Abstract
M.Phil. (Engineering Management)
The planning of infrastructure projects using project management methodologies increases the rate of their success. The planning of projects sometimes gets less attention which eventually result in project failure. Project failure involves; increased project costs, increases project duration, increased project scope and substandard quality of the delivered project. The purpose of this research was to establish and present a guideline of how a project should be planned. Planning according to the PMBOK, the Construction guide and other authors in the industry were used as references. The impact of not planning a project was addressed through literature review and the collection of evidence using two case studies. The collection of evidence was carried out by conducting document analysis on the planning documents of the two cases. Data was also collected by interviewing the professionals that were involved on the projects from initiation to project close-out. The two studied case studies each represent different setups about planning a project. The first project took place when there was no planning structure within the organization and the second one took place when there was a planning structure in place. On the first case study it was found that minimal planning was done at the beginning of the project and the second case study it was found that planning did take place. A guideline was established by looking at how the second case study was planned as this case represented a successful project that was completed within budget, within the planned duration, according to the planned scope and in good quality. The first case study represented how a project can turn out should it not be planned. The project exceeded the planned time, budget, scope and the unacceptable quality. With the findings on both case studies, this research recommends that all projects should be planned in detail prior to executing them. The project plans should be implemented and revised as and when required throughout the project until close-out.