The Significance of Planning and Scheduling on the Success of Projects

Abstract

The overriding purpose of the study was to examine the significance of planning and scheduling on project success. Accordingly, taking the research objective and the researcher’s experience into account, descriptive type of research design was nominated to be the research design that best fits the research objective. Then, 23 projects completed in the last five years and 138 project professionals working on different projects at different levels were chosen to represent the target population of the study. Similarly, interviews, questionnaires, focus group discussions, and review of documents were used as data collection tools, among others. The research data analysis revealed that all of the project managers involved in this research indisputably recognize the impact of planning and scheduling on project success. Likewise, 100% of the sample population stated that if project success is defined as meeting project goals, then planning is the framework that explicitly states project parameters, resource requirements and work flows for the realization of the project goal. In this sense, the planning stage is the most imperative stage as it dictates subsequent project actions and decisions. In addition, records of the 23 selected projects depicted that 17 of them were recorded as successfully completed while the remaining six projects were documented as failed. Further review of the documents also revealed that all of the successfully completed projects were initiated with detailed project plans of their own on hand. Conversely, even though all the failed projects had ‘plans’ to refer to, the plans were either superficial or adapted from analogous successfully concluded projects. In other words, all of the failed projects were commenced without having detailed project plans of their own developed to fit their size and circumstance. So, the data analysis publicized that launching a project without a project plan is like going on an adventure without having a map. Simply put, executing a project without a project plan is easier said than done. In brief, this finding of the study is in good agreement with the old saying “Failing to plan is planning to fail”. In conclusion, the better the planning is, the better the project outcome becomes. Finally, not only the project outcomes, but even the career path of the project manager depends on the quality of the project plan/schedule.