How to improve planning capability

I have always done my planning with the project team collaboratively or through interactive planning sessions. The places I have worked have all operated under the premise that the project manager or team as a whole own the schedule, and the planner owns the process. The content of the plans therefore needs to be collectively worked on, owned, and signed up to.

Having that level of experience and knowledge would certainly help to be involved in that fully and to be able to see through perhaps optimistic estimates and oversights of other team members, but surely the engineers themselves are really the ones who need to feed in the information on the sequence of work, timescales, resource requirements etc?

I do agree with you that having that expertise must only make things better. But I also believe that there are many ways to skin a cat.

Mike you are in the wrong forum !

Attitude alone will not make you a Michael Jordan.

• If what you do is construction it is not by magic you will suddenly be able to plan IT programs.
• If what you do is IT it will not be by magic you will suddenly be able to plan weapons development jobs.
• If what you do is work on weapons development it will not be by magic you will suddenly be able to suddenly plan a complex surgical procedure for separating conjoined twins.

Your experience can be valuable to plan similar tasks but I know of no single construction contractor that makes their sensitive planning using rookies, planning is too important to leave it to the inexperienced.  When using inexperienced keyboard jockeys or external fly by night scheduler it is to meet some contractual requirement while true plans will always be asked to experienced planners.

Without PM experience I was allowed to become a PM after years of being proven at a lower role as a Project Engineer under the supervision of a Project Manager, PM would make the planning of complex jobs but not a rookie engineer.

Good attitude is a basic requirement to excel in most everything, a requirement to become a good PM, but attitude alone it is not enough.

A Pink Belt certificate will not make you good at anything.

Is that not perhaps a little harsh? I can certainly see where you are coming from as technical knowledge is invaluable when planning a project for sure. However I believe that what makes a "true" planner is more their knowledge of planning principles, best practices and software skills etc along with the ability to source and extract information from the right places and manage the project team's expertise into a robust schedule.

After all, if a planner who had worked in one industry all his life suddenly moved to another, would he then no longer be a true planner?

Or if he had no interest in going into project management, is he forever doomed to be unable to become a true planner?

Most of the jobs posted here in the UK do not require this experience or label a job differently because of a lack of it. I think the knowledge makes you a "better" planner, but I wouldn't say it defines it. Plus, one perhaps useful side effect of not having that knowledge is that it forces the planner to engage fully with the team and build a collaborative schedule without his own ideas skewing his judgement or without him being tempted to build the schedule solo.

I think it really boils down to having the right attitude.

I'm not saying you're wrong (you are clearly much more experienced than I am). These are just my thoughts.

Hi Nathan

Ditch P6 and get a better software package. Spider or Asta are infinitely superior.

Best regards

Mikie T.

To become a true planner you must be experienced at managing what you plan.  In the construction industry this means years of experience as a Project Manager in charge of the execution team.

Unfortunately there is a tendency to look for fast and easy solutions, a recipe for failure.

Roll up your sleeves and sweat.

ok so you were a scheduler and now you want to be a planner ?

do you know the difference between a scheduler and a planner ?