Planning
The general who knows both himself and his enemy adopts a successful strategy.
– Sun Tzu
Planning ties high level concepts to tactical implementation in a clear context. To ‘know oneself’ is to have a clear picture of a project team’s capabilities—strengths and limitations—to match the collective experience of the team to the complexity of the project. To know one’s enemy is to engage in risk assessment, asking explicitly, “What are all the things that could go wrong?” and “What can we do about each one?”
Windward offers Project Quick Launch which serves the triple purpose of planning real projects, bringing project teams into alignment, and transfering our expertise—gained over many years of practice—to your project staff.
Over the course of three to five days, we facilitate a team discussion to identify their project’s:
- Mission
- Objectives
- Key Milestones
- Criteria for Success
- Resource Constraints
- Assumptions
- Risks
A significant benefit of this process is that any competing agendas get flushed out and integrated into the project plan.
Following the group exercise, we craft a written project plan which includes budget, schedule, A roles & responsibilities chart, communication strategy, and scope change procedure—delivering a complete project plan that includes all information identified by the team.