General Comments on Planning and Execution

More than 90% of a project manager’s job is done in the Planning and Execution phases. Planning is where you create the roadmap you are going to follow to the end of the project, and Execution is where you make it happen. Which is more important? Neither and both. If you are not a very good planner, then problems will occur in the Execution phase because you probably will be “winging” it at some point, which is not very good project management. At the same time, you can save projects during execution even if the first planning was less than excellent.

Although the project manager must be able to do “workarounds” for unexpected problems, if you have planned well, there will be few of these. You will not, repeat not, have a project that goes exactly as planned from day one to the end of the project. That happens only in theory. If you are using people on your project (or I guess animals too), something will happen that is unexpected. But plan for the best.