Each time that we undertake a new project, we do so, because we want to create additional benefits, either for customers or for ourselves.  Each of the benefits that we seek to create is a valuable source of the information that we need, to build a useful plan for the project.  If you need to create a plan for a new project, then you should know the following. 

1. If a plan is to be effective, during a project, the plan must show everything that the contributors must exchange with each other, so that they might perform their work properly and complete the project successfully. 
2. Only the contributors can know all that they need from others, to do their work properly. 

To highlight how these two ideas can shape a highly effective process for creating plans, let's use an example that involves you directly, and let's begin with a purposely tiny project.  The project is designed to create a single, beneficial experience for you:  The soles and heels of your cherished shoes are replaced, so that you might enjoy your comfortable shoes once more.  The missing component, for this experience, is the cherished shoes, properly repaired.

Normally, this project would involve only two resources, you and the local shoemaker.  However, let's pretend that your employer's demands on your time prevent you from taking the shoes to the shoemaker, during the shoemaker's hours of business.  Let's pretend, further, that your husband can make the trip to the shoemaker on your behalf.  Given this strategy, exploiting your husband's flexible hours of work, let's use information to build a plan for your project.

We can build a plan for any project readily, if we begin with the information that adequately describes the beneficial experience that we intend to create, and if we subsequently discover the answers to five simple questions, repeatedly:

1. "What is this output?"
2. "Who supplies the desired output?"
3. "What do you (the supplier) do, to provide the desired output?"
4. "What tangible inputs do you (the supplier) need from others, for this purpose?"
5. "Is the following statement true?"  If I am given... (the specified set of tangible inputs,) then I can perform... (whatever process generates the desired output,) and I can provide... (the desired output.)

As you read through the example, at first information-based planning will appear hugely and unnecessarily laborious.  The information-based process for planning is thorough by design, because we need a thorough process, when we build the plan for a new project, about which we know very little at the time that we're tasked with building its plan.  The perception, that information-based planning is hugely laborious, is caused by all the knowledge that you already possess about the simple project used in the example.  Therefore, please persist, rather than allowing yourself to be fooled by the simplicity of the example. 

We begin with the first question:

Q 1:  "What is this output?"

A 1:  the cherished shoes, properly repaired

The purpose of the first question is clarity.  If I ask an individual to provide something that I need, then the burden is upon me to communicate to that individual precisely what I need; if I do not communicate my needs clearly, I have only myself to blame, when I get something that I can't use. 

Q 2:  "Who provides the desired output?"

A 2:  Hubby

This is when the assignment of the resource takes place.  Since we begin with information that describes the end-state, we actually plan in reverse.  Consequently, Hubby is the resource who performs the very last ask of this project. 

Q 3:  "What do you do (Hubby,) to provide the desired output?" 

A 3:  bring the cherished shoes, properly repaired, home from the shoemaker

The answer to the third question becomes the task-name, with which we might identify this task in an application like MS-Project.

Q 4:  "What tangible inputs do you (Hubby) need from others, for this purpose?"

A 4:  two inputs - knowledge of the date, when the properly repaired, cherished shoes will be available
        and the properly repaired, cherished shoes

With respect to information that identifies indispensable interactions (exchanges) among contributors, this is the meat-and-potatoes question, for two reasons:  First, only the contributor doing the work is capable of identifying the complete set of required inputs.  Second, the nature of each specified input implicitly identifies that contributor who supplies the input.  Consequently, the answer to the fourth question is central to discovering the logistical network that serves as the backbone of the project.  A complete answer is central to discovering the complete network.  This brings us to the fifth question. 

Q 5:  "Is this statement true?" If I am given knowledge of the date, when the properly repaired, cherished shoes will be available, and if I am given the properly repaired, cherished shoes, then I can bring the properly repaired, cherished shoes home from the shoemaker, and I can provide the properly repaired cherished shoes.

A 5:  yes, it's true

The fifth question is part of a rigorous test for logical sufficiency.  Most often, the involved contributor will respond to this question with, "Yes, it's true."  However, occasionally this test for logical sufficiency will remind the contributor of a required input, which the contributor will have omitted during the response to question four.  The additional information discovered with the test often will become invaluable, when this happens, because it will identify not only the omitted input but also additional contributors, who will be required to work multiple weeks or even months, to create the otherwise omitted input.  In other words, question five and the corresponding sufficiency-test are valuable tools that enable us to prospect for additional information.  Most of the time they yield nothing, but occasionally they yield pure gold.

Experience shows that performing a depth-first search for information (drilling down) causes much less confusion than a breadth-first search (filling across.)  Therefore, whenever we encounter multiple inputs for the same task, we simply choose one, and we continue to search for information, with our simple but highly effective questions.

How far do we go?  We continue to search for information, until we encounter a contributor who responds to question-four this way:  "I don't need anything from others.  Just tell me when to start."  When we here this, in response to question-four, we will have reached an entry-task, i.e. we will have reached the beginning of a path.  We will have finished building the logistical network, when we have a network that is bounded entirely by descriptions of entry-tasks and of deliverables.

The figure, below, shows the finished network for our simple example.  The project's deliverable, or final output, is indicated by the beveled text-box at the top of the figure.  The yellow text-boxes indicate the tasks of the project.  The ones with thick, blue borders are the entry-tasks.  The white text-boxes indicate the inputs and outputs that the contributors must exchange with each others.  If we think of a project as a network of relay-races, then the inputs and outputs are the information-batons that trigger the corresponding legs of the relay-races.

Experienced project-managers know this:  When a project is underway, we want to be able to take advantage of every practical shortcut.  But, to take advantage of every practical shortcut during the project's execution, we absolutely must not take shortcuts while doing the hard work of thinking and planning.  In other words,  the hard work needed to create good plans comes with the job. 

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