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Project Planning
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Description: |
Project Planning; Important items to be considered and included in a comprehensive project plan
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project planning, project plan, project proposal, project planning tools, sample project proposal, project management plan, project plan template, sample project plan, sample project management plan
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• Project Planning
Project planning (including project definition) is the initial phase of project
management. Do your project planning and defining well, and you will have a
good start on successfully completing a project. The project planning and
definition phase is when you really begin to understand the project; what is to
be done, and what is not going to be done (this is the project definition).
You might in fact discover, during the project planning phase, that
the project as assigned cannot be completed successfully. Therefore,
something must change, and now is the time to find out. That is one of the
primary purposes of the project planning phase; to ensure that the project as defined
can conceivably be completed, and to lay out the scope, and the resources required by the
project, and the various risks associated with successful completion. These
items should be specified in the project plan (or project management plan)
by the end of the project planning phase.
The project planning phase could alternatively result in a project proposal,
as opposed to a project plan. The steps taken to produce the project proposal are
essentially the same. The use for the document determines whether it is called
a project plan or a project proposal.
The project planning phase differs depending on the industry. Example information
is offered from both the construction industry, and the IT industry. You can
likely learn something about your own project planning needs, and about your own
project plan document (or project proposal) , by learning a bit
about the planning process in each of these industries.
• Sample Project Plan
Looking at plans produced by others often helps us develop our own project management
plan. Help-U-Plan has generated a number of these templates which might serve as
your own sample project management plan. These charts can be found on this
templates page. Depending on your
situation, it may be more appropriate to consider this a sample project
proposal, rather than a sample project plan.
Regardless of the terminology, looking at a similar project plan helps us ensure that
we have not left out some important item, or have failed to recognize an important
relationship that exists between tasks and milestones. As project managers accumulate
experience, they also accumulate historic records (mental and physical)
of their successes and problems with individual projects. This history is
reasonably well restored by a Gantt Chart view of the history of the project.
• Project Planning Tools
Producers and marketers of software often encourage that a project plan be
produced using project management software. A useful and
comprehensive project plan, however, often is not easily produced
with software designed for project management. Traditional project
management software was created specifically to help execute a project plan,
not to produce a project plan. A very serviceable project plan might be entirely
ad hoc, ensuring that people had to think about the lifecycle of the specific
project.
The project plan could be entirely in textual form, though more commonly it
would be a combination of text, numerical presentation (as in a
spreadsheet), graphics (as in drawings and sketches), and perhaps a
model (as in a software prototype). So project planning tools often consist
of the ordinary office tools we already use to communicate and manage a business, such
as a word processor, a graphics package, and a spreadsheet. A
prototype (if one is appropriate and useful) might consist of paper
layouts.
The most valuable project planning tools are the human brains that collaborate to
plan or to propose the project. It is in this project planning phase that the
opportunity exists to think through the needs and requirements of the project, and
to successfully convey those needs to decision-makers and other participants.
Thinking about a prospective project and its potential problems is not an easy
task. Traditional project management software can easily lead one
astray, encouraging a person (because the software is all set up for data
entry) to avoid doing the real, necessary, and difficult project planning.
The project planning phase and individual project plans differ so much by
industry, that examples from two disparate industries are offered to serve as
possible project plan templates. That discussion is found below at
Construction Project Planning,
and at IT Project Planning. Because
IT Project Planning has proven to be so difficult, suggestions are offered
for what might be learned from construction project planning, with which
there is significant recorded experience (over 100 years).
Contained in most project plans, including construction project plans, and
IT project plans, are aspects of the plan document which are universally
important. These aspects are project goals and objectives, project scope, project resources, and project risks.
• Project Goals and Objectives
For either a project proposal or project plan, of initial importance are the
goals and objectives for the project. These essentially define the project.
Find initial general agreement on these items, and get them written down in the
project management plan. By implication, the goals and objectives indicate
what is not going to be accomplished in the project. Usually, not everything
can be accomplished in one project, and it is therefore important that the project
plan spell out what is not to be accomplished.
Also, the goals and objectives should be reviewed after the other aspects of the
project plan (discussed below) have been hashed over and specified. See
that the identified goals and objectives still seem reasonable.
• Project Scope
Defining the project goals and objectives leads directly to identification
of the project scope; usually a listing of important items involved.
In construction project planning, project scope means a listing of the different
major work areas involved, and the consequent related construction
trades involved (concrete, carpentry, electrical, plumbing,
HVAC, etc.). This identification of project scope will correlate to
individual sheets of specifications and drawings contained in the project plan.
In an IT project plan, project scope will tell what functions the software
will provide, and how they are to be provided. It will tell what
is expected as a user interface module, what will be in the business rules
module, and what is needed in the data module (for example).
• Project Resources
A lack of resources is a principal reason why new businesses (a type of
project) fail. Resource assessment is therefore one of the more crucial
steps in the project planning phase. Money and skilled personnel are the normal
limiting resources.
In construction projects for example, specific materials may not be available
when really needed, possibly delaying the project. In IT projects,
it is typically people who may not be available when needed, or in the amount really
needed. This typically means programming specialists; those programmers who
have both knowledge and experience. Such specialists are often over-booked.
This can be disastrous for a project. So the IT project plan should spell out who
and what specialty is needed for the project, so availability can be determined.
Likewise, a timeframe for the project needs to be estimated in the project
plan. Will this take 3 months, or 3 years? Looking at the project
scope (the breakdown of the project into component parts) can help
create the approximate timeframe. Use records from the history of
similar projects, if possible. History is our best assistant here.
