ABSTRACT
The development in this book largely centres on the mechanics of planning. The place of people in planning has been deliberately excised from this, in order to present a clarity of approach. But of course people are involved in planning, and whenever people get involved in anything, that thing takes on inexplicable complications; what in principle may be straightforward takes on new dimensions of complexity. Human resource or people management is a very imprecise art, with
most literature on the topic being subjective, opinion and anecdote based; it lacks objectivity and an ability to justify through the scientific method. It also tends to be faddish because of this. The following notes are no different in that alternative views can be expressed with equal enthusiasm. Safety, industrial relations and quality involve people issues, in partic-
ular, that influence planning. An organisation’s policies (general guides for decision making and individual actions), procedures (detailed methods for carrying out policies) and standards (degree of individual or group performance defined as adequate or acceptable) also influence planning practices. Planning is part of a project manager’s responsibilities, but involves
all personnel in a project to some degree. In some cases, the responsibility for preparing the main project plan is that of a program manager assisted by a program team, under the overall direction of the project manager. There is a project role involving coordination and the interrelationships
of activities and project participants, and in providing continuity of work for the project participants. When scheduling people as a resource, this may be done only as a group, team or gang, rather than as individuals. to the
Involvement of people
Planning for projects ideally involves contributions from everyone who will be involved in the implementation of the plan, although there may be organisational difficulties with achieving this. In practice, there are people who do the planning (the planners) and there are people – end-users or doers – who implement the plans, yet it is believed that there is merit in the latter group contributing their expertise to the planning and in being consulted in the development of any plans. It is sometimes said that the success of a plan is directly proportional
to the participation of those responsible for carrying out the planned work. Commitment to the plan comes from an involvement in developing the plan, and gaining some ownership of the plan. There is even a case in some circumstances of having decentralised planning; that is, the people responsible for the performance of the project do the planning. Generally, a plan should not be imposed on others; agreed realistic plans are more likely to be successful. There can be a view of doers, uninvited to participate in the planning, that the plan represents achieving the impossible. The involvement of end-users in the planning can have additional pro-
ductivity and quality-related benefits such as:
• Giving to them a better understanding of their job • Giving an indication of where they fit into the overall scheme of the
project • They gain confidence in the presumably more efficient and more effec-
tive work methods; they can assume that they are working smarter not harder
• The reasons for proper reporting, feeding into replanning, become more readily understood
• Reporting is seen to be for the project’s benefit rather than ‘big brother’ checking up on employee performance.
