Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
Extreme Planning
Mike Griffiths is an experienced project manager, author and consultant who works for PMI as a subject matter expert. Before joining PMI, Mike consulted and managed innovation and technology projects throughout Europe, North and South America for 30+ years. He was co-lead for the PMBOK Guide—Seventh Edition, lead for the Agile Practice Guide, and contributor to the PMI-ACP and PMP exam content outlines. Outside of PMI, Mike maintains the websites www.LeadingAnswers.com about leading teams and www.PMillustrated.com, which teaches project management for visual learners.
Planning in projects, agile or traditional, is a critical activity, but it is only as good as the information it is based on. The bulk of planning effort should not be reserved for when we know least about a project--at the beginning. Instead, planning needs to occur throughout the project and plans need to evolve to reflect the changing realities of projects.
All too often, projects begin to diverge from plans and the assumption is that the project needs to be brought back on track. Well, perhaps the plan was lousy? The quote “The map is not the territory” from Alfred Korzybski nicely summarizes the position. When reality diverges from the plan, it is reality we have to rely on. Now, I am not suggesting that we do not track to plans and just let things take as long as they like. Rather, we insert the step of analyzing why the plan and the project have diverged. In software projects, the reason is often that we had a poor initial plan.
Software is intangible, requirements are difficult to articulate and rarely is the same system built twice, which makes analogy to existing functionality difficult. These issues can lead to “evaluation difficulties”, where mismatches develop between interpretations of original requirements and the true customer goals.
Secondly, the process of executing a software project is …
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