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23. Pass Direction

23.1. Pass Direction. General

In general, there are two ways of planning. One is forward planning, and the other is backward
planning.

"Forward planning" involves planning from "today", looking
ahead for the upcoming weeks and months. The ultimately im-
portant due date in the project, e.g., the delivery of a product,
service or deliverable, takes place much later. Each task in the project plan then always takes place
"as early as possible". Usually, after completing the last task, you still have a certain amount of
time left in the project until the due date, which it's then the so-called "slack time". For this reason,
forward planning is also preferred over backward planning. The forward planning approach also
suits human thinking and logic, as someone typically "thinks from now, forward to later" rather
than the other way around.

"Backward planning" takes a very different approach. Here it is as-
sumed that the due date in the project for the delivery of a product,
service or deliverable, is day zero. Tasks are planned in such a man-
ner that all tasks always start "as late as possible". The big disadvantage I see myself is that in the
event of an unexpected delay, which is always very likely to occur, the buffer time (slack time) that
you probably already had at the beginning has already passed, and you have robbed yourself of all
possible available slack time.

So, if you maybe get a project plan from someone else that you didn't create yourself, then please
always check first whether it got planned backwards or forwards. You can do this in the simplest
way when you go to the GANTT-view and watch there the connection lines between the tasks and
where the arrows point to in which direction (forward or backward).

© Hans Porzel, 10/2025 | CAPM® (PMI), PSM I® (Scrum.org), Smartsheet Prod. Cert® 2020 Page 61 / 209 pages