ARE YOU FINISHED planning? Count heads to get your first clue: the amount of planning needed depends on the coordination requirements for the project, and coordination needs increase as the number of people working on the project increases.
The amount of planning needed also depends on management: the more information management requires, the more planning the team must do. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because increased planning will make the execution phase of the project go more smoothly, with less rework and less cost.
Here's a “planning planner” in the form of questions to ask, with actions to take if the answer is yes.
Not all projects are created equal: some require extensive planning, others don't. How do you know when you've done enough?
1. Do you need clear direction for your project? Is it important to know what the sponsor expects from the project? Complete a charter.
2. Does the customer or sponsor need to know what will be produced by the project? Does the team need to know what it will produce as the final deliverable of the project? Write a scope description.
3. Do you need to ensure the quality of the final deliverable? Do you need to break the final deliverable down into more manageable chunks? Define interim deliverables.
4. Do you want to be sure everyone is clear on what is the responsibility of the project and what is not the responsibility of the project? Do you want to avoid any misunderstanding about where the project begins and where it ends? Define scope boundaries.
5. Do you need to structure the project? Do you need to make sure every part of the project work has been assigned to someone? Do a subproject work breakdown.
6. Do you want to prevent potential problems? Do a risk assessment.
Paula Martin and Karen Tate, PMP, are co-founders of MartinTate, a project management training firm. They co-authored the Project Management Memory Jogger™ (available through the PMI Bookstore). More information on making planning and reporting decisions can be found on their website at www.projectresults.com. Send comments on this column to [email protected].
7. Will anyone outside or inside the project team need to review or approve any of the interim deliverables before they are issued/delivered? Make a list of reviews and approvals required.
8. Do you need to issue status reports on the project to keep the sponsor, customer and other stakeholders informed on how the project is progressing? Make a list of status reports required.
9. Do you need to assure that you have the right people on the team? Do you need to ensure that all stakeholder interests are represented on the project? Review team composition.
10. Do you need to communicate the overall schedule (big picture) of the project? Do a milestone schedule.
11. Will you need to track the progress of the final deliverable? Do you need to know when the hand-offs from one person to another will occur? Do you want to assure that the customer's requirements will be met? Create a deliverables schedule.
12. Do you have relatively inexperienced people doing the work of the project? Is this a project that you haven't done before? Create an activity schedule.
13. Is there a need to estimate how much staff effort (internal effort) will be required to complete the entire project? Do a staff effort estimate.
14. Do you need to track staff effort during the execution phase of the project? Do a staff effort forecast.
15. Is there a need to estimate how much money will be spent on the project? Do a spending estimate.
16. Do you need to track expenses during the execution phase of the project? Do a spending forecast.
If your project has subprojects, subproject teams should run through the list and do those planning activities that apply as well.
The time it takes to do each planning activity will vary based on the simplicity of the project and the experience of the team. If you're working on a software development project and you've done dozens of these before, the planning phase should go relatively quickly. Not so if you've never done software development before.
IN EITHER CASE, remember: A minute invested in planning is an hour saved in execution. Do what's needed, no more, no less. You won't be sorry.