{"id":5397,"date":"2026-08-25T00:34:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T22:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michael-hoepfl.com\/digital-world\/why-good-planning-doesnt-start-with-the-project-plan\/08-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T01:10:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T23:10:40","slug":"why-good-planning-doesnt-start-with-the-project-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michael-hoepfl.com\/en\/consulting\/why-good-planning-doesnt-start-with-the-project-plan\/08-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Good Planning Doesn&#8217;t Start with the Project Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Or why precise dates do not necessarily make a plan reliable.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Illusion of Precision<\/h2>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A project plan creates something complex initiatives often lack: visibility. Milestones are set, responsibilities assigned, dates entered. In a steering committee, you can show where the project stands and what is supposed to happen next. The larger the initiative, the more important that sense of orientation becomes.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The more important question is how reliable that order really is. A plan can look highly precise while some of its foundations are still unresolved. Which dependencies do we actually understand? Which assumptions are we already treating as facts? And how dependable are dates when critical prerequisites will only be clarified later?<\/p>\n\t\t<!-- begin AlertsDLX output -->\n\t\t<style>\n\t\t\t#alerts-dlx-c21521f2 {\n\t\t\t\tmax-width: 650vw;\n\t\t\t\t--alerts-dlx-base-font-size: 14px;\n\t\t\t\t--alerts-dlx-bootstrap-base-size: 14px;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#alerts-dlx-c21521f2 .alerts-dlx-icon-preview svg {\n\t\t\t\tmax-width: 1.8em;\n\t\t\t\tmax-height: 1.8em;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div\n\t\t\tclass=\"alerts-dlx template-bootstrap is-style-secondary is-appearance-default icon-vertical-align-top aligncenter\"\n\t\t\tdata-expiration=\"0\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t\t<figure\n\t\t\t\trole=\"alert\"\n\t\t\t\tclass=\"alerts-dlx-alert alerts-dlx-bootstrap alerts-dlx-has-icon alerts-dlx-has-description\"\n\t\t\t\tid=\"alerts-dlx-c21521f2\"\n\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"alerts-dlx-icon alerts-dlx-icon-frontend\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"alerts-dlx-icon-preview\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" fill=\"currentColor\" class=\"bi bi-lightbulb\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 16\"><path d=\"M2 6a6 6 0 1 1 10.174 4.31c-.203.196-.359.4-.453.619l-.762 1.769A.5.5 0 0 1 10.5 13a.5.5 0 0 1 0 1 .5.5 0 0 1 0 1l-.224.447a1 1 0 0 1-.894.553H6.618a1 1 0 0 1-.894-.553L5.5 15a.5.5 0 0 1 0-1 .5.5 0 0 1 0-1 .5.5 0 0 1-.46-.302l-.761-1.77a1.964 1.964 0 0 0-.453-.618A5.984 5.984 0 0 1 2 6zm6-5a5 5 0 0 0-3.479 8.592c.263.254.514.564.676.941L5.83 12h4.342l.632-1.467c.162-.377.413-.687.676-.941A5 5 0 0 0 8 1z\"><\/path><\/svg>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"alerts-dlx-title\">Aus der Praxis<\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"alerts-dlx-content-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"alerts-dlx-content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For several years, I was involved in a major transformation program at an international telecommunications group in Germany\u2014at the time, one of the largest transformation programs in the German corporate landscape.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Business processes, the organization, and an IT landscape that had evolved over many years were to be fundamentally renewed and significantly standardized.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a program of that scale, the demand for clear roadmaps, milestones, and dates emerges quickly. It also made one thing particularly clear to me: much of the most important planning work happens before those dates are set\u2014when teams establish what is already understood, where dependencies lie, and which prerequisites still need to be clarified.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I will return to several observations from that project environment throughout this article.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<!-- end AlertsDLX output -->\n\t\t\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">When Precision Is Mistaken for Reliability<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first article in this series focused on what should be clarified before a project truly gets under way: a shared understanding of the objective, a sufficiently concrete picture of the intended outcome, and the key constraints surrounding the work.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But even once those points are clear, another question remains: How does that understanding become a plan whose milestones and dates are genuinely reliable?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The desire for concrete plans is understandable. Dates provide orientation, budgets can be allocated, resources reserved, and expectations aligned across sponsors, management, and project teams. In large initiatives, that level of commitment is essential if many people are to move in the same direction.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The problem begins when the precision of the plan is confused with the quality of the assumptions beneath it. A detailed schedule can look highly convincing even when important assumptions, dependencies, or relevant experience have not yet been tested rigorously enough.