The importance of project planning in project management

Project planning is a particularly important and difficult part of project preparation. Mistakes that are made in these activities usually cause problems in the implementation phase, causing, for example, the need to make numerous changes to the schedule or budget.  The Project Manager is fully responsible for developing the project plan, and for its updating and control during the implementation phase. In practice, especially in larger enterprises, the preparation of a significant part of the plans is carried out by technical specialists in a given field, while the plan is developed using IT tools by the assistant of the Project Manager or PMO. However, it is necessary for the Manager to be good at applying methods, techniques and planning tools, since it is their responsibility to evaluate the plan.
The second important aspect of planning, for which the Project Manager is responsible, is to include in the plan not only direct technical goals, but also business ones.
The particularly important features of an effective project plan are:

• Clarity - the plan is a tool for communication with project participants (team, sponsor, users, management), so it must show the image of the project and its requirements in a way that is understandable to the recipients.
• Realism - the plan can not reflect the wishes of the client or the management (so-called "customer-oriented" plan), but it must be an honest image of the actual needs and conditions of the project. An unrealistic plan leads to the inevitable failure of the project (eg serious delays or budget overruns).
• Susceptibility to changes - in each project there are numerous changes, only partly due to difficulties in predicting the future at the beginning. The changes relate to shifts of activities and their order, modification of dates or resources, etc. A good plan must allow changes easily.
• Enabling progress control - in the implementation phase, the most important function of the plan is to measure work progress to detect deviations and take corrective actions. An excessively detailed plan (or a vague one) does not allow for a precise assessment of the project's status.