When it comes time to create the plan for the software development phase of the next cycle, Product Managers often find themselves faced with the same hurdles again and again. This is partly due to the typical personalities found among programmers and software engineers, who demand precision, details, and a clear answer for everything.

As planning jumps quickly to the details, the same objections are raised each time. How can we plan for bug fixes when we don’t know how many there will be? How are we going to rewrite the code in Java when there isn’t enough time with the release dates you’re giving us? We can’t just refuse when Marketing asks for our help with trade show demos!

I have witnessed countless planning sessions where these questions caused progress to grind to a halt. The fact that there were no satisfactory answers was used as a justification (meaning excuse) for loose planning, not setting hard and fast completion dates, or lengthening the development cycle. What resulted was confusion, slipped dates, extensive delays (like taking twice as long as originally promised, always a confidence builder), and the failure to implement significant improvements in architecture or capabilities for years at a time. All this while the competition continued to make progress.

I have also seen software development plans that address all the typical questions and more, and resulted in stable, predictable development that met commitments and moved the product forward. Here are some tips to break through common barriers to good development planning.