Projects are different. To be successful, they must meet the conditions defined by the project’s stakeholders. Sometimes these conditions are explicit: it must be finished by this date, it cannot exceed this budget. Sometimes they are more subtle: the outputs, or the outcomes, must meet specific—often poorly articulated—criteria. The consequence is that the context, not the scope, of the project, is the real shaper of what has to be achieved, how it has to be done, and when. There is no pre-trodden path. To deal with this ‘uniqueness’ and the uncertainty it gives rise to, project managers have to plan.
Despite claims to the contrary, there is no single approach to planning a project, but for a given set of circumstances, there is a best one. This book takes you through many common planning situations you will meet. It uses stories of real projects to show how planning decisions alter depending on the project context. It discusses how resource- constrained planning differs from end-date schedule planning. It looks at what is different between cost-constrained plans and time boxing. It explores why you must plan when using Agile approaches, and how to plan for innovation.
Keywords
adaptive planning; Agile; project constraints; project management; project planning; resource modeling; scheduling; scope management