PMO | When and How to Optimize Project Plans

Project plans are blueprints or guidelines for project operations. Whether agile or waterfall, we must constantly calibrate and optimize the plan to gain the best benefits. Let's discuss when and how to maximize the benefits of using project plans.

Project plans need to be realistic and simple, meaning they should be effortless for people to update without feeling burdened, and the initial estimations must be accurate so that the team feels confident to use them as a reference. Here, we can collect historical data to learn how to adjust the estimates.  

Project plans need to govern the operations. If too many overdue items are in the project plan, it's a sign that the plan is not being utilized. People ignore the timeline from the plan and then treat the plan as a burden rather than a helper. They will ignore it or use it as a checklist without considering the time required to complete tasks, which is a dangerous signal of increasing costs. To void this, in addition to starting with a simple and realistic plan, we can create a report to monitor the execution status closely. 

Project plans need to be kept up-to-date and organized. Often, plans are abandoned midway, tasks still need to be completed, and backlogs grow too big to stay on top of. Optimization here involves cleaning up and creating reports to identify issues.

In summary, we should create reports to identify plan execution issues, categorize the plan appropriately, and take necessary steps to keep the plan relevant to project operations. Do you use project plans?Do you face similar problems?  Are they helpful? Tell us your thoughts.