Plans are nothing, changing plans is everything: the impact of changes on project success

Based on a sample of 448 projects, the interactions between three project planning variables, the quality of planning, goal changes, plan-changes and project success are analyzed. The most important results of this study are the interactions between the planning variables and their influences on project success. By using structural equation modeling, we gained insight into these complex indirect relationships. The results clearly show that the positive total effect of the quality of planning is almost completely overridden by the negative effect of goal changes. If we add the total effects of goal changes and plan-changes on project success, their combined effect is considerably stronger than that of the quality of planning. The study also identifies several contextual variables affecting the planning process. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.