Projects and Progressive elaboration

Progressive elaboration is a key characteristic of a project. How can we, as project managers, establish credible plans under uncertainty, and a limited timeframe? Surely having a detailed and accurate plan would be perfect. The problem is that while the short term tends to be relatively well known, the long term is blocked by a cloud of uncertainty. Waiting until all the information is available, as comfortable as it sounds, is naturally unacceptable from the management and customer point of view. The solution is to plan progressively. It represents the process of providing greater levels of planning detail, as the project moves toward completion, and as more and better information becomes available