Project Planning: Building a Plan That Actually Works

Hey Friend 👋

Once, I organised a full-day planning session for a major project. I thought I was doing the right thing: get everyone in a room, load up the MS Project file on the big screen, hundreds of lines with predecessors and successors, and let's build the plan together.

Instead of buy-in, I got blank stares. Frustration. A few people left early.

The truth hit me: I'd made it about the tool, not the people. Most of the team didn't know how to read a Gantt chart. They weren't project planners. I'd failed to translate the plan into something meaningful for them.

A plan is not the document. It's shared understanding.

Your 50-page schedule, your beautiful roadmap, your Kanban board? They're just representations. What matters is: Do people understand it? Is it helping the team move forward? Is it being used to make real decisions?

I've seen perfect plans fail because no one looked at them after day one. And I've seen scrappy plans drive successful million-pound projects. The difference? One lived and breathed with the project. The other sat untouched in a folder, technically perfect but useless.

Next time you look at your project plan: Ask yourself: who actually understands it? If the answer isn't "everyone who needs to," it's time to repurpose it. Milestones for leadership. Simple visuals for the team. Whatever it takes to build shared understanding.

What's your planning horror story? Hit reply. I read them all and often feature reader insights in future newsletters.

Want to go deeper?

You can read more in the full deep-dive with examples on project planning, or try the Mindcast for hands-on practice making these calls in realistic PM scenarios.

A Quick Word: Wearing Multiple Hats

As PMs, we wear multiple hats while juggling tight deadlines and managing expectations. Building this platform taught me just how many: writer, designer, developer, producer, PM managing my own project.

I had to learn quickly. Made a lot of mistakes in the process through trial and error. I discovered that it doesn't need to be perfect. You don't need to master everything, just enough to move you to the next step.

Next time you're overwhelmed with something new and having to wear multiple hats, just take the first step and move forward even if the hats don't fit perfectly. Progress beats perfection every time.

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Take care and speak soon,
Bilal Jamil