<\/p>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Outside View<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One reason may be a human tendency identified by Bent Flyvbjerg and a team at the University of Oxford in their research on large IT projects. The researchers analyzed data from more than 1,300 projects and examined 219 of them in greater depth. They found that the more strongly decision-makers perceived their own project as unique, the worse it performed on average. Each additional point on the ten-point uniqueness scale was associated with an average increase of five percentage points in cost overruns. <em>(Flyvbjerg, B., Budzier, A., Christodoulou, M. D. &amp; Zottoli, M. (2025): \u201cThe Uniqueness Trap\u201d, Harvard Business Review, 103(2), pp. 118\u2013125; <a href=\"https:\/\/hbr.org\/2025\/03\/the-uniqueness-trap\">Harvard Business Review<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Flyvbjerg refers to this pattern as the \u201cuniqueness bias.\u201d When people treat their own initiative as a special case, they are less likely to look for lessons from comparable projects and more likely to build budgets and schedules around an inside view of their own situation. His recommendation comes surprisingly early in the planning process: before the first planning steps, ask what comparable initiatives already exist and what can be learned from them.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before asking when a project can be finished, it is worth asking a different question: <strong>What is our plan actually based on?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What the Project Plan Doesn&#8217;t Show<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A project plan can look remarkably precise while resting on assumptions and prerequisites that are far less clear. The reliability of the plan depends on those foundations.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before dates and milestones are locked in, it is worth looking at the work that has to happen first.<\/p>\n\n<!--nextpage-->\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Good Planning Starts Before the Project Plan<\/h2>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What Other Projects Can Tell Us About Our Own<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even a new initiative rarely starts from zero. There is often experience that can provide useful orientation for at least parts of the project. Flyvbjerg and his team therefore recommend first looking for comparable initiatives within the same organization and then outside it. If there is no direct analogue, the project can be broken down into components for which meaningful comparisons may still exist. <em>(Flyvbjerg, B., Budzier, A., Christodoulou, M. D. &amp; Zottoli, M. (2025): \u201cThe Uniqueness Trap\u201d, Harvard Business Review, 103(2), pp. 118\u2013125; <a href=\"https:\/\/hbr.org\/2025\/03\/the-uniqueness-trap\">Harvard Business Review<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Looking at those reference cases changes the basis of the plan. Instead of merely estimating how long we believe our own initiative will take, we can examine what actually happened under comparable conditions. How long did similar projects take? How often did budgets or deadlines slip? And where did the same difficulties appear repeatedly?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is the logic behind <em>Reference Class Forecasting<\/em>: the estimate for the project at hand is calibrated against the actual outcomes of a suitable comparison group. The outside view does not replace detailed planning for the project itself. It provides a reference point against which our own expectations can be tested.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That leads to a first question before expectations turn into dates: What do we already know about initiatives of this kind?<\/p>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What We Know\u2014and What We Only Think We Know<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Comparing our project with others solves only part of the problem. Information within our own initiative does not all have the same status either. Some relationships are well established, others are based on experience or forecasts, and still others are assumptions we hope will later prove correct.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rita McGrath makes this point very clearly in the context of strategy: companies should be able to say when they acted on assumptions that later proved wrong. Strategy therefore has to remain flexible enough to adjust actions when the underlying conditions change. <em>(McGrath, R. (2025): \u201cStrategy: Rita McGrath on the Shelf Life of Corporate Strategies\u201d [German-language interview], interview by Gesine Braun and Christiane Sommer, Harvard Business manager, 9\/2025, 2 September 2025.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Applied to project planning, this creates an important distinction: What do we know? What are we assuming? What are we dependent on? And what simply describes the outcome we want to achieve?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A plan does not become more reliable simply because it contains more information. What matters just as much is whether it reveals what kind of knowledge that information is based on.<\/p>\n\t\t<!-- begin AlertsDLX output -->\n\t\t<style>\n\t\t\t#alerts-dlx-cf165f1a {\n\t\t\t\tmax-width: 650vw;\n\t\t\t\t--alerts-dlx-base-font-size: 14px;\n\t\t\t\t--alerts-dlx-bootstrap-base-size: 14px;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#alerts-dlx-cf165f1a .alerts-dlx-icon-preview svg {\n\t\t\t\tmax-width: 1.8em;\n\t\t\t\tmax-height: 1.8em;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div\n\t\t\tclass=\"alerts-dlx template-bootstrap is-style-secondary is-appearance-default icon-vertical-align-top aligncenter\"\n\t\t\tdata-expiration=\"0\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t\t<figure\n\t\t\t\trole=\"alert\"\n\t\t\t\tclass=\"alerts-dlx-alert alerts-dlx-bootstrap alerts-dlx-has-icon alerts-dlx-has-description\"\n\t\t\t\tid=\"alerts-dlx-cf165f1a\"\n\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"alerts-dlx-icon alerts-dlx-icon-frontend\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"alerts-dlx-icon-preview\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" fill=\"currentColor\" class=\"bi