The planning cycle enables organizations to perform activities successfully and achieve goals across projects of various sizes. The planning cycle is most effective for small to medium-sized projects.
Understanding the planning cycle
The planning cycle enables organizations to plan and then implement robust, practical, cost-effective, and well-considered projects.
The planning and implementation process is iterative in the sense that insights are fed back into the cycle to be incorporated into future projects.
Alternatively, project managers may move back to an earlier stage of the cycle.
Whatever the case, project planning is a cycle within a cycle (like other management functions) since objectives are modified or new ones are created as new information comes to hand.
The planning cycle is most effective for small to medium-sized projects.
For larger, complex projects where project management becomes a technical discipline in its own right, certified frameworks such as PMBOK or PRINCE2 can be used.
The components of a planning cycle
Let’s now describe the various components of the planning cycle. Remember that the process is not linear.
At any point, the organization may choose to revisit an earlier step with new information or restart the process.
1 – Define objectives
Defining objectives is the most crucial part of the planning cycle.
While mission and visionstatements provide some degree of clarity on where the company is headed, the planning cycle requires teams to develop specific goals using the SMART framework.
A SMART goal is any goal with a carefully planned, concise, and trackable objective. To be such a goalneeds to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based. Bringing structure and trackability to goal setting increases the chances goals will be achieved, and it helps align the organization around those goals.
2 – Develop premises
Premises are assumptions the team makes about how the project may be impacted in the future by different conditions.
These may be external (competitors, laws, innovation) or internal (management, employee training outcomes, or available budget), for example.
The SWOT analysis can be used to examine the organization’s current position and how it may be able to respond in various situations.
Whatever method is chosen, however, premises must be defined early so that managers can monitor conditions during project implementation. If assumptions prove incorrect, the plan may need to be revised.
3 – Evaluate alternatives
In business as in life, there is more than one way to achieve the same outcome.
A company wanting to reduce office-related expenditure by 8% could move to smaller premises, enable more employees to work remotely, or find a cheaper source of toner ink.
Project managers need to evaluate each alternative in terms of its implementation difficulty and chances of success.
They should do this by seeking out diverse perspectives or expertise.
What are the resources required to implement the plan? Which of these resources does the organization possess, and which must be sourced from elsewhere?
Resources may encompass technology, money, equipment, raw materials, or skills.
For each alternative from the previous step, the availability and cost of resources must be identified.
5 – Establish tasks
Tasks comprise the roadmap that enables the organization to move toward a desired future state.
They must be defined at all organizational levels and, to illustrate task completion sequences and interdependencies, many teams choose to use a Gantt chart.
6 – Determine tracking and evaluation methods
Tracking means project managers constantly monitor progress toward the intended outcomes.
They should have a detailed understanding of critical tasks as well as those most likely to encounter problems or cause project bottlenecks.
In the final evaluation, the team looks back on what it has learned. Could any aspect of planning be improved or refined?
Developing a standard post-implementation review process may also be useful if similar projects are likely to be undertaken in the future.
Above all, the review should determine whether the project solved a key problem and if so, if its benefits could potentially be enhanced.
Key takeaways:
The planning cycle enables organizations to successfully perform activities and achieve goals across projects of various sizes.
The planning cycle is most effective for small to medium-sized projects. For larger, more complex projects, formal frameworks such as PMBOK or PRINCE2 may be more effective.
The planning cycle has six iterative steps where results from the evaluation stage can be fed back into similar future projects. These steps include defining objectives, developing premises, evaluating alternatives, identifying resources, establishing tasks, and determining tracking and evaluation methods.
Andy Grove, helped Intel become among the most valuable companies by 1997. In his years at Intel, he conceived a management and goal-setting system, called OKR, standing for “objectives and key results.” Venture capitalist and early investor in Google, John Doerr, systematized in the book “Measure What Matters.”
A SMART goal is any goal with a carefully planned, concise, and trackable objective. To be such a goalneeds to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based. Bringing structure and trackability to goal setting increases the chances goals will be achieved, and it helps align the organization around those goals.
Micromanagement is about tightly controlling or observing employees’ work. Although this management style might be understood in some cases, especially for small-scale projects, generally speaking, micromanagement has a negative connotation mainly because it shows a lack of trust and freedom in the workplace, which leads to adverse outcomes.
Developed by business consultants Kenneth Blanchard and Paul Hersey in the 1960s, delegative leadership is a leadership style where authority figures empower subordinates to exercise autonomy. For this reason, it is also called laissez-faire leadership. In some cases, this leadership type can lead to increased work quality and decision-making. In a few other cases, this type of leadershipneeds to be balanced out to prevent a lack of direction and cohesiveness in the team.
Agile leadership is the embodiment of agile manifesto principles by a manager or management team. Agile leadership impacts two important levels of a business. The structural level defines the roles, responsibilities, and key performance indicators. The behavioral level describes the actions leaders exhibit to others based on agile principles.
Active listening is the process of listening attentively while someone speaks and displaying understanding through verbal and non-verbal techniques. Active listening is a fundamental part of good communication, fostering a positive connection and building trust between individuals.
Adaptive leadership is a model used by leaders to help individuals adapt to complex or rapidly changing environments. Adaptive leadership is defined by three core components (precious or expendable, experimentation and smart risks, disciplined assessment). Growth occurs when an organization discards ineffective ways of operating. Then, active leaders implement new initiatives and monitor their impact.
A RASCI matrix is used to assign and then display the various roles and responsibilities in a project, service, or process. It is sometimes called a RASCI Responsibility Matrix. The RASCI matrix is essentially a project management tool that provides important clarification for organizations involved in complex projects.
In a flat organizational structure, there is little to no middle management between employees and executives. Therefore it reduces the space between employees and executives to enable an effective communication flow within the organization, thus being faster and leaner.
Tactical management involves choosing an appropriate course of action to achieve a strategic plan or objective. Therefore, tactical management comprises the set of daily operations that support long strategy delivery. It may involve risk management, regular meetings, conflict resolution, and problem-solving.
High-performance management involves the implementation of HR practices that are internally consistent and aligned with organizational strategy. Importantly, high-performance management is a continual process where several different but integrated activities create a performancemanagement cycle. It is not a process that should be performed once a year and then hidden in a filing cabinet.
Scientific Management Theory was created by Frederick Winslow Taylor in 1911 to encourage industrial companies to switch to mass production. With a background in mechanical engineering, he applied engineering principles to workplace productivity on the factory floor. Scientific Management Theory seeks to find the most efficient way to perform a workplace job.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
