Introduction
This paper is a discussion on how I am going to prepare myself against Steve McConnell’s nine deadly sins of planning in order to complete my schooling successfully. Steve’s article, ‘The nine deadly sins of project planning’, gives information on nine strategic factors that undermine project planning. It is from this article that I will extract information necessary to complete the paper.
Discussion
In order to complete my schooling successfully, I have to not only be an excellent planner but also be in a position to account for all the activities in my schedule. Through this, I will be able to avoid not planning at all and ensure that all the plans indicated in my schedule are carried out as planned. In the process of doing this, I would incorporate risks and uncertainties in a bid to walk on safe grounds. This is because risks are part of everyday life and failing to include them in my plans would jeopardize my entire mission to complete my schooling successfully.
Since schooling as a major project encompasses smaller projects like finance management amongst others, it is only wise that I use varied plans for each subdivided project. This will play a significant role in helping me recognize which project to accord extra attention. Subsequently, this scheme would assist me avoid indiscriminate application of pre-packaged plans. Aside from merely seeking plans and arranging them as per my own preferences, I will try hard to avoid over-ambitious plans that cannot be met in reality. I would plan within my capacity and capability in order to see all my plans go through instead of formulating very ambitious plans that will all go to the drains (Steve, 2001).
Sometimes what the school holds in the future is uncertain and very unpredictable. After knowing this, I will endeavor to plan only up to times in the future that I am well aware of. In the event that I am uncertain about anything, I would not plan for it and instead wait until it is relatively clear to plan for. This would help me avoid including too many details that I would be compelled to alter in the future. Certainly, premature details in the plan would only look appealing at present but would lose meaning when the future brightens eventually (Steve, 2001). This is like driving a car in the dark while putting on its headlights. In as much as I may have a road map that leads to my destination, but the distance that is visible is limited.
Owing to the fact that I have already begun my schooling and have most certainly lost some time in the process, I will not bother planning for the already lost time. Instead, I will forge ahead and forget about the lost time. According to Steve, projects that aim at compensating for lost time end up lagging further behind. I certainly would not like to lag behind in my schooling programs and as a result, I will only focus on my future activities and not try to make up for lost time (Steve, 2001).
Conclusion
Lastly, learning from my previous planning sins will assist me a great deal in planning properly for the uncertain future. I had obviously planned my schooling programs before but failed tremendously in the process. For this reason, one of the most important measures to ensure that I complete my schooling successfully is to learn from my previous planning sins (Haugan, 2002).
References
Haugan, G. T. (2002). Project planning and scheduling. Vienna, Va: Management Concepts.
Steve Mc. C. (2001). The Nine Deadly Sins of Project Planning. Construx.com. Retrieved February 24th, 2014, from http://www.construx.com/Resources/Newsletter_Articles/Nine_Deadly_Sins_of_Project_ Planning/
