Planning in project management

I like to use a much clichéd quote while talking about Planning. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. A project manager must have a planned approach to the project. It doesn’t matter if a Microsoft Project is used or an excel sheet or any other tool. But planning is the key. A project manager must be able to check the pulse of the project at any point of time. But if he doesn’t know where the project should be at a certain point in time, he will be groping in the dark to figure out if the project is on track or not. If a project is not planned, then how would you know when you have to make mid course correction? If a project is not planned, how would you know how much value has been added to the project and how much is yet to be added? Moreover, planning is not a one time act. Once the initial planning is done, the project manager must keep checking the progress of the project against the planned so as to find out the deviations if any, make necessary adjustments and then proceed.