What exactly is the project management plan?

It makes sense that the entire project team, project manager, and stakeholders would need to be on the same page about how things will go on the project. I like to think of the project-management plan as your GPS navigation of project work. Essentially, the project-management plan is a how-to guide that is compartmentalized by specific knowledge areas and provides direction on how to execute, monitor, and control the project.

For example, if there's ever any question about how risk will be managed, the risk-management plan will describe the process.

I like to explain it to my classes like this: what is the last thing that you looked up how to do on YouTube? Many times, the answer is installation of some kind of equipment, how to change the oil in your car, how to use certain functions in Excel, and one person even looked up how to swing dance!

There are multiple channels and instructional videos that can be found there. YouTube is a wealth of how to information. Let's say you need to figure out how to use a certain function in Excel, so you go out to YouTube to choose a video that you think will work for you. You watch the video, and then try to duplicate what you just learned; you might watch it multiple times until you have conquered that function.

The project-management plan is a channel of YouTube videos that are compartmentalized by things such as the how-to for scope management, the how-to for cost management, the how-to for schedule management, and so on. If the video works and you are able to duplicate the function in Excel, you can revisit that video over and over again as needed. It is unnecessary to change the video because it provided you with what you needed. Conversely, if the video did not provide you what you needed, you would have to change the video.

If a management plan is not working for the project, you would need to change that management plan to something that does work. That can take some time and discussion with stakeholders. Once the direction is determined, the necessary change would incorporate formal change-control. Why? Because you need to take specific actions to change the plan in order to get the information that you need and everyone needs to agree on the direction in which you are now headed. Otherwise, if everything is working perfectly, there's no need to change anything in the project management plan, and its channels of knowledge areas would remain static and maintain its usefulness throughout the project. Though that sounds a bit like perfect-world project management, doesn't it?

The bottom line is you will probably have to change direction at some point in the project as you progressively elaborate on the information. This is especially significant because your customer will probably change their mind fairly often. That would then lead to updates to at least your baselines if not your management plans (how-to guides) through formal change-control. If it isn't broken, don't fix it. If it is, initiate formal change-control.