Plan the Work; Work the Plan

In this exclusive guest post, Donald Shannon provides invaluable insights into the world of planning within the context of contract and project management. The article explores the critical role of planning, emphasizing its close connection with risk management and the essential focus on meticulous detail. With his wealth of experience, Mr. Shannon underscores the significance of gleaning wisdom from successes and setbacks. He underlines the value of working alongside seasoned experts to craft more effective plans. Whether you're a seasoned professional or a newcomer looking to excel in contract and project management, Mr. Shannon's profound insights and actionable advice will leave a lasting impact.

In Retrospect ….

I've been a Contracts professional and a project manager for nearly 30 years. One of those things I enjoy most is working with other contracts and project management people to pass on lessons learned and what I consider to be useful tips. The one I want to discuss today is the old saw from military days, the "Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance," also known as the "5Ps."?

Planning is something that both the buyer and seller must do if a given acquisition is to be successful—the larger or more complex the acquisition, the more planning that is needed. One problem is that good planning is a skill learned through experience. Good planning is an outgrowth of past successes and past failures. When we plan, we anticipate problems and provide for either prevention or recovery as an element of our plan. That doesn't mean that inexperienced people can't be good planners – but it does mean that lessons learned and consultation with people with the necessary experience will result in a better plan.

In some regards, planning is an extension of risk management. The more acquisitions we have participated in, the more likely we are to have seen issues or had to deal with real-world problems, and the more likely we are to consider these risks as we plan.

Planning is also about detail. As the idiom intones, "the devil is in the details." From a planning perspective, things may look quite ordinary from the top level but tend to fall apart as we drill down to lower levels by asking questions like "And then what?” or "Who's going to do that?". Good plans are detailed plans and include information concerning who does what, when it needs to be done, and what resources it will take to do that.

This is where the interface between contract and project management is easily seen. As we plan for what we want our acquired product, system, or services to be, we need to answer the acquisition's who, what, when, where, and how aspects. As we determine the answer to these questions, our plan begins to take shape – first as an outline and then through progressive elaboration, i.e., answering the "and then what" question, it becomes a more detailed and well-developed plan.

If one thinks along these lines, one will see that the solicitation and statement of work are the results of the buyer's elaboration on the plan, and what follows in the proposal is the seller's further refinement and definition of that plan. Good proposals are good plans – they tell the buyer how the work will be done, by whom, when, and for how much.

When a proposal is reviewed, it should be reviewed based on how well the proposed plan meets the buyer's objectives and how well the seller has considered and addressed each aspect of the buyer's problem. Good plans also tend to result in low-risk endeavors. As stated above, the plan should consider experience and leverage lessons learned into preventative measures or pathways for recovery.

So, if we want to plan, how do we document and communicate that plan to others so they understand our intentions and can execute according to the plan? At the risk of repeating myself, a good proposal is a good plan. That means we should plan (and propose) as we intend to execute and then execute as we have planned (or proposed). Stated another way: "Plan the Work; Work the Plan."

The plan (née?proposal) should include a detailed technical description of the product or solution offered and a detailed schedule, budget, and management approach to finish. This is where tools like the Gant chart are essential. Contract professionals need to be able to read a Gant chart because a well-constructed Gant chart contains not only the "what" that will be done but also addresses the "when" and "in what order" aspects of the plan. A resource-loaded Gant chart expands on that base by answering the "who" that will do the work and, by extension, the "how much will it cost" component.?

Constructing the proposed plan also includes organizing the work and the team performing the job. Work is organized according to a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) that aligns the work to be performed with the product structure and the requirements, such as the Statement of Work (SOW). From this analysis, it is also easy to move on to cross-referencing the work described in the plan with the contract CLIN structure.

Similarly, planning also requires considering what work will be assigned to which performers. Will in-house resources do the work, or will it be assigned to subcontractors? What work belongs to which teammate? The answer to this question is twofold. The first is an Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS) that maps each requirement in the WBS to a department or manager. The second document is a Responsible Accountable Consult or Inform (RACI) matrix that cross-references each requirement to team members and assigns specific responsibilities to them. It is quite literally a "who's responsible for doing what" document,

As you can now see, I wasn't kidding about the planning process details. But if you look at the data generated in this planning effort, one component has yet to be formally documented: cost. However, the plan includes all the necessary details to develop that cost estimate. Our schedule tells us what work will be done and when. We have a WBS and an OBS, and those documents are cross-referenced to the solicitation requirements and the SOW and, thus, to the CLINs. Finally, we know what resources are needed to do the work from the resource-loaded Gant chart.

All that remains is for the cost analysts to translate the resources into costs according to the structure provided, and some wonderfully useful information is available, including not only proposed costs but also time-phased costs and budget information. It is now a reasonably complete plan that a competent manager could execute.?

Unfortunately, many organizations have a gap between the group that writes the proposal (plan) and those who manage the resulting contract (or project). I have seen this disconnect more than once, which is wasteful and disruptive. Handing a contract to a project manager that was never associated with the proposal and asking them to execute the resulting project will lead to a flurry of activity – much of which will lead to (metaphorically) reploughing the same field. In the time that takes, there will be wasted time, effort, and resources until, eventually, the execution team comes to most of the same conclusions as the proposal team.

In one project I was a part of, this activity led to nearly two months of turmoil as the team came to grips with a new manager who had refused to read the proposal and benefit from the planning that had already been done. When all was said and done, the company realized its mistake and turned the day-to-day execution over to the manager from the proposal team.

Thus, the bottom line is:?Plan the Work; Work the Plan. This is a motto that should be firmly in the mind of every contract or project manager.??