Chapter 3

PLANNING THE PROJECT

Planning defined:
– “hard” because answering some of these questions
requires a crystal ball
– “How long will that take?” “You can’t schedule
creativity.
 The planning process determines…
• What needs to be done (scope, deliverables)

• How it gets done (activities, sequence)

• Who will do it ( resources, responsibility)

• How long will it take ( durations, schedule)

• How much will it cost (budget)

Steps in the Planning Process:
• Establish project objective
• Objective must be agreed upon by the sponsor or customer and the
organization.
• Define Scope
– Must be prepared; including customer requirements, a statement of
work, list of deliverables and acceptance criteria that can be used to
validate that the work and deliverables meet specifications.
• Create a work breakdown structure
– Subdivide the project scope into pieces or work packages.
– a hierarchical decomposition of the project work scope into work
packages to be executed by the project team that will produce the
project deliverables.
PROJECT PLANNING STEPS
• Define the problem to be solved by the project.
• Develop a mission statement, followed by statements
of major objectives.
Develop a project strategy that will meet all project objectives;

– Define your goals early and keep them adaptable. ...

– Understand the project scope. ...
– Communicate with clients and team members. ...
– Encourage teamwork. ...
– Set clear expectations. ...
– Manage project risks. ...
– Use a work breakdown structure. ...
– Document your process.
Write a scope statement to define project boundaries

– scope statement is a document that defines all the

elements of the project scope as well as
assumptions, project requirements and acceptance
criteria.
– will act as the primary tool for stakeholders and
teammates to refer back to and use as a guideline
to accurately measure project success.
Develop a work breakdown structure (WBS)

• Using the WBS, estimate activity durations, resource

requirements, and costs (as appropriate for your
environment).

Prepare the project master schedule and budget.

Ex1: WBS
Ex2: WBS
Ex3: WBS
Ex 4:WBS
Decide on the project organization structure

– is an essential configuration for determining the hierarchy of people, their

function, workflow and reporting system.

– Use to determine the jurisdiction over the project’s budget, schedule, and
the project team.
• You would find him at the top of the hierarchical structure, calling all the shots; with
employees playing supporting roles for the project. At the end of the project, the
project team members are released and resources directed towards more relevant
areas.
Create the project plan

• Step 1: Identify & Meet with Stakeholders

• Step 2: Set & Prioritize Goals
• Step 3: Define Deliverables
• Step 4: Create the Project Schedule
• Step 5: Identify Issues and Complete a Risk
Assessment
• Step 6: Present the Project Plan to Stakeholders
5 Project-Planning Tips to Help You Meet Your Goals

• 1. Define your projects.

– The first and most important thing in project
planning is to figure out what projects you are
dealing with. First, what is a project? My definition
is anything that takes more than a few easy tasks to
get done
2. Give your projects a start and end date.
• You should know (or decide) when each project should
start and end. This will allow you to sequence projects
by prioritizing them based on when they need to start
or be finished. Start and end dates will also allow you
to plan around your own business cycles and prevent
projects from going on for much longer than they
should.
3. Make a one-page plan.
A little planning goes a long way to helping a
project succeed. To create a one-page plan, jot down
your answers or notes for each of the following
questions:
• What problem will the project solve?
• What is the benefit to the organization?
• What kind of staff and budget do I need?
• What are the major milestones?
• What are the potential stumbling blocks?
• What risks does this project pose?
• What is my work plan (list of tasks or sub-items to be completed by
when)?
• What are the specific metrics for success?
• How will you know the project is done?
5. Know if and when to quit.
• While it’s best to finish what you start, sometimes it’s
necessary to pull the plug. If you have all of your
projects laid out, with start and end dates and a clear
one-page plan that includes milestones and
communication guidelines, you should have all the
information you need to know when to quit a project.
Get all project stakeholders to sign off on the plan.

• is not necessarily difficult but doing it badly can have

lingering long-term effects and doing it well can add
significant value to the project completed.
• knowing how to sign off on a project becomes a
necessary skill for a PM, though it’s one that can only
be experienced first-hand relatively rarely.
How to Sign Off on a Project Properly

• Recheck check-lists and to-do notes

While the push to close out a project is on it can
be surprisingly easy to forget small (or even larger)
deliverables or elements of the project.
Request client signoff
• After checking that, you can contact the relevant
client-side stakeholders to ask them to perform the
same checks on their side and, if they are satisfied, to
give project sign off for the deliverables and overall
contract.
• Have a project review
• An excellent way to gain more value from the project is
to conduct a post-mortem with team leaders, the whole
team or other stakeholders.
• This will reveal important information about processes
and how they functioned, such as what worked well,
what didn’t and what should be done differently in the
future.
• Request client feedback
• After they have given project sign off from their end,
it can also be very beneficial to ask the client to give
honest feedback about how the project went.
• Getting an outside view on your team’s work can be
invaluable for improving how you work moving
forward.
• Release your team
• A team is a gathering of resources with the specific skills
required to perform the job at had
• opportunity
to thank everyone for their hard work and even to celeb
rate
properly by having a party or at least something fun in
the office, before the team splits up and start on new
projects.
• Archive documents
Experience will tell you that the same situations
and structures will almost definitely arise again.
Take the time to clearly identify and store
everything that has been used.
• Write a brief report
• write a small report for yourself and other
stakeholders or executives.
• Briefly describe how closely the project adhered to
the initial project plan, what risks or issues occurred
and whether the project was a success in general.
KEY POINTS TO REMEMBER
• If you have no plan, you have no control.

The people who must execute a plan should participate in

preparing it.

Have the plan signed off in a meeting, not by sending it

through the interoffice mail.

Keep all project documentation in an electronic project file.

• Use exit criteria to determine when a milestone has
actually been achieved.

Require that changes to the project plan be approved

before you make them.

Risk management should be part of all project

planning.
• A paradigm is a belief about what the world is like.

Planning is answering the

who/where/why/what/when/how/how long/how-
much questions.

Logistics refers to supplying people with the materials

and supplies they need to do their jobs.