{"id":26,"date":"2006-04-02T18:20:49","date_gmt":"2006-04-02T18:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/2006\/04\/02\/project-planning\/"},"modified":"2012-11-10T09:14:15","modified_gmt":"2012-11-10T09:14:15","slug":"project-planning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/?p=26","title":{"rendered":"Project Planning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.scottberkun.com\/blog\/?p=222\">&#8220;How do you know when you need a plan for the plan? Who should write it? And how do you do it, especially for small anti-process teams, so that it\u2019s beneficial in some way?&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Even Da Vinci had a plan, and he worked alone.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone has a plan for their contribution to the project, and that specifically, is the problem: so many people = so many plans.<\/p>\n<p>Each perspective on the problem (read, &#8220;individual contributor&#8217;s plan&#8221;) is framed against a different background of experience and knowledge. Where the contributions i.e. tasks overlap, so too will the perspectives. The integration of perspectives requires communication. Sometimes it is sufficient to chat. More often, proximity, ego or politics prevent meaningful chat and if circumstances are ripe, might even stop progress altogether (which means actually stop, or proceed surreptitiously, which is the leading cause of imbroglio).<\/p>\n<p>It seems that the degree of plan formalism required must be based on the realistic assessment of the &#8220;interpersonal thermodynamics&#8221; of the project space. To whit, the 2nd law of <abbr class='c2c-text-hover' title='Noun. 1) a measure of the unavailable energy in a closed thermodynamic system that is also usually considered to be a measure of the system&#039;s disorder and that is a property of the system&#039;s state and is related to it in such a manner that a reversible change in heat in the system produces a change in the measure which varies directly with the heat change and inversely with the absolute temperature at which the change takes place; broadly : the degree of disorder or uncertainty in a system 2) [a] the degradation of the matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity [b] a process of degradation or running down or a trend to disorder'>entropy<\/abbr> &#8211; the trend to disorder, must be well considered.<\/p>\n<p>What factors influence?<\/p>\n<p>The greater the complexity of the project, the more profound even subtle differences in individual perspective.<\/p>\n<p>The greater the number of people the lower the resolution of the problem domain; that is, with more people the problem domain itself must be blown up incrementally in order for everyone to see it: this reduces the clarity with which the project &#8220;team&#8221; as a whole might view the overall picture (pardon the play on words, but dispute resolution is also at issue).<\/p>\n<p>The conclusion?<\/p>\n<p>Realistic assessment and a process that scales in formality as necessary.<br \/>\n<strong><br \/>\nAdditional Reference:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A chapter from Scott Berkun&#8217;s book:  <a href='\/wp-content\/artofpmch03.pdf' title='&quot;The Art of Project Management&quot;, Chapter 3, &quot;How to figure out what to do&quot;, by Scott Berkun '><strong>The Art of Project Management<\/strong>, <em>Chapter 3, &#8220;How to figure out what to do&#8221;<\/em><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.scottberkun.com\/books\/artofpm\/\"><br \/>\nAll about Scott&#8217;s Berkun&#8217;s book<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A comment posted in the Berkun Blog &#8211; This week in pm-clinic: Plan for the plan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-project-management"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2R4NI-q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1107,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions\/1107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}