LITERATURE REVIEW

KEYWORDS f project f planning f success f efficiency f plan

Journal Title Number of Papers

International Journal of Project Management 8

THE IMPACT OF
Project Management Journal 4
IEEE Software 2

PLANNING
Journal of Management in Engineering 2

TABLE 1. Sources of Articles by Most Cited Journals.

on project success planning is always better (Boehm, 1996; Collyer least partially based on subjective opinion, results

A LITERATURE
r Dr. Pedro Serrador & Warren, 2009). If 50% of a project’s time and cannot be fully objective. Some concepts such as
P.Eng., PMP, MBA, PhD budget is spent on planning and analysis, is this project success may not be fully quantifiable and

REVIEW
[email protected] beneficial to the project or does it increase project are impacted by subjective judgment of the partic-
costs and timelines without providing a corre- ipants and sponsors. Therefore the epistemology
sponding benefit? Choma and Bhat (2010) note approach will be post-positivism. Post-positivism
that too much time spent planning can be associ- understands that though positivism cannot tell
ated with poorly performing projects. In general, the whole truth in business research, the insights
r A B S T R A C T the optimum amount of effort spent planning and are none-the-less useful.
its relationship to success is an area of interest The literature in this area is varied but not
Project planning is widely thought to be an important contributor to project success. However, does the research to researchers and practitioners. It is of interest sufficiently extensive so that an attempt at an
affirm its impact and give guidance as to how much effort should be spent planning? The literature in project to researchers as it speaks to the general nature exhaustive review was feasible. Initial investiga-
and characteristics of projects and practitioners tions involved web searches and extensive Google
management, and to a lesser extent in general management, is reviewed to find the reported link between
as guidance when defining project structure and Scholar searches. In addition, other sources of
planning and project success. Overall, the literature points to a strong link between planning and project suc- timelines. information such as Business Sources Complete,
cess. A summary of the available studies shows unexpectedly consistent empirical results for the correlation JSTOR and Networked Digital Library of Theses
Research Questions
of planning quality and success. The literature appears to be generally consistent showing an average value of and Dissertations (NDLTD) were investigated.
R2 = .33 correlation with efficiency and R2 = .34 for overall project success. This indicates a significant impact if This paper will review the literature written on Finally, for all reviewed literature, their references
the subject of the planning phase and its rela- were reviewed and relevant sources added to the
compared to the reported approximate 20-33% recommended planning effort. tionship to project success. The following are the literature review list.
research questions we will examine. The project management body of research has
ff Is planning important for perceived project success? been described as an immature field by Blom-
INTRODUCTION a phenomenon in business called analysis paraly-
Traditional wisdom is that planning and What level of effort expended on the planning quist, Hällgren, Nilsson and Söderholm (2010),
sis (Milosevic & Patanakul, 2005). This is when so ff
analysis are important and with planning in a phase is most correlated with project success? which may explain the relative lack of research in
much analysis takes place that no actual work is
project, the project will be more successful (Wang this area. When the number of studies directly
started or it is started much later than ideal. ff What level of effort spent on the
and Gibson, 2008; Dvir, Raz and Shenhar, 2003). planning phase is counterproductive or studying planning effort or completeness and pro-
Time spent on these activities will reduce risk and Knowledge Gap neutral towards project success? ject success was found to be limited, the search
increase project success. On the other hand, inad- was broadened to include literature that more
equate analysis and planning will lead to a failed The fact that a large fraction of the effort in generally addressed planning and success. That
each project is spent on research and analysis effort cannot be described as exhaustive, however.
1. Methods and Methodology
project (Morris, 1998; Thomas, Jacques, Adams
and Kihneman-Woote, 2008). warrants investigation. According to the Pro- In total more than 280 papers and books were
If poor planning has led to failed projects ject Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK® reviewed with approximately 50 of those sources
(from large to small), then perhaps trillions of Guide) Fourth Edition (PMI®, 2008), a project This paper takes a post-positivist view that a being citied in this paper. The table below lists the
dollars have been lost (Sessions, 2009). But how manager is expected to perform 42 processes, relationship can be found between measures of journals contributing two or more papers to this
much is too much? “Light weight” project man- including 20 planning processes. Therefore, plan- project planning and perceived overall project review.
agement techniques such as Agile are gaining ning processes consist of about 48% of all process- success. Post-positivism falls between positivism
popularity. Part of their ethos is that less initial es that should be performed by a project manager where a completely objective solution can be
Exclusions
planning is better and an evolutionary process is during the project lifecycle. found to a research question and phenomenol- ff Strategic enterprise planning literature, both
more efficient. Agile methodologies seem to imply However, practitioners of agile methods would ogy where all experience is subjective (Trochim, information systems and general, was not
that up front planning is not useful. There is also probably disagree with the statement that more 2006). Because perception and observation are at included in this review as the field is not directly

SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 2013 | THE JOURNAL OF MODERN PROJECT MANAGEMENT A 29

LITERATURE REVIEW /// THE IMPACT OF PLANNING ON PROJECT SUCCESS

relevant to project success or project manager success, ff Business success of the planning phase for the purposes of this managers think “it is better to skip the planning
but rather to enterprise success. The strategic enterprise
Preparing for the future paper will give the greatest flexibility and access and to start developing the requested system.
ff
planning literature is concerned with selecting projects to the widest range of literature. However, experience shows that none of the above
to maximize company and enterprise success, but do not For the purpose of this review, we will define arguments are valid”.
explore how to deliver those projects successfully. Some Zwikael and Globerson (2006), how- the planning phase as follows: In general, the literature does not support the
exceptions were made to literature that spoke to the ever, note that aspects of success are conclusion that planning should not be done in
general relevance of planning as a strategic concept. often correlated. (see Figure 1).
ff Planning phase - the phases and associated projects although some caveats are highlighted.
Literature that addressed project success without some Also, Dvir, Raz and Shenhar (2003:
ff effort that come before execution in a project; We therefore report the following:
link to planning or planning activities was not extensively 94), state that “all four success-meas-
reviewed other than to help define project success. ures (Meeting planning goals; End-us- ff Planning effort - the amount of effort in money Conclusion 1: Pressure exists in the project
er benefits; Contractor benefits; and or work hours expended in planning;
ff Similar papers which were published in proceedings and environment to reduce the time spent
Overall project success) are highly ff Quality of planning - the quality or planning rather than increase it.
in journals were only included once. Also, literature which
inter-correlated, implying that projects completeness of components of the
reanalyzed similar data to studies already cited was not included.
perceived to be successful are success- planning phase or the phase overall.
ful for all their stakeholders.”

2. Project Success
Cooke-Davies (2002) makes the
5. Planning Variation by Industry
4. Reasons Not to Plan
point that there is a difference between
project success and project manage-
ment success. Meeting the cost, scope, Different industries may require different
Before it is possible discuss the impact of the project types of projects and have different project man-
planning phase on success, it is useful to define what a suc- timeline requirements may not mean Andersen (1996: 89) questions the assumption
the project is seen as successful in the agement needs, Collyer, et al. (2010). This may
cessful project is. Pinto and Slevin, (1988: 67), state “There that project planning is beneficial from a concep-
long term by the organization. Current tual standpoint. He asks “How can it be that pro- have an impact on the need for planning and the
are few topics in the field of project management that are so effect of planning on success.
terminology uses project efficiency ject planners are able to make a detailed project
frequently discussed and yet so rarely agreed upon as the Nobelius and Trygg (2002), in analyzing front
instead of project management success. plan, when either activities cannot be foreseen or
notion of project success”. However it is worthwhile to select end activities which are largely analogous to the
Therefore we will refer to: they depend on the outcomes of earlier activities?”
a reasonable definition from the literature for the purposes planning phase, note that the component varies
of comparing projects based on planning characteristics. ff Project efficiency – meeting Bart (1993) makes the point that in research and
cost, time and quality goals; development (R&D) projects, too much planning between project types. Through three case stud-
Thomas, Jacques, Adams & Kihneman-Woote (2008: 106) ies in two different companies they also noted
state that measuring project success not straightforward: ff Project success – meeting wider can limit creativity.
business and enterprise goals. Collyer, Warren, Hemsley and Stevens (2010: that the impact of the different activities varies
“Examples abound where the original objectives of the pro- between project types. For example, business
ject are not met, but the client was highly satisfied. There are 109) describe examples of failed projects such
as the Australian submarine and the Iridium analysis was found to be the number two priority
other examples where the initial project objectives were met, for a project to build on an existing product line
3. Project Planning
but the client was quite unhappy with the results.” satellite projects “While useful as a guide, exces-
sive detail in the early stages of a project may be but was not found to be important in either a re-
Shenhar, Dvir, Levy and Maltz (2001) define four levels of search/investigational project or in an incremen-
project success: problematic and misleading in a dynamic envi-
We next need to define what is ronment.” Collyer and Warren (2009), state that tal change project to an existing product.
ff Project efficiency Zwikael (2009) identified the importance of
meant by project planning. The classic in dynamic environments creating detailed long-
ff Impact on the customer the PMBOK® Guide’s nine knowledge areas to
definition of planning is “working out term plans can waste time and resources and lead
in broad outline the things that need to false expectations. Aubrey, Hobbs and Thuillier project success and analyzed the impact by indus-
to be done and the methods for doing (2008) note that for one project management try. (see Table 2).
them to accomplish the purpose”, (Gu- office (PMOs) studied, overly rigorous planning This shows a marked difference in the types
lick, 1936). In construction, pre-project processes resulted in an impediment to rapidity. of knowledge areas that impact project success by
planning is defined as the phase after Flyvbjerg, Holm, and Buhl (2002) highlight that industry. The study implies that the importance
business planning where a deal is senior management can choose not to use the of planning and which areas of planning are most
initiated and prior to project execution, estimates from the planning phase. important can vary from industry to industry.
(Gibson & Gebken, 2003). Zwikael and Globerson (2006) note that even Zwikael and Globerson (2006) found that con-
PMBOK® (PMI, 2008: 46) has a sim- though there is a high quality of planning in struction and engineering had the highest quality
ilar definition for the planning phase. software and communications organizations, of planning and success, while production and
“The Planning Process Group consists these projects still have low ratings on success. maintenance companies had the lowest quality of
of those processes performed to estab- Chatzoglou and Macaulay (1996) note that any planning and success. The production and main-
lish the total scope of the effort, define extra planning will result in a chain reaction tenance industry is deemed to be less project-ori-
and refine the objectives, and develop delay in the next phases of the project. Thomas ented. The services industry is third in planning
the course of action required to attain et. al. (2008) write that for most projects there and second in success while software and com-
those objectives.” Another definition of are pressures to reduce the time and effort spent munications were second in planning and third
planning is “what comes before action”, on the planning phase. As well Chatzoglou and in success. These last two results, as pointed out
Shenhar (personal communication, Macaulay (1996: 174) touch on why planning by the authors, can be attributed to either differ-
FIGURE 1. Frequency distribution of technical performance and customer satisfaction, from 2011). However, the simplest definition is sometimes shortened or eliminated because ences in the impact of planning in each industry
Zwikael and Globerson (2006).

