Do all projects need a project plan?

Seems like a silly question, right? Of course you need a plan! The thing is, to a trained Project Manager a ‘project plan’ is a very specific thing and to the layman a project is a vague, often ill-defined “thing” that needs to get done.

So, if you were to ask me ‘has every project you’ve ever completed needed a PMI level project plan’, I’d have to say… no. 

For the uninitiated, a ‘project plan’ officially is a staked list of tasks with start and finish dates connected by dependencies marked with the various qualities of ‘finish-start’, ‘start-start’, etc. It includes things like duration, milestones, critical path, baseline and even more fancy features around budgeting, resource management, RAIDS, Risk Logs and more. 

For someone like me, who loves organizing a mess of random threads into a pattern, a project plan is fun to build. It is like the sheet music for orchestrating your grand project symphony. But sometimes, your orchestra is really just a string quartet playing one to walk a bride down the aisle. Important, yes, but doesn't typically require a formal conductor. 

I’ve seen trained PMs step into a role called ‘Project Manager’ and throw the kitchen sink at what is really a glorified task. When that happens it results in the expected level of apathy and annoyance on all sides.

Don’t get me wrong, I will always be on the side of documentation. It’s saved my project and my reputation too many times to ever say it's not needed. But let’s be honest, not everything called a “project” needs a complex Gantt chart. 

So, what does each project need regardless of size?

• Know what you are trying to accomplish. Write it down and get documented agreement.

• Know the fundamental steps required to accomplish the agreed goal. 

• Understand whether those steps need to happen in a specific order, also called dependencies.

• Be able to communicate those steps clearly, set expectations, and flag issues or risks. 

• Have a closeout process to mark the project complete and free up resources.

Really that’s it. Can you get fancier? Absolutely! 

If you’re managing multiple concurrent workstreams, flexing budgets or resource constraints, (aka if you're conducting a symphony) you better have a fully fleshed out project plan. But if it’s one workstream and fewer than ten tasks, don’t bring a Uzi to a water gun fight.

You can finish the project with less and get more buy-in by creating what your team actually needs, not what PMI, Six Sigma, or SCRUM says you SHOULD have.

Need help building the right kind of plan? We do that. Reach out to see how we can help!