When you are new at something, it takes time for you to develop a good comfort level. Before that, one may feel vulnerable to the situation. That is exactly what happened to me. When I first started my internship, I was extremely nervous because it was my first exposure to the real world and my first exposure to an internship itself. I came in with a positive attitude which helped me to take on numerous projects and handling them well. That adrenaline rush helped my performance and my first impression, which I still carry today. About the sixth week into my internship, I got assigned a project that a consultant had on her pending list. Given about 650,000 raw data entries, the executive director and I got together to discuss exactly what was needed of me, or the planning stage demonstrated in class via “the sky is the limit” activity. After taking my notes, I went off to conduct the analysis, and was done within two weeks. Happy with the turnout, I set up a meeting with the director to go over the analysis. To my surprise, she wanted many changes; I would consider this to be the planning stage still even though the project officially started two weeks ago. This went on for four months of changing things according to what she wanted. Finally, during the fifth month of the analysis she was very happy with the analysis and published it to the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer).
What does all this have to do with our class? As I stated above the consent change in the analysis was the planning phase even though it took five months to perfect it in director’s eyes. As we saw in class, we all planned how we were going to tackle the requirements the professor had, and then were focused on getting the “tallest” skyscraper. Like my group, we spent barely a minute discussing our plans; the analysis did the same thing. Our team in class planned along the way, and if something did not work, we either added to it or changed our ways. Same thing for the analysis, when the director thought it would be better some other way I was obligated to change it for her contentment.
So I would like to ask, in the context given above, when is planning too much planning?
I think planning can become a problem when you let it become one. It’s different for each case or project. It also depends on the person involved. For me, I don’t spend as much time planning in advance as I do when I start work on the project. I always find things I need to change or think of a better way to do something. How you execute your plan is sometimes more important then the plan itself.
I have had a similar experiences in my past projects. We originally start of with a plan to get things done a certain way, but along the way there are changes that usually end up happening. I think thats the case with most projects. Planning isn’t completed in the begging stages of the project, it goes on till its completion. I also believe as time goes on, experience plays a major role in planning. With the more experience one has the less changes there will be along the way.
The planning stage is probably one of the most important stages of any project, and I think it can be very frustrating in the beginning if the project manager is not clear on what exactly he or she wants out of the final project (or product). I have been put in similar situations at my job where I am not only playing the role as project manager, but also as receiving instructions from someone else overlooking my work for the duration of the project. I agree that it takes time to learn about what your boss or project manager expects to gain or is looking for after the project is completed. I have found from experience that sometimes working with the same team and project manager over a longer period of time allows for you to learn the expectations of them, making new and future projects easier and less time consuming.