30 B THE JOURNAL OF MODERN PROJECT MANAGEMENT | SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 2013 SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 2013 | THE JOURNAL OF MODERN PROJECT MANAGEMENT A 31
LITERATURE REVIEW /// THE IMPACT OF PLANNING ON PROJECT SUCCESS

Knowledge Areas Construction Software Production Communications Services Government on the project success (cost and schedule performance). The Standish Group, 2011). A small number of studies in this
and Engineering following diagram summarizes the result of this survey and area tried to quantify how much planning should be done for
Integration 1 6 3 3 7 8 shows a clear relationship between the PDRI score and pro- software projects. Posten (1985) states that in software de-
ject success. (see Figure 3). velopment projects, testing costs 43% of overall project costs
Scope 9 9 8 8 8 9
This graph clearly shows a linear relationship between for the projects studied, whereas planning and requirements
Time 7 1 6 1 1 2
the quality of planning and the cost aspect of project suc- accounted for only 6% of effort. (see Figure 4).
Cost 2 5 9 4 2 5 cess. In reviewing these papers in the construction field, we He also presents evidence that the earlier defects are
Quality 6 2 2 2 6 3 can note: identified in the process, the less they cost to fi x. This has
Human resources 3 3 7 9 5 6 become a tenet of software development projects and points
Communications 5 7 1 6 9 4 Conclusion 3: The level of planning completeness to the benefit of more effort in the early stages of projects,
Risk 4 4 5 7 4 1
is positively correlated with project success including the planning stage. (see Figure 5).
in the construction industry. This data strongly points to the benefit of doing more
Procurement 8 8 4 5 3 7
planning and requirements analysis in software develop-
TABLE 2. Knowledge areas’ relative importance in each industry type after Zwikael (2009). ment projects. Similarly, Furuyama, Arai and Lio (1994) con-

or the fact that software and communications industries Gibson, Wang, Cho and Pappas (2006) noted that re-
7. Planning in the Information ducted a study to measure the effects of stress on software
faults. The authors found that 75% of the faults in software

Technology Industry
development projects were generated during the design
are challenging environments. Collyer, Warren, Hemsley search results show that effective preproject planning leads phase of the project. Jones (1986) also found that the cost of
and Stevens (2010), in interviews from 10 varied industries, to improved performance in terms of cost, schedule, and rework is typically over 50% of very large projects and also
found that approaches to planning varied greatly within operational characteristics. (see Figure 2). The reports of high failure rates for software projects and that the cost of fi xing or reworking software is much smaller
those industries. They report differences in the formality of The index is established with a score ranging from one some well-known large failed projects have likely also driven (by factors of 50 to 200) in the earlier phases of the life-cycle
planning dependent on the dynamism of the environment. (the lowest level of preproject planning effort) to five (the
the growth of project management in IT (Sessions, 2009; than in the later phases.
This ranged from less dynamic (construction and defence) to highest level). Note that the relationship is linear. In the con-
highly dynamic (film, venture capital and technology). struction industry, project success is closely linked to project
efficiency, so this can apply to efficiency and success (Collyer
Conclusion 2: Planning requirements et al., 2010). The index does not measure work effort, only PDRI score
vary in different industries. completeness.
The PDRI is a method to measure project scope defi- Performance <200 >200
In general, little empirical research has been done on the nition for completeness. Developed by the Construction
differences in planning between industries and the overall Cost 3% below budget 13% above budget
Industry Institute (CII) in 1996, this tool has been widely
body of research is not extensive. However, two industries adopted by various owners and designers in the building in- Schedule 3% ahead of sched- 21% behind sched-
have a more extensive body of research on planning and dustry, (Gibson & Gebken, 2003). It has gained acceptance in ule ule
success: construction and information technology. For this the facilities and construction industry as a measure of the
quality of preproject planning. The PDRI offers a compre- Change orders 7% of budget 14% of budget
reason they will be given special consideration in this review.
hensive checklist of 64 scope definition elements in a score (N=17) (N=61)
sheet format. Undertaking no planning correlates to a PDRI
TABLE 3. Comparison of Projects with PDRI-Building Projects Score
6. Planning in the Construction Industry score of 1000, while a score of 200 or less is good planning,
(Wang & Gibson, 2008).
Gibson and Pappas (2003: 37) reported the following
Above and Below 200, after Gibson and Pappas (2003).

