Project planning

Project Planning - Step by Step Guide

The key to a successful project is in the planning. Creating a
project plan is the first thing you should do when undertaking any kind
of project.

Project planning is often ignored in favour of getting on with the
work. Many people fail to realise the value of a project plan
in saving time, money and many problems.

This is a simple practical approach to project
planning. If you follow these steps, you should have a sound project
planning approach that you can use for future projects.

Step 1 Project Goals

A project is successful when the needs of the stakeholders have been
met. A stakeholder is anybody directly or indirectly impacted by the
project.

As a first step it is important to identify the stakeholders in your
project. It is not always easy to identify the stakeholders of a
project, particularly those impacted indirectly. Examples of
stakeholders are:

The project funder
The beneficiary or customer who receives the deliverables
The users of the project outputs
The project manager and project team

Once you understand who the stakeholders are, the next step is to
establish their needs. The best way to do this is by conducting
stakeholder interviews. Take time during the interviews to draw out the
true needs that create real benefits. Often stakeholders will talk
about needs that aren't relevant and don't deliver benefits. These can
be recorded and set as a low priority.

The next step once you have conducted all the interviews and have a
comprehensive list of needs is to prioritise them. From the prioritised
list create a set of goals that can be easily measured. A technique for
doing this is to review them against the SMART principle. This way it will be easy to know when a goal has been achieved.

Once a clear set of goals has been established they should be
recorded in the project plan. It can be useful to also include the
needs and expectations of your stakeholders.

This is the most difficult part of the planning process completed. It's time to move on and look at the project deliverables.

Step 2 Project Deliverables

Using the goals you have defined in step 1, create a list of things
the project needs to deliver in order to meet those goals. Specify when
and how each item must be delivered.

Add the deliverables to the project plan with an estimated delivery
date. More accurate delivery dates will be established during the
scheduling phase, which is next.

Step 3 Project Schedule

Create a list of tasks that need to be carried out for each
deliverable identified in step 2. For each task identify the following:

The amount of effort (hours or days) required to complete the task
The resource who will carryout the task

Once you have established the amount of effort for each task, you
can workout the effort required for each deliverable and an accurate
delivery date. Update your deliverables section with the more accurate
delivery dates.

At this point in the planning you could choose to use a software
package such as Microsoft Project to create your project schedule.
Alternatively use one of the many free templates available. Input all
of the deliverables, tasks, durations and the resources who will
complete each task.

A common problem discovered at this point is when a project has an
imposed delivery deadline from the sponsor that is not realistic based
on your estimates. If you discover that this is the case you must
contact the sponsor immediately. The options you have in this situation
are:

Renegotiate the deadline (project delay)
Employ additional resources (increased cost)
Reduce the scope of the project (less delivered)

Use the project schedule to justify pursuing one of these options.

Step 4 Supporting Plans

This section deals with plans you should create as part of the planning process. These can be included directly in the plan.

Human Resource Plan

Identify by name the individuals and organisations with a leading
role in the project. For each describe their roles and responsibilities
on the project.

Next, describe the number and type of people needed to carryout the
project. For each resource detail start dates, estimated duration and
the method you will use for obtaining them.

Create a single sheet containing this information.

Communications Plan

Create a document showing who needs to be kept informed about the
project and how they will receive the information. The most common
mechanism is a weekly/monthly progress report, describing how the
project is performing, milestones achieved and work planned for the
next period.

Risk Management Plan

Risk management is an important part of project management. Although
often overlooked, it is important to identify as many risks to your
project as possible and be prepared if something bad happens.

Here are some examples of common project risks:

Time and cost estimates too optimistic
Beneficiary/Customer review and feedback cycle too slow
Unexpected budget cuts
Unclear roles and responsibilities
Stakeholder input is not sought or their needs are not properly understood
Stakeholders changing requirements after the project has started
Stakeholders adding new requirements after the project has started
Poor communication resulting in misunderstandings, quality problems and rework
Lack of resource commitment

Risks can be tracked using a simple risk log. Add each risk you have
identified to your risk log and write down what you will do in the
event it occurs and what you will do to prevent it from occurring.
Review your risk log on a regular basis adding new risks as they occur
during the life of the project. Remember, when risks are ignored they
don't go away.

Congratulations. Having followed all the steps above you
should have a good project plan. Remember to update your plan as the
project progresses and measure progress against the plan

Published by Working Together Project

Email this page

Action Plans - Small Scale Planning

So, you know that you need to produce a newsletter, organise a team-building session, put together a bid for a new piece of work, or organise moving a team up to the second floor. Exactly what do you need to do to achieve this? None of these are major projects. In fact, you can probably think of all the steps in your head right now. But how do you ensure that you really have covered everything? Would anyone else know where you'd got to with the work if you were unexpectedly off sick for a few days? And are you quite clear about when you need to start if everything is to be done and dusted by the deadline?

An Action Plan is a simple list of all of the tasks that you need to carry out to achieve an objective. It differs from a To Do List in that it focuses on the achievement of a single goal.

How to Use the Tool:

Wherever you want to achieve something significant, draw up an Action Plan. This helps you think about what you need to do to achieve that thing, so that you can get help where you need it and monitor your progress.

To draw up an Action Plan, simply list the tasks that you need to carry out to achieve your goal, in the order that you need to complete them. This is very simple, but is still very useful!

Tip: A useful mnemonic that you can use to help you check that you've remembered all the types of task that might be needed to meet your goal is SCHEMES. This stands for:

Space
Cash
Helpers/people
Equipment
Materials
Expertise
Systems

You may not need all of them to meet some goals: a small internal project to streamline the format of your team's reports, for example, only requires "people", "expertise" and "systems".

Keep the Action Plan by you as you carry out the work and update it as you go along with any additional activities that come up.

If you think you'll be trying to achieve a similar goal again, revise your Action Plan after the work is complete, by changing anything that could have gone better. Perhaps you could have avoided a last-minute panic if you'd alerted a supplier in advance about when and approximately what size of order you would be placing. Or maybe colleagues would have been able to follow up on the impact of your newsletter on beneficiaries if you have communicated with them about when it would be distributed.

Tip:Action Plans are great for small projects, where deadlines are not particularly important or strenuous, and where you don't need to co-ordinate other people.

As your projects grow, however, you'll need to develop project management skills. This is particularly the case if you need to schedule other people's time, or complete projects to tight deadlines. Visit the Project Planning section to learn these skills.

Published by Working Together Project

Email this page