Project Planning

Plan to plan. It is always difficult to get people together to develop a plan. The planning session itself should be planned, or it may turn into a totally disorganized meeting like those that plague many
organizations. This means that an agenda must be prepared, that the agenda should be time-limited to
the degree possible, and that people should be kept on track; if someone gets off on a tangent, the
meeting facilitator should get the person back on track as quickly as possible.

The first rule of planning is to be prepared to replan!
• The people who must implement a plan should participate in preparing it. Otherwise, they may feel
no sense of commitment to the plan, estimates for their work may be erroneous, and major tasks may be
forgotten.
• Because unexpected obstacles will crop up, always conduct a risk analysis to anticipate the most
likely ones. Develop Plan B just in case Plan A doesn’t work. Why not just use Plan B in the first
place? Because Plan A is better but has a few weaknesses. Plan B has weaknesses, also, but they must
be different from those in Plan A, or there is no use in considering it as a backup.
The simple way to do a risk analysis is simply to ask, “What could go wrong?” You should do this for
the schedule, work performance, and other parts of the project plan. Sometimes simply identifying risks
can help avert them; if that is not possible, at least you can create a backup plan. One caution: if you are
dealing with very analytical people, they may go into analysis paralysis here. You are not trying to
identify every possible risk—just those that are fairly likely.
Identify project risks, and develop contingencies to deal with them if they occur.
• Begin by looking at the purpose of doing whatever is to be done. Develop a problem statement. All
actions in an organization should be taken to achieve a result, that is, to solve a problem. Be careful
here to identify what the end user really needs to solve the problem. Sometimes a solution is developed
that the project team thinks is right for the client but that is never used, resulting in significant waste to
the organization.

• Use the Work Breakdown Structure to divide the work into smaller chunks
for which you can develop accurate estimates of duration, cost, and resource requirements.
PROJECT PLANNING STEPS
The basic steps in planning are:
1. Define the problem to be solved by the project.
2. Develop a mission statement, followed by statements of major objectives.
Be sure the project really satisfies the customer’s needs, rather than being what the team thinks the customer
should get!
3. Develop a project strategy that will meet all project objectives.
4. Write a scope statement to define project boundaries (what will and will not be done).
5. Develop a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).
6. Using the WBS, estimate activity durations, resource requirements, and costs (as appropriate for
your environment).
7. Prepare the project master schedule and budget.
8. Decide on the project organization structure—whether matrix or hierarchical (if you are free to
choose).
9. Set up the project notebook.
10. Get the plan signed off by all project stakeholders.