Johanna Rothman, writing for Projects@Work, has published an article entitled "Roll With It," prescribing a "rolling wave" project plan that only includes four weeks of task-level detail. Here is an excerpt:
If you’re accustomed to trying to schedule an entire project, rolling-wave planning might feel strange to you. You won’t generate an entire Gantt chart or know exactly what you’ll be doing three months from now. But honestly, how good are you at predicting the schedule that far out anyway? I’m not that good — things happen in a project. The further out the milestone, the less you know about exactly how you’ll get there. Because no matter how good the project team’s estimate was, some events will prevent them from completing the project the way they originally estimated.
(I made a similar recommendation here on Talent On Target, under the title "Scheduling and Project Workforce Management: Management By Reality.")
I am glad to see that long, over-analytic Gantt charts are continuing to go "out," and shorter, more realistic project plans are "in." No Project Workforce Manager has a crystal ball to foresee the obstacles and risks that occur while a project is underway. And the time required just to maintain the Gantt chart can be enough to put a project over-budget!
Rothman suggests a "rolling wave" of 4 weeks (or more or less, depending upon the project). If you have other techniques for keeping project plans realistic and under control, please share them under Comments.
#1 by Michael Kubik at September 26th, 2007
A rolling wave by itself can be dangerous for a large project. You still need to have major milestones and a project completion date that is set. Many projects will have the end date set in stone (regulatory requirements needing to be met, for example). A rolling wave may work well for interim milestones and testing, and is a great way to assure project participants and leadership stay focused. Any good project manager re-adjusts their long term plans on a regular basis as tasks slip, and understands how those slips relate to other resources and requirements – so even a very large, long term plan should be managed with the wave concept. I do like the concept for managing multiple projects with a team – it should assure progress and keep things “small” enough so that inexperienced project participants stay engaged and feel a sense of ownership. Thanks for sharing!