Project management has a long history in the construc- results showing a marked difference in empirical measure- FIGURE 2. Success Index vs. Preproject Plan-
ments of project success based on the project PDRI score. ning Effort Index, after Gibson et al. (2006)
tion industry and there have been a number of studies in the
construction project management field on the relationship (see Table 3).
between planning and project success: this is a well-studied This study found that “the PDRI score and project suc-
PDRI score
area in comparison to other industries or other areas in pro- cess were statistically related; that is, a low PDRI score (rep-
ject management. Hamilton and Gibson (1996) found that resenting a better-defined project scope definition package Performance <200 >200
just prior to detailed design) correlates to an increased prob-
an increase in preproject planning for construction projects
ability for project success.” The following diagram summa- Cost 3% below budget 9% above budget
increased the likelihood of a project meeting financial goals.
rizes the result of this survey and shows a clear relationship
The top third of projects from a planning completeness between the PDRI score and project success. (see Table 4). Schedule 1% ahead of 8% behind sched-
perspective had an 82% chance of meeting those goals while Moreover, they note “Indeed, due to the iterative and schedule ule
only 66% of projects in the lower third did (a difference of often chaotic nature of facilities planning, many owners face Change orders 6% of budget 8% of budget
16%). Similar results are seen for schedule and design goals. such uncertainty that they skip the entire planning process (N=35) (N=27)
Shehu and Akintoye (2009) found in a study of programme and move to project execution, or decide to delegate the
management in the construction industry that effective preproject planning process entirely to contractors, often TABLE 4. Comparison of Projects with PDRI-Industrial Projects
planning had the highest criticality index of .870 of all the with disastrous results.” (41) Wang and Gibson (2008) found Score Above and Below 200, after Gibson and Pappas (2003).
FIGURE 3. Cost Performance vs. Industrial PDRI Score, after Wang
Critical Success Factors (CSF) studied. that preproject planning is identified as having direct impact and Gibson (2008)

32 B THE JOURNAL OF MODERN PROJECT MANAGEMENT | SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 2013 SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 2013 | THE JOURNAL OF MODERN PROJECT MANAGEMENT A 33
LITERATURE REVIEW /// THE IMPACT OF PLANNING ON PROJECT SUCCESS

Müller and Turner (2001) reported a corre- ures. Morris (1998: 5) similarly argued that “The the planning phase and project success. The plan- Panfilis (2005) studied a data sample comprising
lation between post-contract planning (detailed decisions made at the early definition stages set ning procedures effort was found to be less im- managers of software companies— 10 adopting
planning after a contract had been signed) and the strategic framework… Get it wrong here, and portant to project success than defining function- agile methods and 10 using traditional ones. They
project schedule variance. They report that a the project will be wrong for a long time”. Munns al and technical requirements of the project. The found that managers of agile projects were more
quality of post-contract planning that is at least and Bjeirmi (1996) state that for a project which correlation was .297 for functional requirements satisfied with their project planning than manag-
good is required to meet schedule goals. Also, is flawed from the start, successful execution may and .256 for technical requirements. Zwikael and ers using traditional techniques.
Tausworthe (1980) notes the impact of the work matter to only to the project team while the wider Globerson (2006: 694) noted the following “organ- From the literature we can therefore note the
breakdown structure (WBS) as an important organization will see the project as a failure. izations, which scored the highest on project suc- following:
planning tool with demonstrated benefits on Blomquist et al. (2010: 11) state “Plans are a cess, also obtained the highest score on quality of
software project success. cornerstone of any project; consequently, plan- planning.” Salomo, Weise and Gemünden (2007) Conclusion 5: Dynamic and fast paced
Deephouse, Mukhopadhyay, Goldenson ning is a dominant activity within a project studied the relationship between planning and environments do not lend themselves
and Kellner (1996) assessed the effectiveness of context.” This is a recurring theme: planning is new product development projects. They found to a single up front planning phase
software processes on project performance and inherently important to project success or one that project risk management and project plan- although planning is still required.
showed that certain practices, such as project could argue project management would not exist. ning had an R2 impact of .28, though the contri-
planning, were consistently associated with Pinto and Prescott (1988) found that a sched- bution of project planning was not significant.

