What is meant by Project Planning?

Have you ever wondered; how much better would your last project be if you could magically do it over again? This is the power of project planning.

Project planning is at the heart of the project life cycle and tells everyone involved where you’re now, where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. It tells us all before the execution. 

It doesn’t matter how complex or easy a project is – the project planning serves as a blueprint throughout the project life cycle.

Project planning provides a walk-through of the project and helps to get activities organized before actually doing the work. It presents a huge opportunity to save resources, time, and money, and it encourages increased stakeholder buy-in and commitment to the projects.

The planning phase is when the project plans are documented, deliverables and requirements are defined, and a schedule is created. It helps in determining what project management process are appropriate for the need of the project, to avoid wasting resources on activities that are not relevant to the particular project.

The plans created during this phase will help you manage time, cost, quality, changes, risk, and related issues. They will also help you control manpower and external suppliers to ensure that you deliver the project on time, within budget, and within schedule.

What is the objective of project planning?

The most fundamental objective of project planning is to organise tasks, manpower, and other resources in an optimum fashion so that the project deliverables can be achieved successfully.

According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), there are several key purposes for project planning, each of which can contribute to the success of projects. These objectives can be broadly categorised under three head.  

Communication

Project planning is a form of communication and a source of information for members of the project team. Once a project’s overall goals have been formulated and approved, leaders need to communicate them to the project staff. Planning documents like communication management plan, project management plan, stakeholder management can be classified under this group.

Foundation for Management Action

Project planning provides the foundation for all other management action. Knowing what’s required, who’s responsible for performing certain tasks, how they are to be performed, and when actions should be scheduled lets managers organize their activities more efficiently. Plans provide managers with information as to deadlines and scheduled events. Establish business requirements. Planning documents like scope management plan, schedule management plan, cost the management plan, human resources management plan and risk management plan can be classified under this group.

Problem Definition and Solution

Planning is a form of problem-solving, and as such promotes problem definition and solution. Identifying goals and problems can help in the formulation and analysis of alternate strategies to meet objectives. Each alternative must be evaluated in terms of schedule and cost and requisite product quality of performance. Planning documents like quality management plan can be classified under this group.

Why is project planning important?

Too often, project managers jump right into whatever they are doing without thinking about it beforehand. Such actions lead to inefficiencies, rework, mistakes, needless overtime, and just plain bad project management.

Project managers are supposed to think about it before they do them.

The project Manager take a more formal approach to consider “How will do this?” before doing the work, and that you document this information in a plan. There are many components of project planning, but generally, they answer the questions of “How will I go about planning scope, schedule, cost, etc.?” and “How will I monitor scope, schedule, cost, etc.? Once planning is done, what action to be taken next?”

These early brainstorming can prevent risks from affecting the overall success of the project. Too little planning causes chaos and frustration, and too much planning may cause unnecessary efforts and waste of resources. The amount of planning effort generally determined by the project complexity and size (value and duration).

Project Planning Terms

Before we dive into further deep planning, let get familiar with some frequent terms which we will be using throughout the guide. This will help you to fully grasp the concept of planning.

However, if you are not a newbie and already have experience in project management or planning, then please skip to the next section, because chances you already know them.

• Scope: It is a detailed outline of all aspects of a project, including all related activities, resources, timelines, and deliverables, as well as the project’s boundaries.
• Schedule: It is a timetable that organizes project tasks, activity durations, calendar start and end dates, and sets overall project milestones on a timeline.
• Deliverable:The results of a project, such as a product, service, report, etc.
• Stakeholder:Anyone with a vested interest in the project—project manager, project sponsor, team members, customers, etc.
• Tasks:Small jobs that lead to the final deliverable.
• Milestone:The end of one project phase, and the beginning of the next.
• Resources:Anything you need to complete the project, such as personnel, supplies, materials, tools, people and more.
• Budget:Estimate of total cost related to completing a project.
• Tracking & Monitoring:Collecting project data, and making sure it reflects the results you planned for.

What is the output of project planning?

The inputs to the project planning process include the project charter and the stakeholder list.

“Planning facilitates this competition in that detailed plans of high quality with cost and schedule information provide credibility and validation to resource requests,” the Project Management Institute says.

