I plan, but ... I never finish in time!

One of the challenges that frequently face planners and common people is to provide time to execute a task or project. In principle, this problem is associated with factors such as the lack of information about the task that is planned, the lack of experience, the little knowledge of those who plan and l There are also cognitive factors, linked to the type of information that a person selects last

Planning is a process in which the sequence that will be followed to pass from one current state to another future is systematically established and achieve a goal in a planned time.

The planning process is based on 3 main steps; Planners receive project specifications in the form of 'scope of the project'. With this information, they prepare a preliminary sequence for the development of their stages, for which there are electronic tools that help establish the sequence of activities; and finally the execution times of each activity and the total project development time are planned.

However. Do we actually have all the information when planned?

The lack of information or ignorance about the existence of certain phenomena can be explained by the principle of 'limited rationality': as human beings do not have access or cannot process all the information available in their environment, part of the work of deciding is done in the midst of uncertainty. Therefore, decisions can be satisfactory, but not optimal. Consequently, only satisfactory execution times are calculated by planning, but not optimal.

There is another term known as 'Planning fallacy' . People tend to underestimate the execution times of simple or complex tasks because they use singular information, instead of distributed information. The singular information is obtained by observing the task from an internal perspective, on the other hand, distributed information refers to knowledge with respect to similar situations; Analyze what was the final result of the project and what factors influenced the execution of the tasks; that is, from an external perspective.

Another important concept related to project planning, is the mental scenarios ; That is, they are imaginary plans related to the development of a certain situation. In general we create more optimistic scenarios than what guarantees the true situation. Its use can be a very useful tool in the planning and calculation of task execution times.

The problem with the scenarios is the tendency to create only those that look positive, therefore, when the sequence of development of a task is recreated through mental scenarios, the inconveniences that can hinder their development

We must be realistic when planning. It is humanly impossible to have all the information; Therefore, we must ask and advise ourselves to get the greatest amount of information. Sometimes the experiences of others are despised and, worse, we dare to despise our own experiences, especially if they are negative.

Let's be reasonable when planning. The mental scenarios that 'hide' the possible setbacks for what is planned do not help. Disienting the possibility that some setback occurs when we elaborate mental scenarios will only produce an illusion of success that has nothing to do with what can really happen.

Care with exaggerated motivation. To think that we are superhombres that we can succeed in any company, even when the experience shows many negative results in similar organizations, it is a behavior that will only bring frustration.