Favourite quotes about planning

Planning is weathering the crisis.



If you are rich, then live poor.



If you are poor, then remain poor.

Your schedule is as good as the wall paper.

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



-- Mike Testro

I’m just preparing my impromptu remarks.

Winston Churchill



Planning is the work a manager does to master the future.

Louis Allen



Chris Oggham

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

Planning requires a difficult kind of thought process, the ability to arrange a complex array of ideas and to see various combinations of effects

Thought requires effort and not all executives enjoy it.

It often involves the painful contemplation of unfortunate and undesirable events and arouses reflections on errors of the past.

To those who are inclined to be optimistic in their outlook, planning requires that pessimistic occurrences also be anticipated. The executive, who by habit is motivated by action, is not favourably inclined to sit at his desk and think.

Creative ability is in short supply. It is usually best drawn forth by a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere, although in the building industry, strains, pressures and tensions may make it difficult to find one. Intellectual activity is frequently ridiculed by those who lack respect for it and there are cases of executives who are so sensitive on this point that they go to great lengths to avoid being caught thinking.

~K Paul Building Organisation 2

A Trust Publication 1982

Technical Publications Trust

Propect Place Perth WA 6000

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)

here’s mine: Plan to Act or Act to Plan? What is Planning without Acting?

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,



I also like your planning philosophy:



"Planning is a team exercise where I hear and get involved with each one of the participants. I get involved with each work process that I need to plan. I take the opportunity to optimize work process with the help of the responsible of the work. At doing this, you need leadership to attract people to the act of planning."



I remember a newbei in planning: Punch, punch and punch the keyboard of the computer. That is planning to him.



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

Hi Carmen



Brilliant thread - Here is one of mine.



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



Best regards



Mike Testro

the beauty of planning is in achieving what was plan



less than achieving the plan,



the planning is only a dream.



Wake up!!!!!



Again from the Maestro, the Sensei.



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

Hello Carmen,



Quote by the Maestro, the Sensei:



"Planning is drawing"



It is a mental picture of what you wanted to achieve, a road map, a drawing. IMHO.



In day to day activity, when I wake up, I’m doing planning: What I want to accomplish today? How it will fit in a bigger picture of my goal, career goal, personal goal?



So I created a drawing.



If nothing is accomplish, then the plan will remains a drawing.



But



If I did accomplish my goal, then I celebrated by treating myself with eating nice and delicious food. OF course, I thank my Beloved GOD for the grace HE has given me to accomplish my plan.



Then, the cycle of planning again for the next hours, days, week will revolve and revolve.



Cheers,

Happy Planning and Scheduling

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.

I like 5P Rule:



Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance!



Cheers

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!

Planning is a knock out, for knock out artist and for the real knock out planner.



All you have to do is be patient.



Until the last round.



the 50 USD goes back to my pocket.



See you next time



Raffy boy.



Thank you,

Scarlett

Hi Darren



Its nothng to do with the size of the glass.



Its what you put in it that matters.



Best regards



Mike Testro

Scarlet and Anoon,



Definitively you are good sport. Pacquiau won a clean fight and proved without any doubt he is the better fighter pound per pound, no need of a re-match the outcome will be the same.



Scarlet you never dared to raise the betting from 50-0 to 100-0 hope next time you will.



Do me a favor, watch the fight a couple of times again and enjoy.



Best regards,

Rafael

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

But there is a lesson learned from this fight that a planner may be interested.



because in every situation it is always fighting. Even here in PP. And I love fighting. This is what real men are made for. And there are lots of different types of fighting: some could be low level intensity conflict, some could be de-stablization, office sabotage, office bullying, guerilla warfare, etc. This happen not only in the battlefield but also in office: office battlefield, in dealings with client representative, resolving contractual matters, etc.



What is obvious in this Pacquio - Clottey fight was the way Clottey put up too much defensive actions. These are for born losers. I always believe “the best defense is offense, because in offense I got the initiative and I can dictate the tempo.



At the end of the day, it is the well prepared and well trained fighter that will win.



This reality is the same in our day to day activities.





IMHO.



Thank you,

Scarlett

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

All projects are work but not all work is a project

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