Project managers will need to consider as a part of planning the format and procedures characteristic to the specific organizational structure and their impact on the acquisition of resources.

The outputs of the project planning process include the project management plan, the project schedule, and other plans.

What are the basic steps of project planning?

The project planning clearly defines how the project is executed, monitored, controlled and closed. This stage requires several inputs, including conceptual proposals, project schedules, resource requirements/limitations and success metrics.

 The project planning phase requires an in-depth step by step analysis and structuring of projects activities. Following are the eleven steps to be performed in the set order.

Step-1. Overall management planning

• • Determine how you will plan and integrate each work area
  • Document project management plan

 Step-2. Scope Planning

• • Determine detailed requirements
  • Create the project scope
  • Create WBS & WBS directory
  • Document scope management plan

 Step-3. Schedule Planning

• • Determine planning teams
  • Define Activities
  • Sequence Activities
  • Est. Activity Resources
  • Est. Activity Duration
  • Determine the critical path
  • Develop Schedule
  • Document schedule management plan

Step-4. Cost Planning

• • Estimate Costs
  • Determine Budget
  • Document cost management plan

Step-5. Quality Planning

• • Determine quality standard process & matrix
  • Create a process improvement plan
  • Document quality management plan

Step-6. Human Resources Planning

• • Determine all roles & responsibilities
  • Indicate who will do what work, at which time
  • Any special skills are needed to accomplish the project tasks
  • Document human resources management plan

Step-7. Communication Planning

• • Plan communication & stakeholder engagement
  • Document communication & stakeholder management plan

Step-8. Risk Planning

• • Identify Risks
  • Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis
  • Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis
  • Plan Risk Responses
  • Control Risks
  • Document risk management plan

Step-9. Go- Back Iteration

• • Repeat steps 1 to 8 based on feedback of team’s members and function

Step-10. Procurement Planning

• • Assess what to purchase and create procurement documents
  • Finalize procurement document
  • Document procurement management plan

Step-11.  Project Control Planning

• • Create a change management plan
  • Finalise the how to execute and control parts of all management plan
  • Develop realistic and final PM plan and performance measure baseline
  • Gain formal approval of the plan
  • Document project control plan

Step-12.  Hold Kick off Meeting

• •  Ensure the stakeholder and the project team are on the same page with the scope, goals, budget, timeline, and everything in between

Who perform the Project planning?

Who is involved in the planning processes? Everyone! The project manager compiles the project management plan and project documents with input from stakeholders.

The project manager may also use information gathered from resources like historical records from previous projects, company policies, publication, articles about projects, and other such sources to plan the project.

 The project manager and team perform a detailed analysis of what objectives in the project charter can be achieved. They then decide how the projects- including its strategic objectives – will be accomplished, address all the appropriate project management process and knowledge areas.

How much time does a project planning takes?

How Long Does the Project Planning Phase Take?

This is hard to answer. It’s going to take longer to plan the new refinery project than a new mobile app.

The best way to estimate how long your project planning phase will take is to look at similar projects that have happened before, and see how long it took them to plan. Talk to the project manager as well as other project team members.

A project management tool may help you to identify how long other similar projects took. Also based on the archives of old project schedules and data, you can use other useful details which could turn out very useful while planning new projects.

Another important aspect to understand about planning is that the amount of time the team spends in project planning and the level of detail achieved in the plan should be appropriate to the needs of the project.

If a high-priority project has a tight schedule that does not allow much room for variance, the project will require more planning than a low-priority project with a fairly flexible schedule.

Some projects cannot be fully planned to a detailed degree prior to starting work on the project. Such projects are often organized by phases (e.g., test phase, install phase, etc.), or they may be conducted using an adaptive life cycle approach.

In such cases, only the first part of the project may be fully planned, while the later pieces are planned at a higher level and then progressively elaborated when more is known about the project. Detailed planning for the next phase is done as the previous phase nears completion. This approach is called “rolling wave planning”.

What is a project plan?

At its most basic level, a project plan – or Project Management Plan, as the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®) calls it – is simply a guide for how the project will be managed.

