I spend a lot time discussing the pros and cons of these two items with FIRST teams all the time.
The Plan is great for a sequenced process that follows a specific order of operations which can be measured in larger blocks of time such as (1-2 weeks). Here are some of the things I really like about the Plan for structured task management.
- Plan items are great for distributing work amongst a larger team when an activity owner is different from the assigned resources.
- Plan items can be direclty associated with Deliverables and work items
- Plan items can have dependencies with each other
- Plan will calculate Critical Path based on relationships
- Plan can be viewed in Gantt chart
- Plan can be executed manually or automatically
When items are measured in smaller blocks of time, not direclty related to each other and simpler in nature, I prefer to use Action Items. Here are some of the things I really like about Action Items for more ad-hoc task management.
- Action Items are not related to each other like Plan activities
- Action Items can have work items directly associated with them, no Deliverables
- Actions Items can be reviewed and edited in Excel
- Action Items do not create resouce assignments to track work