10. How Much to Plan

success, while other practices studied had little ule or plan had a correlation of 0.47 with project We consider risk planning part of the planning
impact on the project outcomes. Though the success, while detailed technical tasks had a phase in this review therefore, overall R2 = .28.
study was to focus on process factors and their correlation of 0.57 and mission definition a cor- In addition, they reported process formality and
relationship to success, planning was found to be relation of 0.70. Pinto and Prescott (1990) again goal clarity gave an R2 = .33 to success which are Surprisingly little research has been done on
the leading predictor of meeting targets (efficien- found that planning factors dominate through- defined in the planning phase. how much planning should be done in projects.
cy) and quality. The dependency for successful out the project lifecycle. Planning was found to We can therefore generalize for all industries: Daly (1977) states that schedule planning should
planning was .791 for meeting targets and .228 for have the greatest impact on the following success be 2%, specifications 10% and final design 40%
Conclusion 4: Planning is associated of the total cost. However, now much design is
quality. factors: “Perceived value of the project” (R2=.35)
with project success; both project done during execution. Similarly Posten (1985),
and “Client satisfaction” (R2=.39). The coefficient
efficiency and overall project success states that plans and requirements should be 6%
of determination R2 provides a measure of how

8. Planning and Success in the well future outcomes are likely to be predicted by
a model.
of project cost, product design should be 16% and
detailed design 25%. Empirical guidance on how

General Project Management Shenhar (2001) notes better planning is the

norm in high and super-high technology projects. 9. Planning and Agile/ much time to plan has become less common over
time in the technology literature. Whether this is

Iterative Methods
because this guidance was found not to be effec-
Literature
This was found to apply consistently to the deliv-
erables normally produced in the planning phase. tive, the diversity of technology projects increased
Dvir and Lechler (2004) found quality of plan- or it simply fell out of favor is not clear.
Thomas et al. (2008: 105) state “the most ning had a +.35 impact on R2 for efficiency and a Agile methods use a minimum of documen- Chatzoglou and Macaulay (1996: 183) out-
effective team cannot overcome a poor project +.39 impact on R2 for customer satisfaction. tation to facilitate flexibility and responsiveness. line a rule of thumb for planning effort: The
plan” and projects started down the wrong path Dvir, Raz and Shenhar (2003), in a rigorous Collyer et al. (2010) in interviews with 31 project three-times-programming rule and the lifecycle
can lead to the most spectacular project fail- paper noted the correlation between aspects of managers from 10 varied industries, found that stage model. “one estimates how long it would
traditional planning had difficulties in dynamic take to program the system and then multiply by
environments. Smits (2006: 8), in a whitepaper on three” to get the total. Software testing is esti-
agile notes the need for the higher level planning mated to take roughly an equal amount of effort
and that substantial planning is completed in as development, (Kaner, Falk & Nguyen, 1999).
daily meetings and “This daily meeting is not This leaves one third of total effort for the plan-
often seen as a planning session, but certainly ning phase and other miscellaneous tasks.
is.” Similarly, Coram and Bohner (2005: 6) note Nobelius and Trygg (2002) found front-end
that agile methods do require upfront planning. activities made up a least 20% of the project time.
Working with the customer is needed to provide Similarly, Wideman (2000) states that the typical
requirements for the first release. They also note effort spent in the planning phase in construction
“With so many small tasks, it is argued that agile projects is approximately 20% of the total work
processes require more planning… it is a constant hours.
task to ensure optimal delivery results”. Choma and Bhat (2010: 5) found “the projects
Boehm (2002) notes a balance between with the worst results were those that were miss-
traditional planning and agile methods is usu- ing important planning components”. However,
ally appropriate. He notes there is a “sweet spot” they also found “the projects in this sample that
which is dependent on project characteristics took longer in planning had the worst results”
where the effort expended in initial planning pays (7). Their analysis points to either that too much
off in project success. Ceschi, Sillitti, Succi & De planning can be negative to project success or
FIGURE 4. Project Cost Breakdown, after Posten (1985) FIGURE 5. Relative Cost to Fix a Defect, after Posten (1985)

34 B THE JOURNAL OF MODERN PROJECT MANAGEMENT | SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 2013 SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 2013 | THE JOURNAL OF MODERN PROJECT MANAGEMENT A 35
LITERATURE REVIEW /// THE IMPACT OF PLANNING ON PROJECT SUCCESS

that a planning phase that lasts too long can be an of the project management body of knowledge
indicator of a problem project. are essential entry tickets to the game of project
management, but they do not lead to superior Study Empirical Relationship Normalized to R2
performance. They are hygiene factors, necessary

11. Discussion and Conclusions conditions for project management performance,

but they are not competitive factors for which Aggregate Efficiency Overall
improved competence leads to superior project Success
The literature notes the importance of plan- performance.” In general, the research is consist-
ning in management at least as far back as early ent: the majority of studies, with a few outliers,
last century (Gantt, 1910; Gulick, 1936). Pinto and Prescott (1990) Planning found to have the greatest impact on success R2=.35 R2=.37 R2=.39
state planning is important to project success. (see
Dvir et al. (2003: 94), state “with the ad- factors Perceived value of the project (R2=.35) R =.39
2
Table 5).
Client satisfaction (R 2=.39) Average R2 =.37
vancement in computerized planning tools and From this table, we can see that the prepon-
the blooming in project management training, derance of the literature has found that planning
a certain level of planning is done in all pro- and the level of completeness of planning are Hamilton and Gibson The top third best planned projects had an 82% chance
jects, even in those that eventually turn out to important for project success. From the literature (1996) of meeting financial goals while only 66% of projects
be unsuccessful projects. Hence, when a certain review alone we can answer the first research in the lower third did. Similar results were seen in these
level of planning is done in all types of projects, a question and confirm that for Question 1: Is projects’ results relating to schedule performance and
significant statistical correlation cannot be found design goals met.
planning important for project success? The
in the data.” This is a critical point. The question conclusion is yes. The next table summarizes the
of whether planning is correlated with project empirical results encountered in the literature Deephouse et al. (1996) The dependency for successful planning was .791 for R2=.625 R2=.34
success may be a moot point. The benefits of plan- review from a high level. A meta-analysis using meeting targets and .228 for quality. R =.052
2

