Table of Contents
Key Concept of Planning:
- Planning is defined as an organized conscious and continual attempt to select the best available alternatives to achieve specific goal.
- Planning can also be defined as the process of deciding how the future should be better than the present, what changes are necessary to make these improvements and how these changes should be implemented.
- It is the process of setting goals and choosing best alternatives to achieve stated goals.
Importance/Purpose of Planning:
- To match the limited resources with many problems
- To eliminate the wasteful resources or duplication of expenditure
- To develop best course of action to accomplish a defined objective
Characteristics of Effective Planning:
- A fundamental function of project management
- Plans have flexibility
- Change adaptability: time and space
- Plan balances between idealistic and practical
- Logical Procedure is followed
- Planning is a cyclic process, goal and specific objectives are recycled
Activities of Project Planning:
Project planning consist of following activities:
- Feasibility design: it determines the implement-ability of the project
- Appraisal: it is the evaluation of project ability to succeed.
- Detail Design: it is concerned with preparation of guideline of work and detail implementation plan.
Project planning is also concerned about decision regarding:
- What activities need to be done in project?
- How the activities will be done?
- When the activities are to be done?
- Who will do the activities?
Project planning involves defining project objectives, evaluating alternative courses of action and selecting best alternative to peruse.
Before moving into steps of project planning process, if you want to know about project management cycle, you can click the hyperlink below:
http://project-management-cycle-pmc-its-phases-and-characteristics/
Steps of Project Planning Process:
- Understand project objectives
- Identify key project stages
- Prepare work break down structure
- Determine logical sequence of activities
- Estimate time and resource requirements
- Allocate responsibilities for each activity
- Finalize project plan
1. Understand project objectives
- A project objectives describes the desired results of a project,which often includes a tangible item.
- An objective is specific and measurable, and must meet time, budget, and quality constraints.
2. Identify key project stages
- There are five phases of project management and if the life cycle provides a high –level view of the project, the phases are the road map to accomplish it. These five phases are:
i) Project initiation
ii) Project planning
iii) Project Execution
iv) Project performance/Monitoring
v) Project closure
3. Prepare work break down structure
- A work breakdown structure is a key project deliverable that organizes the team’s work into manageable sections.
- The Project Management Body of knowledge defines the work breakdown structure as a deliverable oriented hierarchical decomposition of work to be executed by the project team.
- The project team creates the project work breakdown structure by identifying the major functional deliverable and subdividing those deliverable into smaller system and sub deliverable.
4. Determine logical sequences of activity
- Sequence activities is the process of identifying and documenting relationships among the project activities.
- In the project management, the key benefit of this type of process is that it defines the logical sequence of work to obtain the greatest efficiency given all project constraints.
5. Estimate time and resource requirements
Accurate time estimation is a skill essential for good project management. It is important to get time estimates right for two main reasons:
a) Time estimates drive the setting of deadlines for delivery and planning of projects, and hence will impact on other peoples’ assessment of your reliability and competence as a project manager.
b) Time estimates often determine the pricing of contracts and hence the profitability of the contract/project in commercial terms.
6. Allocate responsibilities for each activity
a) Technical Responsibilities
- Identify technical requirements
- Define scope, goals, and deliverable, Identify resource requirements
- Select the project team
- Estimate time, costs and schedules
- Prepare and present the project plan
b) Execution Responsibilities
- Maintain and monitor the project plan
- Approve, reject and apply change requests
- Monitor and resolve open issues
- Track project progress
- Manage the project budget
- Manage vendor and supply relationships
c) Communication Responsibilities
- Does this project have a specific customer?
- What types of communications will be required?
- Interviews to obtain requirements.
- Negotiation of requirements, acceptance criteria, schedules and scope changes.
- Problems and issues communication.
- Status reporting.
d) Staff Responsibilities
- How large is the project team?
- Will all team members report directly to the project manager or to project team leaders?
- Will project team members continue to report directly to line managers during the term of the project?
- Will the project manager be responsible for evaluating staff performance?
- Will the project manager have the authority to remove or reassign project team members?
7. Finalize project plan
- A project plan is finalized when it is formally accepted and approved by the project sponsor and other designated stakeholders.
- Formal approval acknowledges that all the deliverable produced during the Plan Stage are complete, reviewed and accepted.
- Signatures on the project plan document indicate final approval. This sign-off marks the plan as the go-forward agreement and can be viewed as a project management milestone.
References and For More Information:
https://www.slideshare.net/jobitonio/project-planning-and-development
https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/ana/ppd_manual_6_27_12.pdf
https://www.projectmanager.com/project-planning
https://www.projecttimes.com/articles/10-steps-to-creating-a-project-plan.html
https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/developing-the-project-plan.php
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_71.htm
https://www.grin.com/document/211504
https://www.wrike.com/blog/foolproof-project-plan/
https://www.academia.edu/25736225/PROJECT_PLANNING_AND_MANAGEMENT
https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/develop-plan.html
https://www.pm4dev.com/resources/free-e-books/130-development-project-management/file.html
https://www.thegrassrootscollective.org/introduction-project-planning
https://hbr.org/2016/11/the-four-phases-of-project-management
https://www.invensislearning.com/resources/pmp/developing-project-management-plan-explained
https://www.northeastern.edu/graduate/blog/developing-project-management-plan/
Author of the article:
This article is written by Mr. Nigam Koirala. Mr. Koirala is a Public Health Graduate from a reputed university of India. He holds more than five years of experience in public health sector and is currently working as a Assistant Professor in Nepal.
