The obvious answer to this is project managers. But everyone who has to manage projects in their roles can benefit from creating project plans before starting a new project, especially in cases of similar or recurring projects. A project plan saves you the time it takes to recreate the same project over again.
Team members and stakeholders involved in the project and its results may provide input, expertise, costs, and other relevant information to be added in and approved before the project manager puts finishing touches on the project plan.
Project plans are important because they provide a shared vision for what the project aims to accomplish. This shared understanding keeps the team working together to achieve the project's goals and deliver excellent results. Project plans give clarity on the responsibilities of each team member and stakeholder in the project. They also organize the project's work from start to finish and prevent extraneous work from crowding out critical tasks.
Project plans can become a powerful communication tool within the team throughout the project. They serve as an important written reference for the project manager, team members, and external stakeholders. These plans also help to mitigate risk and maintain quality at all stages of the project — from planning to completion. There are essential elements you must include to create a good project plan. Keep in mind that creating and working with a flawed project plan is just as bad as working without one.
Timeline, costs, and deliverables should be detailed clearly to show the scope of your project. How important is this project to the organizational objectives? How does it tie in with the goals for the year or quarter? What do the involved stakeholders expect?
These are a few questions you can ask to outline and align the new project with your organization and stakeholder needs. Even though a project plan is a living set of documents that is sure to change during the project, it is necessary to set a deliberate course to meet the project objectives. As a project manager, you should analyze the needs of all parties involved in the project and determine the requirements to achieve them.
What objectives must the project achieve to be successful? What features and capabilities should the deliverables have? The project scope statement is one of the most essential elements of a project plan. It forms a foundation for the rest of the project plan. In the project scope statement , the project manager finalizes and records all project details to get everyone involved on the same page. This statement describes the project and its steps and requirements. It is usually the reference to get agreement and buy-in from external stakeholders involved in the project.
From the preparation of the project scope statement , you should now have a clearer idea of the deliverables and outcomes to be delivered to complete this project. The project plan identifies the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders. The project manager gets clarity and agreement on what will be done, by whom, as well as which decisions each stakeholder will make.
The scope of work statement is one of the most important documents in the project plan. The scope includes the business need and business problem, the project objectives, deliverables, and key milestones. Project baselines are established in the project plan. If the project manager is concerned about a task, they know exactly who to meet with regarding that concern.
The project manager is responsible for dispersing these resources appropriately. For a project that has vendors, the project manager ensures deliverables are completed according to contract terms, paying particular attention to quality.
Some project budgets link to the human resources plan. It's important to establish the cost for each milestone and deliverable by looking at how much time is required, and the labor cost involved to complete the tasks.
The cost of the project is tied to how long the project takes, which goes back to the scope of the project. The scope, milestones, tasks, and budget must be aligned and realistic. The human resources plan shows how the project will be staffed. Sometimes known as the staffing plan, the HR plan defines who will be on the project team and how much of a time commitment each person is expected to make.
In developing this plan, the project manager negotiates with team members and their supervisors on how much time each team member can devote to the project. If additional staff is needed to consult on the project but are is part of the project team, that also is documented in the staffing plan. Again, appropriate supervisors are consulted. Many things can go wrong on a project. While anticipating every possible disaster or minor hiccup is challenging, many pitfalls can be predicted.
In the risk management plan, the project manager identifies risks to the project , the likelihood those scenarios will happen, and strategies to mitigate them. To formulate this plan, the project manager seeks input from the project sponsor, project team, stakeholders, and internal experts. Mitigation strategies are put into place for risks that are likely to occur or have high costs associated with them.
A communications plan outlines how a project will be communicated to various audiences. Much like the work breakdown structure, a communications plan assigns responsibility for completing each component to a project team member. In this step, it's important to outline how issues will be communicated and resolved within the team and how often communication will be done to the team and the stakeholders or the boss. Be thorough in your research to uncover critical project details, and ask thoughtful questions before you commit to anything.
Schedule time with your main project contact, and ask them some tough questions about process, organizational politics, and general risks before creating a project plan. This will give project stakeholders confidence that your team has the experience to handle any difficult personality or situation. It also shows you care about the success of the project from the start.
See a list of sample interview questions to ask stakeholders so you can develop better project plans. Sit down with your team and get to know their:. Understanding these basics about your team will help you craft a thoughtful plan that takes their work styles and bandwidth into consideration. After all, a happy team delivers better projects. Take some time to think about the discussions you had in the pre-planning phase and the approach your team might take to meet the project goals.
Sit down with a pen and paper or a whiteboard , and outline how the project should work at a high level. Be sure you have a calendar close by to check dates.
Any solid project plan should answer these questions:. A first outline can be very rough and might look something like a work breakdown structure , as noted in our chapter on project estimation. Make sure your project plan outline includes the following components:. Considering these elements will help you avoid surprises—or at least minimize them. This enables you to invite discussion about what might work rather than simply dictating a process.
After all, every project must begin with clear communication of the project goals and the effort required to meet them. As a project manager, you can decide on Agile vs. Waterfall approaches , but when it comes down to it, you need to know that the team can realistically execute the plan.
You can also use this project plan review time to question your own thinking and push the team to take a new approach to the work. Or can you have two resources working on the same task at once?
Running ideas by the team and having an open dialogue about the approach not only helps you build a more accurate project plan. It gets everyone thinking about the project in the same terms. This type of buy-in and communication builds trust and gets people excited about working together to solve a goal. It can work wonders for the greater good of your team and project. You should feel comfortable enough at this point to put together a rock-solid project schedule using whatever tool works for you.
Ahem, TeamGantt works nicely for a lot of happy customers. Make sure tasks, durations, milestones, and dates are crystal-clear, and try to keep your project plan simple. The easier it is to read, the better! See the steps for creating a project plan in TeamGantt. Be as flexible as possible when it comes to how your project plan is presented.
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