bi-lightbulb\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 16\"><path d=\"M2 6a6 6 0 1 1 10.174 4.31c-.203.196-.359.4-.453.619l-.762 1.769A.5.5 0 0 1 10.5 13a.5.5 0 0 1 0 1 .5.5 0 0 1 0 1l-.224.447a1 1 0 0 1-.894.553H6.618a1 1 0 0 1-.894-.553L5.5 15a.5.5 0 0 1 0-1 .5.5 0 0 1 0-1 .5.5 0 0 1-.46-.302l-.761-1.77a1.964 1.964 0 0 0-.453-.618A5.984 5.984 0 0 1 2 6zm6-5a5 5 0 0 0-3.479 8.592c.263.254.514.564.676.941L5.83 12h4.342l.632-1.467c.162-.377.413-.687.676-.941A5 5 0 0 0 8 1z\"><\/path><\/svg>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"alerts-dlx-title\">Aus der Praxis<\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"alerts-dlx-content-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"alerts-dlx-content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This kind of work was especially visible in the transformation program I mentioned earlier. Before a reliable implementation plan could emerge from a large number of individual topics, the content first had to be made progressively more concrete.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Initial descriptions developed into high-level concepts. Those concepts were then elaborated, reviewed, and aligned with the affected areas. The work went beyond documenting individual requirements in greater detail. Concepts were also mapped to business processes and process steps. Over time, this created a kind of map showing which topics were connected, which areas were affected, and where dependencies existed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Those relationships mattered enormously for the planning that followed. A single topic could look manageable in isolation. Only when connected to other processes, concepts, or organizational areas did it become clear which additional prerequisites had to be met and what effects a change in one area might have elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was not a one-off exercise. Requirements and solution ideas were refined iteratively with different stakeholders and became progressively more detailed. Only after concepts had gone through this process were they handed over into broader portfolio planning and prioritization.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For me, a significant part of the planning effort therefore consisted of creating a reliable map first. It showed what had to be delivered, how the individual pieces connected, and which prerequisites had to be taken into account.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Detailed implementation planning did not come at the beginning of this work. It built on the knowledge created during that process of clarification.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<!-- end AlertsDLX output -->\n\t\t\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">When Knowledge Becomes a Plan<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A project plan does not appear out of thin air. It consolidates experience, known relationships, assumptions, dependencies, and the current level of functional and technical clarification.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For me, a project plan is above all a condensed representation of what a project knows at a particular point in time.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That is also its limitation. The project\u2019s knowledge will never be complete. Some prerequisites remain unresolved, some assumptions can only be tested later, and some dependencies will change.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So what do we do with everything that is still unclear at the point when the plan is created?<\/p>\n\n<!--nextpage-->\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Uncertainty Is Not a Planning Failure<\/h2>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How Reliable Is a Date When Its Prerequisites Are Still Open?<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A specific date creates an immediate sense of commitment. But its value depends on the conditions that must hold for the planned duration to be realistic in the first place.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A transition scenario made this particularly tangible for me. A relatively short period had been planned for knowledge transfer and the subsequent takeover of responsibilities. That timeline was explicitly tied to several prerequisites. One of them was that the required documentation had to be available, complete, and up to date when the transition began.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The timeline therefore only held under certain conditions. Whether those conditions were later met is not the point here. What matters is that the date depended on prerequisites whose own status also needed to be understood.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the schedule itself, those prerequisites are often far less visible than the date that depends on them. A milestone can be entered with absolute clarity. The schedule alone does not tell us whether all the conditions required to reach it are equally clear.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That creates an important distinction that is easily lost in project plans:<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A date can be precise without being reliable.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Its reliability depends on whether the assumptions and prerequisites behind it actually hold.<\/p>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why Not Everything in a Plan Should Look Equally Certain<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not every statement in a project has the same level of reliability at the same point in time. For some outcomes, scope, prerequisites, and dependencies are sufficiently clear to make a firm commitment reasonable. For others, information is still missing or risks remain whose impact cannot yet be assessed with confidence.