Hi Francis

I have been married - to the same lady - for 43 years.

You get less time for murder.

Best regards

Mike Testro

In our time, Einstein theory of Relativity has been proven.. YES!.... After decades of research.......No!......I can’t even imagine how to plan a project if BACK TO THE FUTURE MOVIE and TIME TRAVEL exists today..

Can you have a plan in a 4 dimensional world?

Hi All

Lets not forget Andrew Dick’s contribution to another thread - A Little Light Relief:


It is a bad plan that admits of no modifications. - Publius Syrus 42 BC

Hi Gwen

The point is that since girls have no balls of their own to juggle with they spend most of their time planning to juggle someone elses.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Real Life Quote when asked why women make better Planners than men?

Why? Women can juggle more than two balls at the same time.

Ohhh I just know I will get crucified for that one!

"Is there a positive way for a poor man like me to live like a king, ala Slumdog Millionaire."

Only if you know that Jack Hobbs had 197 first class centuries.

Planning is weathering the crisis.

If you are rich, then live poor.

If you are poor, then remain poor.

"Keep learning and if you don’t know then ask someone who does."

-- Mike Testro

Planning is a project team effort to set out what are the project goals and ...

How the project team intend to identifies activities and resources to achieve goals.

Scheduling is the process of correlating identified planned activities in a logical and realistic way of identifying durations, start date and finish date.

Cheers,
Happy Planning and Scheduling

From my collection:

One day my Boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said, "If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!" (New business manager, Hallmark Greeting Cards)

"This project is so important, we can’t let things that are more important interfere with it." (Advertising/Marketing manager, UPService)

"Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule"

Stephen Devaux, in his book Total Project Control, quotes Dr PR Nayak:

“One area that technologically superior companies emphasize is the quality of their product planning. In most walks of life where planning is possible, people will tell you that good planning is absolutely crucial and necessary. However, almost no one does it. We have wondered why, and can only surmise that they don’t know how to, don’t have time, or can’t see the benefits.”

Dr FJ Bromilow (CSIRO)
“Late completion of building contracts is a source of inefficiency, financial loss, and intense irritation in the industry. The differences between expectation when the contracts were entered into on the one hand and the reality on the other are substantial and larger than commonly supposed. Of 329 contracts taken from a wide range of environments and building types, but not including housing, only one contract in eight was completed on or before the time originally expected and the overall average extra time exceeded 40 per cent.”

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, then starting on the first one.”

Seneca (ca 4BC - AD65) “Gladiator in arena consilium capit”The gladiator is formulating his plan in the arena (i.e., too late)

To Mike:

Your quote:

"As built programmes are a record of the triumpb of time and circumstance over human endeavour"

Where is planning here??

I do respect your orientation as claim analyst. You do need the as built programme for without as built programme, it will be a lot of hell to do your work.

Cheers,
Happy Planning and Scheduling

Dear Carmen,

My quote comes deep in my heart. It is a day to day experience.

So someday if I will become great men in the like of Eisenhower, Abraham Lincoln maybe someone will also quote my planning philosophy.

On the other hand, they use my quote by acknowledging not me because I’m not yet a member of immortal great men, they can say: anonymous.

Cheers,
Happy Planning and Scheduling

“Most people, if you describe a train of events to them, will tell you what the result would be. They can put those events together in their minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass. There are few people, however, who, if you told them the result , would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result. This power is what I mean when I talk of reasoning backward, or analytically.” – Sherlock Holmes

Hi, Carmen.

Actually, I mean a few different things by "Deadlines lead to deadliness" (other than the parallel spelling).

1. I believe that deadlines, whether for a project or for an activity, enable Parkinson’s Law: "Work expands to fill the time available" (a fellow traveler of Goldratt’s "Student Syndrome" -- people put things off till the last minute).

2. It is extremely rare that a deadline is really a deadline, by which I mean that the project is worthless after a given date (and there is no advantage to finishing early). I believe that planned project completion dates should be established as "targets", with clear and quantified guidelines re the implications for project value/profit of being each calendar unit earlier or later.
Then the project team should use those quantified guidelines to maximize the project value for minimal cost, resulting in maximum project profit.

In fact, in my experience, most deadlines are established by a sponsor/customer out of thin air. Sometimes more time is allowed than the scope/resources necessitate; sometimes completion prior to the deadline is absolutely impossible; but almost never is the deadline (or budget!) based in any sort of reality, because the detailed planning that’s necessary has not yet been done when the deadline is established.

Finally, the project contract should reflect the quantified targets and values of the customer in such a way as to benefit both contractor and customer in a "win/win" outcome.

Fraternally in PM,

Steve D.

"The reason we plan projects is because, after investing all that effort, we will have eliminated one of the infinite number of ways in which the project could go."

I don’t know if it is original with him, but the person I heard say it is Bill Duncan, author of the 1996 edition of the PMBOK Guide. I like it because, as with the Eisenhower quote below, it suggests (correctly!) that one of the main values of planning is that it will be of assistance in managing all the unforeseen events that WILL occur.


"Timeliness includes timelines, but deadlines lead to deadliness."

That one’s mine.

BTW, the Private Message function seems to be off. Does anyone know how I might contact PP Admin? Or Wiki Admin? Or can they contact me?

Fraternally in PM,

Steve D.

Hi Rafael,

Good Day to you! How’s Cotto now? Well, I supposed you will not blame me, I had given you the hint.

cheers!

Hi Darren

Its nothng to do with the size of the glass.

Its what you put in it that matters.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Hi Rafael,

I’m not interested with that fight, I didn’t watch actually, I’m busy (sleeping). The result is obvious before it gets started.

It’s like fighting a sweater-roundhead against your 45-day old (fried chicken), you know.

So please, let them stop raising issues like "Pacman" is on 500-year old PED, or is there something like that?

Regards

To the optimist, the glass is half full.

To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.

To the project planner, someone, somewhere padded out their estimate and the glass is twice as big as it should have been.

Regards,

Darren

Never put off until tomorrow what you can leave until the day after.