Planning a Project

Overview  
Before committing to major expenditure on the project, the timescale and resource requirements must be established. This information is held in the Project Plan and is needed so that the Business Case can be evaluated and the Project Board can control the project.

Context  
The process uses the common Planning process to produce the Project Plan and the detailed plan for the next stage. It includes the implications of the Project Quality Plan from Planning Quality.

The Project Plan becomes a major element of the Project Foundation Document.

Process Description
The objectives of the process are to:

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Understand at a high level the totality of the work which is about to be undertaken, by:

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Identifying and, where possible, defining the major products of the project - identifying the major activities to be performed to deliver the products

 

*      Assessing the major risks of the project, and putting in place countermeasures, as highlighted in the Management of Risk chapter of this manual

*      Estimating the effort needed

*      Identifying the timescales achievable, given the project constraints and any key milestones

*      Identifying the overall resource requirements and costs

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Identify the key decision and review points for the project, and from these decide where the management stage divisions should be (as discussed in Stages)

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Use the Planning process to produce the Project Plan

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Trigger Planning a Stage to produce a detailed plan for the first stage of the project.

As this process is basically a planning process, the detailed steps needed to carry it out are those explained in Planning.

Responsibilities

The Project Manager is responsible, assisted where appropriate by project support roles and guided by those with project assurance responsibilities, who also check the results.

Information Needs

Management information

Usage

Explanation

Project Approach

Input

This product will explain how the work of the project is to be approached and provides a key input into the planning process

Project Directive

Input

This document contains the base information about the project. It is this information which this process uses as the primary start point for the planning process

Project Quality Plan

Input

This product is needed because the work carried out and the time and resources needed to conduct it will be influenced by the quality required and the quality approach to be adopted

Project Plan

Output

This is the ultimate deliverable from the process and its production is the prime reason for carrying out the process

Trigger for Next Stage Plan preparation

Output

Invokes Planning a Stage to produce the Next Stage Plan

Key Criteria

Does the Project Plan show the appropriate balance between being comprehensive and complete, and being sufficiently concise to be understandable? For instance:

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Are all the relevant parts of the Project Directive reflected in the Project Plan?

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Is the level of detail in the Project Plan appropriate for the project, bearing in mind:

 

*               The duration of the project

*               The levels of certainty or otherwise concerning the project's outcome

*               The complexity of the project, e.g. the number of dependencies compared with the number of products, the number of departments or groups involved

*               The corporate and business risks involved?

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Will it support, and be supported by, the other elements of the Project Foundation Document? Also is it in sufficient detail to support development of the Project Foundation Document?

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Is the Project Plan in a state suitable to support the decisions to be made in Authorising a Project ?

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Is the Project Plan concise enough to be of practical use for the members of the Project Board?

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Has the Customer imposed any quality criteria on the final product that will require quality related work beyond normal expectations?