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One example of this principle can be found in PI Planning within the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), which distinguishes between <em>committed<\/em> and <em>uncommitted objectives<\/em>. The former are explicitly committed to. The latter remain visible as objectives whose achievement still depends on unresolved factors. <em>(Scaled Agile Framework: \u201cPI Objectives\u201d; <a href=\"https:\/\/framework.scaledagile.com\/pi-objectives\/\">SAFe<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The interesting part is not the method itself but the principle behind it: <strong>A plan does not have to pretend that every element carries the same degree of certainty.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Uncertainty can be part of what the plan communicates rather than something that has to be explained outside the plan.<\/p>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What a Reliable Plan Must Not Hide<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If dates depend on prerequisites and not every part of a project carries the same level of commitment, the plan should make those differences visible.<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-style-plain is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Good planning does not try to hide uncertainty in the project plan. It makes clear where uncertainty still exists.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A reliable plan does not need to project the same level of confidence everywhere. It should show which statements are already robust\u2014and which still depend on assumptions, prerequisites, or future developments.<\/p>\n\t\t<!-- begin AlertsDLX output -->\n\t\t<style>\n\t\t\t#alerts-dlx-d65a132c {\n\t\t\t\tmax-width: 650vw;\n\t\t\t\t--alerts-dlx-base-font-size: 14px;\n\t\t\t\t--alerts-dlx-bootstrap-base-size: 14px;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#alerts-dlx-d65a132c .alerts-dlx-icon-preview svg {\n\t\t\t\tmax-width: 1.8em;\n\t\t\t\tmax-height: 1.8em;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div\n\t\t\tclass=\"alerts-dlx template-bootstrap is-style-secondary is-appearance-default icon-vertical-align-top aligncenter\"\n\t\t\tdata-expiration=\"0\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t\t<figure\n\t\t\t\trole=\"alert\"\n\t\t\t\tclass=\"alerts-dlx-alert alerts-dlx-bootstrap alerts-dlx-has-icon alerts-dlx-has-description\"\n\t\t\t\tid=\"alerts-dlx-d65a132c\"\n\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"alerts-dlx-icon alerts-dlx-icon-frontend\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"alerts-dlx-icon-preview\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" fill=\"currentColor\" class=\"bi bi-info-square-fill\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 16\"><path d=\"M0 2a2 2 0 0 1 2-2h12a2 2 0 0 1 2 2v12a2 2 0 0 1-2 2H2a2 2 0 0 1-2-2V2zm8.93 4.588-2.29.287-.082.38.45.083c.294.07.352.176.288.469l-.738 3.468c-.194.897.105 1.319.808 1.319.545 0 1.178-.252 1.465-.598l.088-.416c-.2.176-.492.246-.686.246-.275 0-.375-.193-.304-.533L8.93 6.588zM8 5.5a1 1 0 1 0 0-2 1 1 0 0 0 0 2z\"><\/path><\/svg>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"alerts-dlx-title\">F\u00fcnf Fragen, bevor aus Planung Verbindlichkeit wird<\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"alerts-dlx-content-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"alerts-dlx-content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before dates, budgets, or outcomes become firm commitments, it is worth taking a brief look at the foundations beneath them. More detail does not automatically help. The more important question is how reliable the central statements really are at that point in time.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>What do we actually know\u2014and what are we merely assuming?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Which prerequisites must be met for the plan to work?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Which dependencies can we influence ourselves?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Which statements can we genuinely commit to today?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>How will we know early that an assumption no longer holds?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These questions do not require another planning process. They can be asked before a firm commitment, a new forecast, or a significant update to the plan. At those moments, it is worth checking whether only the numbers have changed\u2014or whether the knowledge behind them has changed as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">None of these questions eliminates uncertainty. Together, however, they help prevent assumptions from quietly becoming facts and possible outcomes from turning into seemingly certain commitments.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<!-- end AlertsDLX output -->\n\t\t\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What Happens When Change Suddenly Gets Cheap?<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">AI agents introduce another question: What changes in this logic when drafts and implementation steps can be created, tested, discarded, and rebuilt much faster?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>How much do we still need to decide in advance?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<!--nextpage-->\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">When Change Costs Almost Nothing<\/h2>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Upfront planning also has an economic value: the more expensive a correction becomes later, the more sense it makes to resolve as many questions as possible before implementation begins.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In knowledge- and software-intensive work, AI is starting to shift that relationship. Drafts can be produced faster, variants explored more easily, and results tested earlier. Discarding an approach and rebuilding it can also require significantly less effort than before.