Think of it as the project manager’s rulebook. It provides a structure for handling things like changes to the project, communication methods and requirements, and approval processes.

Having a well-developed project plan is one of the critical success factors for projects. A project plan is the Project Manager’s communications and control tool for use throughout the lifecycle of the project. Project plans are living documents, which provide project direction. It also provides a baseline for the project including cost, scope, and schedule.

Project plans are coordinated by the project manager with input from stakeholders and team members. Project plan components cover the “what” and “how” of a project.

A project plan is a series of formal documents that define the execution and control stages of a project. The plan includes considerations for risk management, resource management and communications, while also addressing scope, cost and schedule baselines.

 Although the project management plan is finalized in planning, items such as the detailed estimates, project scope, and product scope may be clarified over time as the work is being done during the executing, monitoring, and controlling processes.

This outlines the objectives and scope of the project and serves as an official point of reference for the project team, larger company, and stakeholders.

Project plans contain all of the planning documents that are part of the entire process. Components of the project plan include baselines, baseline management plans, risk management, quality, procurement, resourcing and communications.

A typical project plan shall include following documents:

• • Scope management plan
  • Schedule management plan
  • Cost management plan
  • Quality management plan
  • Human Resources management plan
  • Communication Management Plan
  • Stakeholder Management Plan
  • Risk Management Plan
  • Procurement Management Plan
  • Project Control Plan

How to write a project plan?

The purpose of project execution is to complete the project work as defined in the project management plan and to meet the project objectives. The focus is on managing people, following processes, and communicating according to plan.

During execution, the project manager essentially has a guiding, proactive role, constantly referring back to the project management plan and project documents.

On your real-world projects, does every project manager create a project management plan that is realistic and approved? Does your project management plan contain subsidiary management plans for each knowledge area (i.e., scope, time, cost, quality, etc.)? Many project managers do not create such a project management plan.

Remember, your project management project plan is essential to the success of a project. Without a well-defined project plan, your project is prone to various project management issues such as project delay, contractual disputes, product failure, scope creep and cost overrun. 

The basic outline of any project plan workout can be summarized in these five steps:

What is the scope?

Define your project’s stakeholders, scope, quality baseline, deliverables, milestones, success criteria and requirements. Create a project charter, work breakdown structure (WBS) and a statement of work (SOW).

How much time & cost?

basically, this step starts with determining the planning teams, and defining activities. After that schedule needs to be developed based on the identify activities and then estimates cost of each work package. This cost will become basis for final budget approval from an organization leadership. specifying the budgeted cost to be incurred at the completion of the project

What are the risks & quality requirements?

In this step all risks are identified and risk analysis performed to develop risk response plan. Also, it is this step, where planning on how to monitor and control the quality work done during execution. Project manager develop KPI and performance matrices to control the project and define process improvement plan.

Who are the stakeholders, resources? & How to communicate?

Here, all roles & responsibilities determined indicating who will do what work, at which time. Designing the communication strategy with all project stakeholders.

What is the procurement plan?

Identifying and consolidating requirements and determining the timeframes for their procurement with the aim of having them as and when they are required. This describes the process of identification and selection of suppliers/contractors/consultants focusing on vendors outside your company and subcontracting

Writing a project plan is labour intensive but how can you manage a project without determining how, what and when you are going to manage it?

Project plan takes time and effort, but it is necessary for success.

Organization utilizes various planning software and tools to organize a project’s tasks, resources and costs in efficient and faster manner. Project planning software has become an invaluable tool for project managers in recent years, as it provides them the ability to maintain and automate the components we outlined above.

Planning, Project Constraints & EVM

The project planning stage requires several inputs, including conceptual proposals, project schedules and project constraints (cost, time and scope of work).

Project constraints such as time, scope, and costs are discussed in the project planning process, and mitigation plans are developed after the identification of potential risks. By comparing the actual progress with the project plan, you can also monitor the performance of your team and take the necessary steps to improve it.

 Project planning is inherently uncertain as it must be done before the project execution. Therefore, the duration of the tasks is often estimated through a weighted average of optimistic, normal, and pessimistic cases.

The project schedule is optimized to achieve the appropriate balance between resource usage and project duration to comply with the project objectives. Once established and agreed among stakeholders, the project schedule becomes what is known as the baseline schedule.

