Understanding Project

Planning & How to

create a Project Plan
Diploma in Project Management, Monitoring &
Evaluation
Project Planning & Control Management (DPM108)
By
Makoni Fungai A., PMP
 Introduction
• Organize your projects with project plans to keep things on track—before you even
start.
• A project plan houses all the necessary details of your project, such as goals, tasks,
scope, deadlines, and deliverables.
• This shows stakeholders a clear roadmap of your project, ensures you have the
resources for it, and holds everyone accountable from the start.
• Project plans are essential to keeping your project organized and on track.
• A great project plan will help you kick off your work with all the necessary pieces—
from goals and budgets to milestones and communication plans—in one place.
• Save yourself time (and a few headaches) by creating a work plan that will make
your project a success.
 Definition of Terms
Project planning: Project planning is a project
management discipline that addresses how to complete a
project in a certain time frame, usually with clearly defined
stages, milestones and designated resources. It starts after
a project has been initiated and before its execution begins.
• During the project planning stage, the project manager
creates a project plan, which maps out project
requirements.
• The project planning phase typically includes setting
project goals, designating project resources, and mapping
out the project schedule.
 Definition of Terms Cont’d
Project Plan: A project plan—sometimes called a work plan—is a blueprint of
the goals, objectives, and tasks your team needs to accomplish for a specific
project. Your project plan should include information about your project
schedule, scope, due dates, and deliverables for all phases of the project
lifecycle.
• The aims of a project plan, and indeed of project planning, are to provide a
clear roadmap or blueprint for project execution, to provide early warning of
project requirements, and to ensure the project stays on track toward
completion.
• To write an effective project plan, you need to be methodical (follow a series of
steps), specific, and clear when it comes to your ideas and execution strategy.
Why is Project Planning Important
• Project planning is important because it helps guide and streamline every other
phase of a project. It lays out the basics of a project, which include the following:
- Project scope.
- Objectives.
- Goals.
- Schedule, milestones and deadlines.
- Budget.
- Resources.
- Key deliverables.
 Why is Project Planning Important
Cont’d
• Planning enables project managers to turn an idea into reality in an organized
manner.
• It identifies who will be involved in the project, clarifies roles and
responsibilities, and helps to maintain accountability throughout the project
lifecycle.
• It also helps to prevent scope creep and budget overruns, as well as frustration
and confusion among team members.
• In addition, a detailed plan shows project stakeholders and sponsors that the
necessary resources -- personnel, funds, etc. -- are available for the project,
which can be important to ensure continued support, funding or sponsorship
for the project.
 Benefits of Project Planning
• Some of the other key benefits of project planning include the following:
- Facilitate communication and provide a central source of information for project
personnel.
- Help the project sponsor and other key stakeholders know what is required to execute the
project within its time, cost and scope constraints.
- Identify who will perform certain tasks, and also when and how those tasks will happen.
- Facilitate project management as the project progresses.
- Enable project managers to identify and plan for future challenges.
- Enable effective monitoring and control of a project.
- Manage, mitigate and eliminate project risk wherever possible.
- Generate feedback useful for the next project planning phase.
 Components of a Project Plan
• Every project plan includes at least three major components:
Scope: The scope determines what a project team will do during the execution of the
project. It considers the team's or organization's vision, what stakeholders want and
the customer's requirements to determine what's possible. When defining the project
scope, the project manager also sets achievable and measurable performance goals.
Budget: Project managers look at what staff and other resources will be required to
meet the project goals to estimate the project's cost and ensure funding is available.
Timeline: The timeline reveals the project duration -- i.e., the expected length of
time it will take to complete each phase of the project -- and includes a schedule of
milestones that will be met.
 Other Components of a Project
Plan
• Other important components of a project plan include the following:
Milestones: Milestones indicate progress and help keep the project on track. A project
can include multiple milestones to clearly show that a particular deliverable or phase has
been successfully completed.
Tasks: The plan should include the tasks that must be accomplished to achieve the
project's scope within its timeline. Each task is assigned to one or more project team
members depending on their skills or role.
Resource allocation: The plan lists resources that include the people working on the
project, their roles and responsibilities, and the tasks they will be handling.
• In addition to these components, some project plans link to other documents, such as
the project charter, statement of work, RACI chart, risk management plan, quality
management plan and work breakdown structure.
 How to create a Project Plan
• An effective project planning process includes the following 10 steps:
1. Define stakeholders: Stakeholders include anyone with an interest in the project. This
can include customers or end users, members of the project team, other people in the
organization the project will affect, or individuals with an interest in the project or a stake
in its outcomes.
2. Define roles: Each stakeholder's role should be clearly defined. Some people might fill
multiple roles.
3. Introduce stakeholders: An organizational meeting should bring the stakeholders
together and unify the project vision. The meeting should including discussions about
project scope, goals, budget, schedule and roles.
4. Set goals: Based on issues raised during the above meeting, a project plan can be updated
and refined. It should include goals and deliverables that define what the product or
service will result in.
 How to create a Project Plan
Cont’d
5. Prioritize tasks: All the tasks necessary to meet the project's goals should be listed and
prioritized based on importance and interdependencies. A Gantt chart can be helpful for mapping
project dependencies.
6. Create a schedule: A timeline should be established that considers the resources needed for
all the tasks.
7. Assess risks: Project risks should be identified so that strategies can be developed for
mitigating them.
8. Communicate: The plan should be shared with all stakeholders. Updates should be provided
in the format and frequency stakeholders expect.
9. Reassess: As milestones are met, the project plan should be revisited and revised to address
any areas that are not meeting expectations.
10. Final evaluation: Once the project is completed, its performance should be evaluated to
learn from the experience and identify improvement areas.
 Project Planning tools & software
• Project planning and project management software facilitate the project planning process. The
best tools support collaboration among stakeholders, have intuitive user interfaces, and provide
built-in time tracking and invoicing
- Asana offers different project views to suit a team's preferences.
- ClickUp comes with several Agile-based features, including a custom automation builder that
lets users create reusable task templates.
- Freedcamp lets users organize their projects using Gantt charts or Kanban boards.
- Hive provides hundreds of templates that speed up project planning and execution.
- Scoro includes a unified work management system to easily manage the entire project lifecycle;
it also includes features for resource planning, budgeting, invoicing and customer relationship
management.
- Trello provides boards to organize tasks, lists to manage the different stages of a task and
cards to show task status.
- Wrike centralizes all project work and automates many workflows; it also integrates with more
than 400 popular business tools, including Jira, Slack, Dropbox, Salesforce, Google Calendar,
HubSpot and OneLogin.