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That does not make preparation obsolete. But it changes the question: <strong>When is more upfront planning more valuable\u2014and when do we learn more by starting to build and test?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">When Even Perfect Plans Fall Apart<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Robert C. Martin describes exactly this tension from his work with AI agents. In a conversation with Matt Pocock, he is asked how much planning makes sense before an agent starts implementing. Martin says that he, too, experimented with specifying as much as possible upfront and turning that specification into detailed plans. His experience was sobering: those plans repeatedly fell apart because it simply was not possible to think through everything in advance. <em>(Robert C. Martin in conversation with Matt Pocock: \u201cLIVE: Uncle Bob on Software Fundamentals in the Age of AI\u201d, from approx. 36:15; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/live\/zcLPGC-tvgk\">YouTube<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He later captures the point in one remarkably simple sentence:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-style-plain is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>\u201cThe agents love to write plans.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to Martin, agents will happily expand those plans and enrich them with ever more detail. The result can look exceptionally convincing\u2014and still fall apart during implementation. His alternative is much smaller-grained: build something, get feedback, continue, check again, and reorganize when necessary.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>AI agents, too, can produce an impressively detailed plan without anyone having thought through everything that matters.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Martin then illustrates the point with a house. If every change to the house under construction cost only one dollar, the economic case for perfecting the entire blueprint before the first piece of work began would look very different. For AI-assisted software development, Martin\u2019s conclusion is that the cost of change has fallen so dramatically that experimentation and early feedback can become more valuable relative to extensive upfront planning. <em>(Ibid., from approx. 40:04.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">When Planning Shifts Its Focus<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If AI can make operational work faster and cheaper, planning does not automatically become less important. But the point at which it creates the most value may shift.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The less effort it takes to create variants, build initial versions, or make later adjustments, the less attractive it becomes to describe every possible step in exhaustive detail upfront. More weight may move to defining the outcome, making the assumptions behind a direction explicit, and identifying the feedback that will tell us early whether that direction is working.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For Project and Product Management, that would shift the emphasis: less detailed description of an assumed future, more deliberate design of a framework in which teams can learn and adapt quickly.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>AI does not protect us from planning the wrong thing. It may simply help us execute it much faster.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Faster experimentation is not the same as working without a plan. The central question remains: what are we trying to learn from the experiment?<\/p>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What Still Matters in Planning<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A reliable project plan shows what is expected to happen\u2014and what that expectation is based on and where the limits of our knowledge lie.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As AI increasingly accelerates analysis, elaboration, and implementation, that capability may become even more important. Speed does not make the wrong direction any more correct. One larger question remains open: <strong>If AI takes over a growing share of tactical work, what will remain at the core of Project and Product Management?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I intend to return to that question in a future article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Or why precise dates do not necessarily make a plan reliable. The Illusion of Precision A project plan creates something complex initiatives often lack: visibility. Milestones are set, responsibilities assigned, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5409,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[274,273],"tags":[245,302,299,275,267,200,282,283,280,261,258,260,495,497,262,284,496,494],"class_list":["post-5397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communication","category-consulting","tag-agentic-ai","tag-ai","tag-bent-flyvbjerg","tag-ki","tag-project-management","tag-project-planning","tag-project-success","tag-projekterfolg","tag-projektmanagement","tag-projektplanung","tag-reference-class-forecasting","tag-transformation","tag-uncertainty","tag-unsicherheit","bwp-blog-post","bwp-masonry-item","bwp-col-1","bwp-post-has-title"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why Good Planning Doesn&#039;t Start with the Project Plan - michael-hoepfl.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/michael-hoepfl.com\/en\/consulting\/why-good-planning-doesnt-start-with-the-project-plan\/08-2026\/\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"https:\/\/michael-hoepfl.com\/en\/consulting\/why-good-planning-doesnt-start-with-the-project-plan\/08-2026\/2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Good Planning Doesn&#039;t Start with the Project Plan - michael-hoepfl.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Or why precise dates do not necessarily make a plan reliable. 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