If necessary, guesstimate. Then get others to make judgments about
the estimated timeframe. Write down the basis for the projected timeframe in
your project plan.
When guestimating, we tend to underestimate both costs and time required in
completing a project. We generally are not able to imagine all of the work
involved, and we tend to anticipate a problem-free sequence of events.
Both time and cost should normally be added to guestimates to cover the
unexpected. Bankers often double or even triple cost and time estimates when
farmers want to do a project by themselves. If the project is to be contracted
out, much of the time and cost estimation problem is removed.
• Project Risk Assessment
Assessment of project risk depends a great deal on the project. In IT
projects, unavailability of a specialized programmer can be a significant
problem. Hiring or contracting for a replacement can take significant time
and hold up related work.
In construction projects, finding Native American artifacts, or finding
an endangered species on a prospective building site can effectively shut the project
down. These are project risks or uncertainties depending on your
definition. They are possibilities. They have happened. Domain
knowledge for your project is necessary to assess these different kinds of risks.
Ask for help in assessing risk. Try to imagine what could go wrong, and if
it seems productive, go through some 'what-if' scenarios with your
team. This is contingency planning; what could we possibly do in the
event risk 'A' happens?
• Construction Project Planning
The construction industry offers very helpful examples (project plan
templates) for the project planning phase. Most significant construction
projects are planned by one group (resulting in the project plan), and
executed (execution of the project plan) by another group.
Consider the project of building a house, where the property is already
owned, and an architect is hired to design the house. The project
planning phase in this case ends when the architect has completed the project
plan (known commonly as house plans), and the owners accept it.
The completed project plan can then be used to solicit bids from competing contractors
to build the house (the execution of the project plan).
The project plan produced by the architect will include graphical sheets illustrating
what the house will look like (probably from several views), construction
details for important items and areas, specifications for building materials and
construction methods, and building codes which must be met, etc.
Because construction details and specifications are provided clearly in these
project plans, contractors can confidently bid on the project, calculating
their estimated costs for executing the project plan (building the house).
• IT Project Planning
IT project planning (IT = Information Technology) is substantially
different from project planning in the construction industry. An
internet-based search for 'IT project planning' produces little agreement
on producing a comprehensive project plan or project proposal (called by some
writers in IT a project specification).
This lack of agreement concerning IT project planning tells us there is a problem in
the planning phase for IT projects. IT projects are relatively new compared to
the construction industry.
We do know there have been a number of expensive failures, or near-failures,
of large IT projects. Perhaps we haven't discovered (or agreed on)
general reasons for the failures. If we could agree on the reasons, we
could focus on solutions.
And failures or near-failures should make us look first to the planning phase,
where we should take the time and effort to determine if a project has a reasonable
possibility of being a success.
What makes IT project planning so difficult?
1. The technology involved is new and
constantly changing.
2. High-level decision-makers have very little domain knowledge. They make
bad decisions.
They may not be
able to imagine what the product will look like, or how it can possibly work
(or why it wouldn't work).
3. The product is
constantly changed
to remain useful.
4. Producing the product requires
highly-skilled people,
many do not have good estimating
and/or communication skills.
5. There is a high
risk of obsolescence
for the product.
6. Software development tends to be iterative; develop and test and modify.
Do it again.
7. Software development often means doing something the developers have
never done before.
What can be learned from Construction project planning?
1. Look for foundational items
as first decisions. Build on these
foundations.
2. Make the project plan as
detailed as is reasonable
, with firm specifications, and
agreement among
the affected parties
3. Seek recognition that changes in the project plan after work begins will
cost dearly
in terms of
time and money.
4. We tend to underestimate time and cost
of development. Make an estimate.
Base the estimate on
historic information about
comparable projects if possible. Guesstimate where necessary.
Then do the math. Write all this down in the IT project
plan.
Since understanding and domain knowledge are often limited in senior management
(who have decision-making authority), develop simulations/models in some form
to help them understand what is coming. Make the first version of the software a
prototype, if possible. A prototype program which can morph into the real
thing. Prototypes give a way to test a number of things, including user
reaction. Include the specification for the prototype in your project plan.
The problems listed above for the IT project plan suggest that we should plan for
future change in the software. We should therefore try to design software that
has relatively independent modules, so each module can adapt to change without
seriously affecting the other modules. This was the idea of object-oriented
methodologies. Identify objects like we find in the real world, and make
them as independent as possible from each other. Then plan for aspects of these
objects to be able to be modified over time; aspects like the object's behavior
and attributes. This approach is intended to make change in software a
simpler, more rigorous process.
•
Project Planning Definition
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (6/11/07)
"Project planning is part of project management, which relates to the use of
schedules such as Gantt charts to plan and subsequently report progress within the
project environment."
"Initially, the project scope is defined and the appropriate methods for
completing the project are determined. Following this step, the
durations for the various tasks necessary to complete the work are listed and
grouped into a work breakdown structure. The logical dependencies between
tasks are defined using an activity network diagram that enables identification
of the critical path. Float or slack time in the schedule can be calculated
using project management software. Then the necessary resources can be
estimated and costs for each activity can be allocated to each resource,
giving the total project cost. At this stage, the project plan may
be optimized to achieve the appropriate balance between resource usage and project
duration to comply with the project objectives. Once established and
agreed, the plan becomes what is known as the baseline. Progress will
be measured against the baseline throughout the life of the project. Analyzing
progress compared to the baseline is known as earned value management."
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