ning have been confirmed through the practice of weighting was considered as described in Hwang, Average R2 =.34
project management as well as through research. Windsor and Pryor (2000) but this was rejected
It has thus become an expected part of all pro- given the varied nature of the source documents: Dvir et al.(2003) Meeting the planning goals is correlated .570 to overall R2=.32 R2=.32
jects and project management. It has, as Turner different industries, different methodologies and project success measures.
and Müller (2003: 6), state become a hygiene different types of cross-functional projects. A
factor for successful projects, “There is growing high level meta-analysis reviewing the means was Dvir and Lechler (2004) Quality of planning had a +.35 impact on R2 for efficiency R2=.35 R2=.35 R2=.39
evidence that competence in the traditional areas completed instead. (see Table 6). and a +.39 impact on R for customer satisfaction.
2
R =.39
2

Average R2 = .37

Positive Empirical Conceptual Positive No relationship Conceptual Negative Empirical negative Zwikael and Globerson Planning quality correlates as follows: R2 = .27 R2=.28 R2=.29
relationship between Relationship between between Planning Relationship between Relationship between (2006) R = .52 for cost R2= .28
Planning and Success Planning and Success and Success Planning and Success Planning and Success R = .53 schedule R2= .32
R= .57 technical performance R2= .26
R= .51 customer satisfaction Average R2 =
Pinto & Prescott (1988) Tausworthe (1980) Flyvbjerg et al Bart (1993) Choma and Bhat .28
Pinto & Prescott (1990) Chatzoglou and Ma- (2002) Anderson (1996) (2010)
Hamilton & Gibson (1996) caulay (1996) Boehm (1996) Gibson et al. (2006) R2 = .42 Correlation between planning completeness and R2 = .42 R2 = .42
Deephouse et al. (1996) Munns and Bjeirmi Zwikael and Globerson project success
Müller & Turner (2001) (1996) (2006)
Shenhar et al. (2002) Morris (1998) Collyer et al. (2010) Salomo et al. (2007) R2 = .27 between project planning/risk planning and R2= .27 R2 = .30
Dvir et al (2003) Shenhar (2001) innovation success R2= .33
Gibson and Pappas Shenhar et al. (2001) R2 = .33 between goal clarity/process formality and inno- Average R2 =
(2003) Ceschi (2005) vation success .30
Dvir & Lechler (2004) Smits (2006)
Gibson et al. (2006) Zwikael & Globerson Wang, and Gibson (2008) PDRI score of a building construction project is related to R2 = .23 R2 = .23
Zwikael and Globerson (2006) project cost and schedule success (R = .475)
(2006) Thomas et al. (2008)
Salomo et al. (2007) Shehu and Akintoye Overall Average R2 = .33 R2 = .33 R2 = .34
Wang and Gibson (2008) (2009)
Choma & Bhat (2010) Blomquist et al. (2010)
Collyer et al. (2010) TABLE 6. High Level Meta-Analysis Summary of Empirical Results
TABLE 5. Summary of Positions of Reviewed Literature on Project Planning

36 B THE JOURNAL OF MODERN PROJECT MANAGEMENT | SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 2013 SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 2013 | THE JOURNAL OF MODERN PROJECT MANAGEMENT A 37
LITERATURE REVIEW /// THE IMPACT OF PLANNING ON PROJECT SUCCESS

