Planning and Control

Managers are supposed to control the application of scarce organization resources to achieve desired results. In a sense, management and control are synonymous.

The question is, what is control? The old connotation implied authoritarianism, domination, the control of
people. Another meaning, however, is comparing progress to planned performance, then correcting for deviations. That is an information systems definition of control. Note that it is your plan that tells you where you are supposed to be; if you have no plan, you have nothing to compare progress against, so without a plan, control is impossible to achieve!
This should be one of the Ten Commandments of management: you must plan in order to control! That is why planning and control have been called Siamese twins—you cannot separate them. Planning is done only so that control can be achieved. No need to do it otherwise. Since control is comparing progress to plan, without the plan there is no control.

What Goes Into a Plan?
The minimum ingredients that should be contained in a project plan follow. It is a good idea to keep these in a looseleaf notebook. Initially, the notebook will contain only the plan. As the project is managed, reports, changes, and other documents will be added, so when the project is completed the notebook will contain a complete history of the project, which can be used by others as data for planning and managing their own projects.

The items that make up the project plan include:
• A problem statement.
• A project mission statement
• Project objectives
• Project work requirements (a list of all deliverables, such as reports, hardware, and software). It is a
good idea to have a deliverable at each major project milestone so that progress can be measured more
easily.
• Exit criteria. These criteria are used to determine when each milestone has actually been reached.
• End-item specifications (engineering specifications, architectural specs, building codes, government
regulations, etc.).
• Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). These identify all of the tasks that must be performed in order to
achieve project objectives. A WBS is also a good graphic portrayal of project scope
• Schedules (both milestone and working schedules)
• Required resources (people, equipment, materials, and facilities). These must be specified in
conjunction with the schedule
• Control system
• Major Contributors. Use a Responsibility Chart for this
• Risk areas, with contingencies if possible