WHEN SHOULD WE UPDATE THE PLAN?

This is a question that gets asked on almost every project management workshop that I run, and I think it's the result of a number of different issues being mixed in together and confused .

There are three different answers to the question, depending on what the questioner meant .

Constantly

As we have seen already, the plan is constantly being updated, throughout the Lazy Project Manager's day.

Weekly

These days, I would never run a project without using a PC planning tool. You may know that if you use one of these tools, then the plan (the Gantt chart) is stored in a file; and for example, in MS Project, this file is a .MPP file. It is this file that I make the constant changes to as described above.

It is useful though, to keep copies of previous versions of the plan, so you can look back and see how things unfolded. I do this on a weekly basis. The convention I use is that last thing on Friday I copy the current plan (the current .MPP file) to a new file. This, then, becomes the one I operate on in the coming week.

I name the files using the Monday of the week in question. Thus, XX042301.MPP would be the file for the week of Monday April 23 ('XX' is a project code) and on the Friday of that week, I would create a new file XX043001.MPP which I would then operate on in the week of Monday April 30.

Only if there's a slip

At the outset of the project we write a plan, we agree it with all and sundry, everyone gets a copy and the plan then becomes our contract with the powers that be. This document need never be changed again unless a slip occurs which can't be recovered (see Chapter 7).

If there is never such a slip, then this particular document never changes. Status reports keep everybody posted about what's happening; tell everybody how we're progressing against this original document.

If there is an unrecoverable slip, then this means we are in a position where we must renegotiate our contract. Then a new version of the plan document will get produced, a version 2.0 say, and this becomes the project's new contractual basis.