Key elements and components of effective project planning

¶ … keys success" effective project planning. This a 3 5-page essay. Note articles focuses elements, combinations components planning. When finished, submit essay coursenet

Keys to success for effective project planning

The planning of the project is an essential step in ensuring the final success of the respective project. At the planning stage, projects get mapped in terms of strategic efforts involved, the implementation of the efforts, the results expectations, the necessary resources to be engaged and so on.

The endeavors completed throughout the planning stage of process development are various and would even differ from one group to the other, even from one project to the other. The differences would normally be linked to variances in the projects themselves, such as the nature of the expectations, strategies, size of team handling the project and so on.

Still, aside from the features which create discrepancies in the processes of project planning, fact remains that there are some elements common to all planning processes. Alan Harpham (2008) for instance argues that a first component of a successful planning process is represented by the team's efforts to identify internal issues which could raise challenges in attaining the objectives of the project under development.

In other words, it is first necessary to identify and address the features from within the team that could suffer improvements and to create these improvements. Some examples in this sense include the reduction of lead time, the increase in the levels of clarification, the approval of clients, the better management of time or the creation of an efficient start to the project.

At a more technical level, Harpham promotes the importance of a well structured project planning process. In this order of ideas, the author promotes the following steps of the process:

The planning of the work requirements

The verification of the deliveries for the predefined requirements

The approval of workshops

The development and execution of the planned work

The readjustment and clarification -- occurring in 20 per cent of the cases

Quality management

Delivery of work planned and completed

Emphasis on information quality, and last

Corrections and change management.

Max Wideman implements a similar approach and argues that adequate project planning is pegged to the identification and management of risk. In order for any organizational process to succeed then, it has to be able to manage the strategic risk of its key factors. These key factors include the people, the processes, the patterns, the perceptions and the performances.

Mark Scott, Senior Engineering Manager at the Harris Corporation, takes a more integrated look at project planning and argues that the final success of a project is pegged to the incorporation of communication, technology, knowledge and commitment.

"Process excellence is not just good business. It can make a difference in the delivery of solutions that impact lives. Being the best-in-class global provider of mission-critical systems and services to its customers, combining advanced technology and application knowledge, requires a commitment to excellence in the project management culture, its processes, and the project management delivery system" (Scott, 2009).

The manager also places emphasis on specific planning functions, such as distinguishing action, creating accountability or conducting rigorous assessments. All these features are recognized by John Michael, Dean Kashiwagi and Kenneth Sullivan, but the three academicians argue that the most important key success factor to project success is represented by leadership.

According to them then, the leadership style is essential as it helps to develop and implement the adequate managerial model which further supports project success. Michael, Kashiwagi and Sullivan (2008) base their findings on a long-term study conducted within the construction industry, where a new type of project management was implemented.

The new project management model is based on the more through application of various leadership principles. Some of these principles refer to customer satisfaction, emphasis on performance and the integration of knowledge and expertise, or the emphasis on adequate decision making.

The end result of this new project management leadership-based model was the decrease in management functions by 90 per cent. The results were however relevant in the restricted context of the construction sector, so the three researchers decided to test it within other fields as well. They did so in the setting of food services at the university and the conclusions drawn indicated that the applicability of the new PM model is increased in other fields as well. Specifically, what Michael, Kashiwagi and Sullivan point out is that the problems encountered in projects are not linked to industry specifics, but to errors in managerial approaches. In other words, by implementing superior leadership-based techniques, planning and overall project success would be increased.

"Results validate the theoretical model and support the idea that the PM problems encountered in construction and other areas are not industry based, but due to the use of inefficient and ineffective management principles" (Michael, Kashiwagi and Sullivan, 2008).

Finally, the last literary source to be presented throughout this project is represented by an article by Debra Lavell and Russ Martinell. In their work, the two authors implement a retrospective look at projects and emphasize on the importance of gathering lessons from past experiences. Their main point is that development in project planning, progress and ultimate success is directly pegged to the lessons learned from pervious experiences.

At a more detailed level, their retrospective technique would be based on several steps, as follows:

The identification of the problem, rather than rushing into a solution