Planning is much better than not doing it.

Photo taken by the author of the article.

yeah right, man… that’s a truism

In a recent BIMrras episode, the podcast I develop with two excellent friends and battle buddies, talking about BIM4D and construction planning, I shouted out loud the idea that titles this article:

Planning is much better than not doing it.

The awkward silence that followed was also followed by restrained laughter and a “yeah right, man… that’s a truism”.

And yes, it is a truism like a temple, but it is no less true for that.

Because many times, because we consider it obvious, we take for granted that this task will be taken care of by another technician of the site, or worse, it will be involuntarily delegated to a party interested in returning biased information.

This situation leads to not having clear planning to follow to execute a work, a project, a job… And lack of planning is a very bad traveling companion.

I know because I have been there. What’s more, I’m still there in those processes that I haven’t managed to clean up.

Planning is better than not doing it because with the second option we assume that we know the sequence of the progress of a job, how long it takes the trades to do their jobs, and consequently, we assume the dates of the partial milestones and the completion of the project. And when we have to communicate this information, we do so with the insecurity that comes from obtaining the data by lifting a finger to see which way the wind is blowing.

When planning, we are forced to think about the sequence of work development, to estimate what means we need, what performance we will have in each work phase, and consequently, its duration. And even if it is imprecise, at least at the beginning, our planning will always be more accurate than not planning at all.

So, whenever I can, I plan my jobs, my day, and my weeks.