Master project planning

Successful projects are carefully planned by the owner's project manager. Successful project managers are masters in creating detailed project plans that specify the project's scope, cost, schedule, activities, and resources. This article outlines a seven-step approach to planning projects, an approach known as master project plan (MPP). It discusses the factors involved in successfully managing projects and a three-phase approach--planning, monitoring, and controlling--used in managing projects. It identifies four reasons why projects fail and six areas which affect project outcome. It then details the seven-step MPP, a process depicted in a flow chart and initiated with the statement of work, milestone schedule, and order-of-magnitude estimate, a process that allows for paralleling, reiteration, and cycling back through activities and concludes with the creation of the master project schedule. In describing the process of implementing MPP, it describes the key elements in creating the MPP, elements such as the work breakdown schedule (WBS), organizational breakdown structure (OBS), linear responsibility chart, conceptual design, budget estimate, network diagram, resource allocation, and resource-constrained (resource-limited) scheduling. It concludes by recommending how project managers can best implement the MPP.