Information Development: Managing Your Documentation Projects, Portfolio, and People

Chapter 15. Starting Your Project

	Plans are nothing; planning is everything.
	--Dwight D. Eisenhower, quoting 19th century Prussian General Helmuth von Moltke

The first phase of an information-development project addresses the thinking you need to do to ensure the success of your project. Once you have understood the nature and scope of the larger project of which you are part and envisioned the goals, scope, resources, and schedule of the project you are managing, you will be ready to develop your Information-Development Project Plan, described in detail in Chapter 16: Planning your Information-Development Project.

Planning is essential to the success of any project, large or small. In fact, the shorter the project and the more difficult its schedule, the more essential the need for careful planning. The planning document is the culmination of all the research and information gathering you have done at the beginning of your project. It records the information you have collected and the decisions you have made with respect to that information.

Information planning takes real time. You need time to ask many of the questions outlined in this chapter and get as many answers as possible. You need time to communicate what you’ve learned to your team members and enlist their help in deciding how to respond. You need to compose a brief but comprehensive planning document so that it communicates ...