Project Planning: Putting It All Together. Template:
- Schedule : how to make accurate time estimates, and how to set milestones.
- Budget : how to build and manage a budget and how the procurement processes work.
- Risk Management : tools help to identify and manage different types of risk and how to use a risk management plan to communicate and resolve risks.
- Communication Plan : how to draft and manage a communication plan and how to organize project documentation.
Components of a project plan:
- Project scope and goals, the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), the budget, and management plans.
- Tasks. Milestones. People. Documentation. Time.
1. Schedule
Project kick-off meeting agenda: Introduction, Background, Goals and scope, Roles, Collaboration, What comes next, Questions.
1.1 Milestones
Set up Milestones and Deadline.
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) : sorts project milestones and tasks into the order they need to be completed. (how and why)
- Start with the high-level, overarching project picture. Brainstorm with your team to list the major deliverables and milestones.
- Identify the tasks that need to be performed in order to meet those milestones.
- Examine those tasks and break them down further into sub-tasks.
1.2 Time Estimation
The planning fallacy : our tendency to underestimate the amount of time used, due to optimism bias. -> adding task buffers.
Capacity planning (allocate enough people and resources to tasks) and the Critical path (tasks with top priority) (reading 1, reading 2):
- Capture all tasks
- Set dependencies
- Create a network diagram
- Make time estimates
- Find the critical path
Getting accurate time estimates from your team (using Soft Skills) : Asking the right questions; Negotiating effectively; Practicing empathy.
1.3 Tools
Best practices:
- Carefully review deliverables, milestones, and tasks.
- Give yourself time to plan.
- Recognize and plan for the inevitable: things will go wrong.
- Stay curious.
- Champion your plan.
Tools: Gantt chart, Spreadsheets and Asana.
2. Budget
Key components: Resource cost rate (Direct/Indirect costs), Reserve analysis, Contingency budget (buffer funds), Cost of quality (all of the costs that are incurred to deliver a quality).
- Understand stakeholders’ need.
- Budget for surprise expense.
- Maintaining adaptability.
- Reviewing and re-forecasting throughout the project.
Create project a budget: (1) Historical data. (2) Leverage (use to maximal advantage) experts. (3) Bottom-up. thinking from beginning to end. Break the project into tasks, then evaluate. (4) Confirm accuracy. (5) Baseline.
Maintain a project budget. Monitor & Cost control.
Procurement : obtaining all of the materials, services, and supplies required to complete the project. Vendor management.
- Initiating - Non-Disclosure Agreement;
- Selecting vendor - Request for Proposal used to solicit bids from vendors so the project team can select the best vendor for a project;
- Contract writing - Statement of Work describes the products and services a vendor or contractor will provide for an organization;
- Controlling. making payments and maintaining and ensuring quality.
- Completing. measuring your success.
3. Risk Management
- Identify, analyze, evaluate, treat, and control.
- An opportunity is a potential positive outcome of a risk.
- Identify risk by create a fishbone diagram, help the team to brainstorm potential causes of a problem or risk and sort them into useful categories.
- (1) Define the problem; (2) Identify the categories; (3) Brainstorm the causes; (4) Analyze the causes.
- Risk type : (1) internal : time, budget, scope; (2) external risk; (3) single point of failure.
Risk mitigation strategies.
- Avoid the risk
- Accept the risk
- Reduce or control the risk
- Transfer the risk
Risk management plan: Probability chart, Impact chart, Probability and Impact Matrix, Risk to project.
4. Communication Plan
Effective communication:
- Recognize and understand individual differences
- Brainstorm and craft the appropriate message
- Deliver your message
- Obtain feedback and incorporate that feedback going forward
Communication Plan template : organizes and documents the process, types, and expectations of communication for the project: what (types), who, when (frequency, key dates), how (delivery method), why (goals), where (resources links).
Project documentation -> Knowledge management. what to share with who and when.