These studies used different methodologies positively correlated with project success
and even different definitions of planning and in the construction industry.
Dvir, D. & Lechler, T. (2004), ‘Plans are nothing, changing plans is Pinto, J. K. & Prescott, J. E. (1988), ‘Variations in critical success
success. However, the results appear to be gener- ff Planning is associated with project success; both everything: the impact of changes on project success’, Research factors over the stages in the project lifecycle’, Journal of Man-
ally consistent and we can report: project efficiency and overall project success Policy, vol. 33, no. 1, 1-15. agement, vol. 14, no. 1, 5-18.
Dvir, D.; Raz, T. & Shenhar, A. (2003), ‘An empirical analysis of the Pinto, J. K. & Slevin, D. P. (1988), ‘Project success: defi nitions and
Conclusion 6: At a high level, research shows ff Dynamic and fast paced environments do not relationship between project planning and project success’, In- measurement techniques’, Project Management Journal, vol. 19,
lend themselves to a single up front planning ternational Journal of Project Management, vol. 21, no. 2, 89-95.
an average value of R2 = .33 correlation with phase although planning is still required.
no. 1, 67-72.
Flyvbjerg, B.; Holm, M. S. & Buhl, S. (2002), ‘Underestimating costs
efficiency and R2 = .34 with success. in public works projects: error or lie?’, Journal of the American
Posten, R. M. (1985), ‘Preventing software requirements specifica-
ff As an approximation, research shows an average tion errors with IEEE 830’, IEEE Software, vol. 2, no. 1, 83-86.
If we compare this to the approximately 20- Planning Association, vol. 68, no. 3, 279-295.
value of R2 = .33 correlation with efficiency and Project Management Institute (2008), ‘A guide to the project man-
33% effort spent on planning reported by Nobe- Furuyama, T.; Arai, Y. & Lio, K. (1993), Fault generation model and agement body of knowledge (4th edition)’, Project Management
R2 = .35 with success.
mental stress effect analysis, in ‘Proceedings of the Second Institute Newtown Square, PA.
lius and Trygg (2002) and Wideman (2000), there International Conference on Achieving Quality in Software,
appears to be a clear return on this investment in We now review the research questions: Venice, Italy, October 18-20’. Salomo, S.; Weise, J. & Gemünden, H. (2007), ‘NPD planning activ-
ities and innovation performance: the mediating role of process
terms of project success. ff Is planning important for project success?; Gantt, H. (1910), Work, wages and profit, published by The Engi-
management and the moderating effect of product innovative-
However, whether there is an ideal amount of neering Magazine, New York, 1910; republished as Work, Wages
ness’, Journal of Product Innovation Management, vol. 24, no.
ff This is confirmed by Conclusion 4.; and Profits, Hive Publishing Company, Easton, Pennsylvania,
effort that should be spent planning in a project is 1974.
4, 285-302.
still an area for future investigation. ff What is the impact of the planning Sessions, R. (2009), ‘The IT complexity crisis: danger and oppor-
Gibson, E. & Gebken, R. (2003), ‘Design quality in pre-project
phase on project success? tunity’, Technical report, ObjectWatch, Inc.
In summary, we make the following conclu- planning: applications of the project defi nition rating index’,
Building Research and Information, vol. 31, no. 5, 346-356. Shehu & Akintoye (2009), ‘The critical success factors for effective
sions: This is answered by conclusion 6.
programme management: a pragmatic approach’, The Built &
What level of effort expended on the planning Gibson, E. & Pappas, M. P. (2003), Starting smart: key practices for
ff Pressure exists in the project environment to reduce developing scopes of work for facility projects, Washington,
Human Environment Review 2, 1-24.
the time spent planning rather than increase it. phase is most correlated with project success? DC: National Academies Press. Shenhar, A. J. (2001), ‘One size does not fit all projects: exploring
The literature in this area does not appear to Gibson, G.; Wang, Y.; Cho, C. & Pappas, M. (2006), ‘What is classical contingency domains’, Management Science, vol. 47,
ff Planning requirements vary in different industries.
be consistent or recent in nature. It is clear that pre-project planning, anyway?’, Journal of Management in no. 3, 394-414.
ff The level of planning completeness is additional research is warranted. Engineering, vol. 22, no. 1, 35-42. Shenhar, A. J.; Dvir, D.; Levy, O. & Maltz, A. C. (2001), ‘Project
Gulick, L. H. (1936). Notes on the theory of organization. Papers success: a multidimensional strategic concept’, Long Range
on the Science of Administration. Planning, vol. 34, no. 6, 699 - 725.

r Dr. Pedro Serrador PMP, P.Eng., MBA, PhD is a utility, medical imaging and simulations sectors over the last 20 Hamilton, M. R. & G. E. Gibson, J. (1996), ‘Benchmarking prepro- Smits, H. (2006), ‘5 levels of agile planning: from enterprise
writer and speaker on project management topics years. He works as a project/program management consultant to ject-planning effort’, Journal of Management in Engineering, product vision to team stand-up’, Technical report, Rally Soft-
and owner of Serrador Project Management, a top Canadian and international corporations. His area of research vol. 12, no. 2, 25-33. ware Development Corporation, Rally Software Development
consultancy in Toronto, Canada. He specializes in interest is project success, planning and agile. He has presented Hwang, M.; Windsor, J. & Pryor, A. (2000), ‘Building a knowledge Corporation.
technically complex and high risk projects, vendor
authors management engagements and tailoring and
implementing project management methodol-
a number of peer reviewed papers on these topics at academic
conferences. He is also a contributor to various PMI groups and a
base for MIS research: A meta-analysis of a systems success
model’, Information Resources Management Journal, vol. 13,
Tausworthe, R. C. (1980), ‘The work breakdown structure in
software project management’, Journal of Systems and Software
ogies. He has worked on IT projects in the financial, telecom, regular speaker at PMI global congresses. no. 2, 26-32. 1, 181 - 186.
Jones, C. (1986), Programming productivity, New York, NY: The Standish Group (2011), ‘CHAOS Manifesto 2011’, Technical
McGraw-Hill. report, The Standish Group.
Kaner, C.; Falk, J. & Nguyen, H. Q. (1993), Testing computer soft- Thomas, M.; Jacques, P. H.; Adams, J. R. & Kihneman-Woote, J.
ware 2nd ed, New York: Wiley.
(2008), ‘Developing an effective project: planning and team
Milosevic, D. & Patanakul, P. (2005), ‘Standardized project man- building combined’, Project Management Journal,, vol. 39, no.
agement may increase development projects success’, Interna- 4, 105-113.
tional Journal of Project Management, vol. 23, no. 3, 181 - 192.
references

