On Sun, 02 Jan 2005 08:38:22 GMT, (Anna Kettle)
wrote:

On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 02:50:45 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Pencil and paper I reckon.

This is getting worrying cos I am agreeing with NP twice in two days

Fair enough and thanks for the input. However, I still fail to grasp
why pencil and paper can be better than a good computer program,
except perhaps that doing it on paper is less of a learning curve. I
guess that anything that software can do can also be done with pencil
and paper - it just takes longer, is more prone to calculation
errors, takes up much more space, and is much harder to modify quickly
- wouldn't you agree?

What you don't want to do is turn into someone who starred on one of
the Property Ladder programs who had the whole project down to a T on
their computer but failed to note that writing complex lists on
interdependencies is not the same as actually doing the work.

That sounds like a singularly daft mistake; they must have been
backward or rediculously negligent. Lesson: name the tasks clearly
and accurately with no ambiguity, yes?

I'm sure
its heresy but I reckon that unless each stage is straightforward
enough to put on a sheet of paper then it will be ignored by the
builders

Building work is notorious for throwing up problems which hadn't been
scheduled for so allow lots of slack time in your plan

Sounds like good sense. On the other hand, maybe not too much slack,
since, "Work tends to take the time allowed for its completion" etc...
But what appeals to me most about software for planning is that the
plan can easily be changed when you come up against some unforseen
event such as the type you just alluded to. I'm no expert on this
subject; just stating my impressions.

PG