Progress will be measured against the baseline schedule throughout the project life cycle. Analyzing progress compared to the baseline schedule is known as earned value management.

Project planning is a phase or a process?

Phase or Process?  Actually, it is both. Planning can be a phase as well as a project management process at the same time. It would depend on the type of project and its lifecycle.

The project life cycle is what you need to do to do the work, and the project management process is what you need to do to manage the work.

Lifecycle is the logical breakdown of what you need to do to produce the deliverables of the project. The logical breakdown of work to do is called phase.

There are many different types of project life cycles, depending on the type of project, the product being developed, the industry, and the organization’s preferences.

Project life cycles range from plan-driven to change-driven. Plan-driven projects have predictive life cycles (sometimes referred to as waterfall or traditional life cycles) that require a scope, schedule, and cost to be determined in detail early in the life of the project, before the work begins to produce the project deliverables.

For example, a large construction project would typically be managed using a predictive approach, undergoing the life cycle phases of feasibility, planning, design, production, turnover, and start-up.

For small projects following a predictive (or plan-driven) life cycle, you may go through the overall project management process once for the entire project, although portions of the process maybe iterated or repeated throughout the project life cycle.

What Is Project Planning Software?

In the modern world, you would need one more element, that is a project planning tool/software to successfully develop project plan. Project planning today is completely different from what it was a decade ago.

With the introduction of different cloud-based project planning tools, project teams are no longer bound by geographical location or tedious departmental regulations. Project planning tools centralize all data and allow users to track progress, assign tasks, and give feedback easily.

Project planning software comes with different features & functionalities. There is some specialized software for specific roles like scheduling, cost estimation, risk analysis etc which can be used in each one of the project planning steps.

These business application and tools provide benefits especially if chosen correctly to match an organization’s requirements. Any organization that wants to stay ahead of the competition needs to have the right tools.

How project planning software help project team?

Project planning software can simplify your project planning from start to finish, giving you the tools and transparency in the project you need to not only create an excellent project management plan. Theses software allows you to perform administrative tasks more quickly and efficiently, freeing up time to focus on the actual project.

The main purpose of project planning software is a great tool to facilitate project management processes such as schedule development, team management, cost estimation, resource allocation and project control by utilising information technology and artificial intelligence.

Project management software can also facilitate effective communication within and among teams, help you track key performance factors, store all project data in a central location, and allow you to generate reports on your project along the way.

Project planning is iterative process.

Project planning is never truly finished until a project is completed. The project plan may return to the planning stage multiple times prior to project completion, or even abandoned.

Each planning process may use the results of the previous processes, and each process may affect or cause changes to the previous processes.

The idea, in the real world, is to attempt to complete each planning process as fully as possible. Then, after risk identification, qualitative and quantitative risk analysis, and risk response planning, you go back to finalize all the components of the project management plan and project documents.

Do you understand why iterations start after risk management? Because it is only after risk management is completed that the final cost and schedule can be determined. This approach to planning saves time and is efficient.

It also accounts for the iterations of the management plans by separating them into the planning, executing, and control pieces. The individual management plans are combined into the overall project management plan.

The project plan is not a document written commandment in stone. They should be frequently referred back often as needed.

Summary

Project planning is at the heart of the project life cycle, and tells everyone involved where you’re now, where you’re going and how you’re going to get there.

Irrespective of complexity or ease a project – the project planning serves as a blueprint throughout the project life cycle. Project planning provides a walk-through of project and helps getting activities organized before actually doing the work. It presents a huge opportunity to save resources, time, and money, and it encourages increased stakeholder buy-in and commitment to the projects.

A typical planning steps involved overall management planning, scope planning, schedule planning, cost planning, quality planning, human resources planning, communication planning, risk planning, procurement planning, project control planning.

The outputs of the project planning process include the project management plan, the project schedule, and other plans.

Project planning is iterative process and never truly finished until a project is completed. The project plan may return to the planning stage multiple times prior to project completion, or even abandoned.

Now tell me, What’s the biggest thing you’re struggling with planning your project right now that I can help you with? Let me know by leaving a comment below right now.

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