Trochim, W. (2006). Positivism and post-positivism. Research

B I B L I O G R A P H I C

Andersen, E. S. (1996), ‘Warning: activity planning is hazardous to Collyer, S.; Warren, C.; Hemsley, B. & Stevens, C. (2010), ‘Aim, fi re,
your project`s health’, International Journal of Project Manage- Morris, P. W. G. (1998), Key issues in project management, in J. methods knowledge base.
aim - Project planning styles in dynamic environments’, Project
ment, vol. 2, no. 14, 89-94. Management Journal, vol. 41, no. 4, 108-121. K. Pinto, ed., ‘Project Management Institute Project Manage-
Turner, J. R. & Müller, R. (2003), ‘On the nature of the project as
ment handbook’, Newtown Square, PA: Project Management
Bart, C. (1993), ‘Controlling new product R&D projects’, R&D Collyer, S. & Warren, C. M. (2009), ‘Project management approach- a temporary organization’, International Journal of Project
Institute, .
Management, vol. 23, no. 3, 187-198. es for dynamic environments’, International Journal of Project Management, vol. 21, no. 1, 1- 8.
Management, vol. 27, no. 4, 355 - 364. Müller, R. & Turner, J. R. (2001), ‘The impact of performance in
Blomquist, T.; Hällgren, M.; Nilsson, A. & Söderholm, A. (2010), Wang, Y.-R. & Gibson, G. E. (2008), A study of preproject planning
‘Project-as-practice: In search of project management research project management knowledge areas on earned value results
Cooke-Davies, T. J. (2002), ‘The real success factors in projects’, and project success using ANN and regression models, in ‘The
that matters’, Project Management Journal, vol. 41, no. 1, 5-16. in information technology projects’, International Project Man-
International Journal of Project Management., vol. 20, no. 3, 25th International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in
agement Journal, vol. 7, no. 1, 44-51.
Boehm, B. (1996). ‘Anchoring the software process’. IEEE Soft- 185-190. Construction. ISARC-2008’, 688--696.
ware, vol. 13, no. 4, 73-82. Coram, M. & Bohner, S. (2005), The impact of agile methods on Munns, A. & Bjeirmi, B. (1996), ‘The role of project management
in achieving project success’, International Journal of Project Wideman, M. (2000), ‘Managing the development of building pro-
Ceschi, M.; Sillitti, A.; Succi, G. & De Panfilis, S. (2005), ‘Project software project management, in ‘Proceedings of the 12th IEEE
Management, vol. 14, no. 2, 81-87. jects for better results’, www.maxwideman.com, First published
management in plan-based and agile companies’, IEEE SOFT- International Conference and Workshops on Engineering of
in 1981, updated for web presentation.
WARE, vol. 22, no. 3, 21-27. Computer-Based Systems’, IEEE Computer Society, Washing- Nobelius, D. & Trygg, L. (2002), ‘Stop chasing the front end pro-
ton, DC, USA, 363--370. cess–management of the early phases in product development Zwikael, O. (2009). The relative importance of the PMBOK®
Chatzoglou, P. & Macaulay, L. A. (1996), ‘Requirements capture
and IS methodologies’, Information Systems Journal, vol. 6, no. Daly, E. B. (1977), ‘Management of software development’, Soft- projects’, International Journal of Project Management, vol. 20, Guide’s nine Knowledge Areas during project planning. Project
3, 209 -225. ware Engineering, IEEE Transactions on 3, 229-242. no. 5, 331-340. Management Journal, vol 40, 94--103.
Choma, A. A. & Bhat, S. (2010), Success vs failure: what is the Deephouse, C.; Mukhopadhyay, T.; Goldenson, D. R. & Kellner, M. I. Pinto, J. K. & Prescott, J. E. (1990), ‘Planning and tactical factors Zwikael, O. & Globerson, S. (2006), ‘Benchmarking of project
difference between the best and worst projects?, in ‘Proceedings (1995), ‘Software processes and project performance’, Journal of in the project implementation process’, Journal of Management planning and success in selected industries’, Benchmarking: An
PMI Global Congress 2010 - Washington DC’. Management Information Systems, vol. 12, no. 3, 187-205. Studies, vol. 27, no. 3, 305-327. International Journal, vol. 13, no. 6, 688-700.

38 B THE JOURNAL OF MODERN PROJECT MANAGEMENT | SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 2013 SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 2013 | THE JOURNAL OF MODERN PROJECT MANAGEMENT A 39