Project Planning

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Project plan• A project plan, according to the Project

Management Body of Knowledge is"...a formal, approved document used to guide both project execution and project control. The

primary uses of the project plan are to document planning assumptions and decisions, facilitate

communication among stakeholders, and document approved scope, cost, and schedule

baselines. A project plan may be summarized or detailed."

• "...a statement of how and when a project's objectives are to be achieved, by showing the

major products, milestones, activities and resources required on the project."

Why project planning is essential?

• As project planning is the initial steps of successful project management it is helpful to set up some direction to the project participants. At a minimum, a project plan answers basic questions about the project:

• Why? - What is the problem or value proposition addressed by the project? Why is it being sponsored?

• What? - What is the work that will be performed on the project? What are the major products/deliverables?

• Who? - Who will be involved and what will be their responsibilities within the project? How will they be organized?

• When? - What is the project timeline and when will particularly meaningful points, referred to as milestones, be complete?

Why project planning is essential?

The project plan assists in the following way:• It estimates the amount of time needed to finish the

project.• It helps identifying assigning the responsibility to the

individual.• It sets standards to be achieved at the end.• It also provides sequence and performance guideline.• Finally it guides to carrying the project properly.• Project planning is a rational determination of how to

initiate, sustain, control and terminate a project• Project Planning involves the development of a

strategy for the commitment of resources to realize the project’s goal / sub goals

• Planning reduces uncertainty, increases understanding and improves efficiency

• Many project failures are directly attributable to shortcomings in the project planning phase

Additional aspect of project plan:

• The Project Management Plan – which is the logical consequence of project planning – will state the activities and tasks that are needed to be done, why they are necessary, when they are to be completed, who will do what, what resources will be needed and what criteria must be met in order for the project to be declared complete and successful

• The Project Management Plan is dynamic (i.e. subject to possible additions, modifications and/or revisions as a result of more information which may become available, or change requests which may surface as the project progresses through its life-cycle), indispensable, and serves as a roadmap for how work on the project is to be undertaken, as well as constituting a decision-making tool

• Project planning may constitute an exercise for just one or a few individuals if the project is simple. If the project is “complex”, then project planning is frequently undertaken in planning sessions by a group of experts and consultants, and which includes participation by key project stakeholders, such as the project customer(s)

• In the ideal situation, anything that may have a qualitative and quantitative impact on the project should be identified, carefully reviewed and assessed, and documented

• Project plans must be updated as and when new information subsequently becomes available which necessitate a change

Additional aspect continued……………

Design of a project Plan element:

• Overview– Summarized Scope, Objectives, Structure

• Objectives– Time, Cost, Performance– Profit Goals– Technical Requirements

• General Approach– Technologies to Use– Managerial Procedures

• Contracting Guidelines– Legal Considerations– Procedural and Relationship Considerations

• Schedule and Resources Limitations– Early Identification of Tradeoffs

• Monitor and Control– Establish Metrics, Measurements, &

Opportunities• Potential Problem Areas

– Risk Identification, Assessment, and Response

Project Planning in Action • Action Plan:

• A detailed plan which supply all the required information carrying out the plan in a right way. Project plans are usually constructed by listing the sequence of activities required to carry the project from start to completion, and developing an action plan to complete the activities

• This helps the planner decide the necessary sequence of things

• Sequencing is a necessary consideration for determining the project schedule and duration

• Find out – list of task to complete, – who is responsible – time frame – Resources.

Action Plan Example…..

Work breakdown structure

• The work breakdown structure (WBS) is a powerful tool for expressing the scope or extent of a project in simple graphic terms. It represents the project in terms of the hierarchy of deliverables and services it will produce.

• The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) can take a variety of forms that serve a variety of purposes

• The WBS often appears as an outline with Level I tasks on the left and successive levels appropriately indented

• The WBS may also picture a project subdivided into hierarchical units of tasks, subtasks, work packages, etc.

• The WBS is an important document and can be tailored for use in a number of different ways– It may illustrate how each piece of the

project contributes to the whole in terms of performance, responsibility, schedule, and budget

– It may list the vendors or subcontractors associated with specific tasks

– It may serve as the basis for making cost estimates or estimates of task duration

• It may be used to document that all parties have signed off on their various commitments to the project

The role of the WBS is to:

• Partition the major project deliverables into smaller components to improve the accuracy of cost estimates

• Provide a mechanism for collecting and organizing actual costs

• Provide a mechanism for performance measurement and control

Types of Work Breakdown structure:

• The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) should not be confused with other types of breakdown structures which provide useful project information, notably:– The Organizational Breakdown Structure

(OBS): The OBS provides a hierarchically organized depiction of the project organization arranged in a manner which shows the relation of the project work packages to the performing organizational units

– The Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS): The RBS provides a hierarchical organized depiction of the identified project risks arranged by risk category

– The Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS): The RBS provides a hierarchically organized depiction of the resources by type which are to be used on the

project

Procedure of WBS:• General steps for designing and using the WBS:

– 1. Using information from the action plan, list the task breakdown in successively finer levels of detail.

