water tight date, when the start of finishing activities becomes a significant stage in the programme. This date is often confused with weather-tightness, i.e. when all the roof and external envelope of a building is fully complete.

Without milestones, a mass of detailed information can often obscure critical information and mask the key remaining stages as the project moves towards the completion of construction.

Modern computer software packages allow for planning projects in detail. However, summary bars can be generated and reports issued to the relevant departments within an organisation, which allows further appropriate levels of detail contained within a programme, which can be more sensibly produced properly by those departments.

2. Focusing on a deadline
There is a tendency for some managers to focus on a deadline. By concerning themselves with a point that lies far into the future, they feel that there is plenty of time to do the work, under-stating the current priorities. To avoid this inherently misplaced optimism, a manager should set definite intermediate targets for completion of the work. To set shorter-time horizons, the plan must contain goals and activities which are controllable in the shorter term. Taking the example above, the sooner all design is complete and information issued for construction on a project, the less the likelihood of change to the construction activities.

3. Flow of Information
The key to a successful project is completion on time, to budget, achieving the client’s performance requirements. Financial and market pressures can demand that projects are finished in the shortest possible time within a challenging cost estimate. However, many projects have insufficient information to fully plan the project from start to finish at the outset. Projects can suffer from insufficient design information required for efficient working and effective control.

Progress on projects is sometimes governed by the characteristics of the flow of information. Despite this lack of information, a project is expected to be planned and controlled.

4. Creativity
Some planning methods can discourage creativity. If the planning tools are too cumbersome and only the planner understands the programme, other members of the project team are unlikely to make a creative contribution.

Sometimes, a Manager may organise the work to be programmed in isolation then delegate the implementation of the plan to the group. This often arises in large construction companies which have separate departments for construction and planning – particularly at pre-tender stage.

Planning is most effective as a group activity, where the relevant parties work together and communicate with each other to solve the task.

5. Over-optimistic time forecasts
Over-optimism arises in two ways:

(a) arbitrary cuts
A company may work with detailed methods of estimating, where programming the work content and cost of a project is based on historical data previously used to plan similar projects.

However, those responsible for securing the project may be over optimistic and consider that the work can be done more quickly at less cost – often it cannot!

Estimating methods should be trusted or otherwise the effectiveness of a tender bid is reduced.

(b) insufficient previous experience
Another form of over optimism is to under estimate the time required to carry out certain activities. It may be that new technology or a general lack of work study leads to insufficient time and resource allocation. To
avoid this pitfall it is important to involve those responsible for the implementation ofthe activity in the estimating process.

A plan or programme must not omit activities, for example, a proving period for engineering services or final cleaning, which are critical to the successful completion of the project. Many projects are one-off endeavours, but previous experience on similar projects should enable the preparation of a realistic checklist, which includes all key activities.

CONCLUSION

Planning establishes an organisation’s objectives and goals. It enables actual performance to be compared against objectives. Deviations from the plan can be identified and the necessary corrective action taken.

In the writer’s view, regular independent progress monitoring is the key to identifying those activities which require the most attention, whether they are procurement or lead-in activities or off site or physical tasks on site.

Uncertainty in planning projects will diminish as the overall design of a project is completed and information for construction is issued.

Without planning, there can be no control. However, effective planning utilising experienced planners can allow time to be utilised more effectively.

Time is unique; if wasted it can never be replaced!

Colin Capper is based at Trett Consulting’s Coventry office