On a 2017 trip to the Philippines, my wife had created and booked the perfect holiday plan. Everything was worked out to the nth detail ahead of time. Flights, ferry tickets, accommodations, dive shop negotiations. I loved it. All I had to do was pack, carry the luggage and follow the plan.
As part of my wife’s plan we had several days of scuba diving and everything evolved around scuba diving. What my wife didn’t plan for was me damaging my ears by not properly equalizing as a result of an unknown sinus condition during the first dive day. The result was bleeding ear drums, a trip to the local Ear Nose Throat doctor and not being able to dive for the rest of the week.
As mentioned, everything evolved around diving, especially our accommodations which were very basic, and a place you only wanted to sleep at and at best eat breakfast. There was nothing else to do there. There was no way we could spend the rest of our vacation at that place. We had to quickly scramble to find something else more suitable for a vacation without diving. Using one of the accommodation Apps, we found a five star resort on the beach at an additional cost but necessary considering our predicament. Although we didn’t have a great dive vacation, we had a great relaxing vacation.
We still needed a vacation plan otherwise we wouldn’t have ended up anywhere. What changed were some of the details within the plan. A plan was necessary but it didn’t go as planned. We still made our destination and had a great vacation.
The same must happen with a product development project. You absolutely must have a plan, even though things will happen the plan can be adjusted throughout the life of the project through to completion. If you do a proper project plan, it will include a risk plan. Something not necessarily required for a vacation but definitely for a product dvelopment project. Have a project plan.
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