Continue until all meaningful tasks or work packages have been identified

– 2. For each such work package, identify the data relevant to the WBS. List the personnel and organizations responsible for each task.

– 3. All work package information should be reviewed with the individuals or organizations who have responsibility for doing or supporting the work in order to verify the accuracy of the WBS

– 4. The total project budget should consist of four elements: direct budgets from each task; an indirect cost budget for the project; a “contingency” reserve for unexpected emergencies; and any residual, which includes the profit derived from the project

– 5. The project master schedule integrates the many different schedules relevant to the various parts of the project

• Items 1-5 focus on the WBS as a planning tool but it may also be used to monitor and control the project

• Items 6 and 7 focus on the WBS as an aid to monitor and control a project:– 6. The project manager can examine actual

resource use, by work element, work package, task, up to the full project level. The project manager can identify problems, harden the estimates of final cost, and make sure that relevant corrections have been designed and are ready to implement

– 7. The project schedule may be subjected to the same comparisons as the project budget. Actual progress is compared to scheduled andcorrective action can be taken

WBS Linear Responsibility Chart

Simplified Linear Responsibility Chart

Work Breakdown Structure Pitfalls

Lastly let's look at five common pitfalls to creating a WBS. If you can keep these few possible

issues in mind when you are creating your WBS, you and your team will be much more

successful at creating a useful and accurate Work Breakdown Structure.1. Level of Work Package Detail

• When deciding how specific and detailed to make your work packages, you must be careful to not get too detailed. This will lead to the project manager to have to micromanage the project and eventually slow down project progress. On the other hand, work packages whose details are too broad or large become impossible for the project manager to manage as a whole.

2. Deliverables Not Activities or Tasks

• The WBS should contain a list of broken down deliverables. In other words, what the customer/stakeholder will get when the project is complete. It is NOT a list of specific activities and tasks used to accomplish the deliverables. How the work is completed (tasks and activities) can vary and change throughout the project, but deliverables cannot without a change request, so you do not want to list activities and tasks in the WBS.

3. WBS is not a Plan or Schedule• The WBS cannot be used as a

replacement for the project plan or schedule. A WBS is not required to be created in any type of order or sequence. It is simply a visual breakdown of deliverables.

• 4. WBS Updates Require Change Control

• The WBS is a formal project document, and any changes to it require the use of the project change control process. Any changes to the WBS change the deliverables and, therefore, the scope of the project. This is an important point to help control scope creep.

5. WBS is not an Organizational Hierarchy

• The WBS and Organizational Hierarchy chart are never the same thing. Although often similar in appearance, these two documents are very different. The Organizational Hierarchy shows things like chain of command and lines of communication, but the WBS is restricted simply to a project shows only the deliverables and scope of that project.

Considerations in Choosing a Work

Breakdown Structure• The WBS for a given project can take on different manifestations, depending on the nature of the project, and also the subjective perceptions of the planners

• All individuals and organizational units that will be using the WBS should provide input before a design is chosen

• The project manager should have the final say on the design of the WBS because he or she is ultimately responsible for the project’s success or failure

• Senior management or organizational requirements regarding reporting, documentation etc. will have to be taken into consideration by the project manager and his team when drafting a WBS

Functions of the Work Breakdown Structure

• Helps the project manager, the project team and other key stakeholders visualize how the project can be defined, broken down into component work elements and activities and managed effectively

• Summarize all products and services comprising the project, including support and other tasks

• Display the interrelationship of the work packages to each other, to the total project, and to other activities in the organization

• Estimate project cost• Schedule work packages• Develop information for managing the project• Provide a basis for controlling the application of

resources on the project and reporting project status• Provide reference points for getting people committed to • support the project

Integration Management (For

Coordination)• The intricate process of coordinating the work and timing of the different groups is called integration management. The firm interface coordination is used to denote the process of management this work across multigroups. When multifunctional terms are used to plan complex project, their work must be integrated and coordinated. Interfaces maps are a useful way of identifying the interdependencies that must be managed.

• Integration management is concerned with three objectives:

• Performance• Efficiency• Effectiveness• Cost savings.