Project Planning Quotes

I've got at least two major project ideas that I've been chewing on for several years in my head and I've been trying to resist them both. But I have learned over the years that when they don't go away and they're still in there, you probably have to resign yourself to the fact that you're going to do something about them.

A lot of times, when I'm approaching pre-production and my job, and trying to research and work on the script and whatnot it's always different.

Technology always takes longer [to develop] than you think.

If it's possible, I will have some noodles in the morning and start talking to people, start to think about a few things in my head - the project or a few ideas which are not finished or if there are possible directions and what will lead into another game. It's always like setting up some kind of game you can continuously play.

Nurturing a project from the ground floor is something I've been wanting to do.

My perception is that I'm a guy who really does a lot of homework surrounding any project that I do.

People who say that life is not worthwhile are really saying that they themselves have no personal goals which are worthwhile. Prescription: Get yourself a goal worth working for. Better still, get yourself a project. Decide what you want out of a situation. Always have something ahead of you to “look forward to” — to work for and hope for.

Honest to God, for me, I've never been a guy to stack projects. A lot of these other guys, they like to do this and then line up what they're doing next and line up what they're doing next. I just can't do it.

People exaggerate their confidence in their plans - something we call the planning fallacy... The existence of the plan tends to induce overconfidence.

The typical project design time for a large company like IBM - and they keep track of this - is a little over four years.

I've made mistakes before of doing different projects just based on my dreams, my hopes, my thing, and not really thinking about my customers.

Now, there is no way to say how long some projects take, that's our principle.

Every time something bad happens, like we lose a day because of weather or an actor gets injured or anything else happens, the schedule has to change. It's the most challenging Tetris puzzle.

Workflow and usability are not afterthoughts; they impact the core of any project and dictate how it should be engineered.

There are people who literally cannot start a project until the deadline is four hours away, even if it's a big one. And those people have a serious problem. My recommendation is set up mini-deadlines. You might say, 'Okay, here's my deadline after three days for this and there's another deadline for that and then a third deadline.'

At the beginning of each project, I like to create a palette of sound for that particular project.

Law Number XXIV: The only thing more costly than stretching the schedule of an established project is accelerating it, which is itself the most costly action known to man.

Either I need an assignment with a strict deadline - like something for a movie or a TV show or whatever - or else I need to create a made-up deadline for myself for my own records. Otherwise, I don't write anything.

I knew I had the right material and I knew what I was going after.

Making a movie is like making an ocean voyage, and the script is your ship.

'John Henry Days' was already half in the can before my first book came out, so I'd already started something that was big and sprawling - I just had to finish it.

I have become a full-fledged producer. I spend a lot of time on pre-production work.

I think projects often fail because people do not have a clear understanding at the start what they are trying to deliver.

Woodworking requires a completely different kind of thinking and problem-solving ability than writing. With writing, you take a set of facts and ideas, and you reason your way forward to a story that pulls them together. With woodworking, you start with an end product in mind, and reason your way backward to the raw wood.

Any time we have projects that we haven't begun or completed, they drain energy.