Title: Planning Projects
Course: MAN 2582 Intro to Project Management > Section: Module 4

Introduction

“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.”
- Paul J. Meyer

Successful projects require good planning. The more time spent on planning, the better the project will be. The project manager, the project team, and many of the stakeholders will need to know where the project is going and how the team plans to get there. That is planning. It is an interactive process where individuals in the group communicate clearly and understand their individual parts in reaching the goal of the project. Planning shows how the different processes fit together, how each will be executed, who has responsibility for what, who controls different aspects of the project, who will do the monitoring and controlling, who's in charge of quality, how often reports will be issued, and the measure of how the project will be deemed a success or failure. Planning requires teamwork, time, and resources.

Once the work order or business case has been accepted, a much more detailed planning document must be generated. This document takes a microscope and outlines the scope of the project. This extensive document is called the project charter and it includes the following:

- How changes will be made
- Who will be in charge of what
- The cost of the plan
- The performance baseline
- The schedule
- The process improvement plan
- Who’s in charge of monitoring risk
- The human resources to be allocated
- The form of communication between people
- Procurement

Once a project charter is approved, the project is officially underway.

It goes without saying, that the better the quality of the planning phase, the more chance of success for the project.

Objectives

Upon completion of this module, the student will be able to:

- Describe the importance of creating plans to guide project execution, and list several planning processes and outputs for project integration, scope, time, and cost management
- Discuss the project integration management planning process, and explain the purpose and contents of a team contract and a project management plan
- Explain the four project scope management planning processes, and create requirements documents, a requirements management plan, a requirements traceability matrix, a project scope statement, a work breakdown structure (WBS), and a WBS dictionary
- Describe the six project time management planning processes, and prepare an activity list and attributes, milestone list, project schedule network diagram, activity resource requirements, activity duration estimates, and project schedule
- Discuss the three project cost management planning processes, and create a cost estimate, cost baseline, and project funding requirements
- List several planning processes and outputs for project quality, human resource, communications, stakeholder, risk, and procurement management
- Discuss the project quality management planning process, and explain the purpose and contents of a quality management plan, project dashboard, quality metrics, and quality checklists
- Explain the project human resource management planning process, and create a human resource plan
- Describe the project communications management planning process, and describe the importance of using a project communications management plan and project Web site
- Understand the importance of planning stakeholder management, and describe the contents of a stakeholder management plan
- Discuss the five project risk management planning processes, and explain how a risk management plan, a probability/impact matrix, a risk register, and risk-related contractual agreements are used in risk management planning
- Discuss the project procurement management planning process, and explain a make-or-buy analysis, procurement management plans, requests for proposal/quote, contract statements of work, and supplier evaluation matrice

Readings & Resources

An Introduction to Project Management, 4th Edition

- Chapters 4 and 5