Chapter 25: Introduction to Project Planning

After the project has been initiated, you need to develop a project management plan, which becomes the primary source of information for how the project you are currently managing will be executed, monitored & controlled, and closed.

In this chapter, we are going to take a look at how a Project Manager would begin this planning phase.

So, lets get started!!!

Planning the Project

Once the project has been initiated, it’s time to do some planning. As I said in the previous chapter, any project that does not have a proper plan seldom succeeds. So, as the project manager it is our responsibility to plan properly and to ensure that our project is a success. This includes determining the project scope, during which time you’ll refine the project objectives and determine things like:

• How the scope will be executed
• How the execution will be monitored and controlled, and
• How the project will be brought to a proper closure.

Project planning is embodied in the project management plan that is developed through progressive elaboration. The project management plan is a document that defines, prepares, coordinates, and integrates all subsidiary plans, such as scope and risk management plans, into one plan. The goal here is to develop a source of information that will work as a guideline for how the project will be executed, monitored and controlled, and closed.

Trivia:
It is important for any project to have a good plan. It is possible that the project manager might leave the company or move on to another critical project where his/her expertise is needed and leave the current project to another manager. Eitherways, the presence of a good project plan will help the new manager, whomsoever it might be, to handle and manage the project effectively.

How Important is Project Planning?

Let us take a real time example to explain this. Lets assume that you are going to get married and for the sake of comparison, lets compare this marriage to a project. (I know it's a bad analogy but I think it would be a good example to explain the whole importance part of it)

Once you decide to get married, you need to fix a marriage hall, print invitations, send them to all your friends, meet up close friends & family members and invite them, arrange caterers, arrange decoration parties who will decorate the marriage hall during the events, arrange for flowers and garlands, buy new cloths, jewels for the bride, and on and on. The list is very long. Unless someone from the couples family (Usually the Fathers of the bride & groom) sit down and do extensive planning to ensure that the event is a success.

Imagine, what a disaster it would be to realize that the flowers & garlands werent ordered and the bride and groom are ready to tie the knot on the stage? Forget the disaster, it would be embarrassing for the couple and their close family members to see such an event.

Fortunately, the project managers (the dads of the couple) wouldn't let such a thing happen and plan it all out properly to result in a successful and happy wedding.

I guess, by now you have understood the importance of planning on the success of a project.

Elements of Project Planning

The planning phase of any project would involve 3 important things:

1. Refining the project objectives defined during project initiation and collecting requirements based on the stakeholder needs and expectations.
2. Determining the scope of the project.
3. Determining the course of action required to attain these objectives, which involves breaking down the scope and objectives into concrete, manageable tasks.

It is important to plan the project because not all projects need all the planning processes, nor do they all need them with the same level. Therefore, the content of the project management plan, the ultimate output of project planning, will depend upon the project under consideration.

As the project goes through different stages, the project management plan may be updated and revised through the change control process. Following are some issues that project planning phase addresses:

• Which project management processes will be used for the project, what the level of implementation for each of the processes will be, and what the inputs and tools and techniques for the processes are
• The project baseline against which the performance of the project will be measured and against which the project will be monitored and controlled
• How the changes to the approved plan will be monitored and controlled
• What the needs and techniques for communication among the stakeholders are
• How the project lifecycle looks, including the project phases if the project is a multiphase one

Note: This list is not exhaustive and the project plan may include a lot more than this.
Trivia:

The project baseline is defined as the approved plan for the scope, schedule, and cost of the project. The project performance is measured against this baseline, and therefore this baseline is also called the performance baseline. The project baseline is also referred to in terms of its components: cost baseline, schedule baseline, and scope baseline. How do you know how the project is performing? You compare the performance to the baseline. Approved changes in scope, schedule, or cost will obviously change the baseline.

Let us take a look at a pictorial representation of how the Project Management Plan is Prepared.

Before I begin explanation, this is just a high level view. The details involved in each of these steps might be more complicated and may require a lot of effort.
The output of the project Initiation Phase is the Project Charter, Stakeholder Register and the Stakeholder Management Strategy. These are the inputs in the process of creating the Project Management Plan.

Depending upon the complexity of the project, the project management plan can be either a summary or a collection of subsidiary plans and components, which might include:

• Standard plans from different aspects of project planning, such as the cost management plan, communication management plan, scope management plan, and risk management plan.
• Other components, such as the milestones list, the resource calendar, and baselines for scope, schedule, cost, and quality. A baseline is a reference plan against which all the performance deviations are measured. This reference plan can be the original or the updated plan.

In a nutshell, project planning involves determining exactly what will be done and how it will be done. Executing a project means implementing the project management plan for that project. Therefore, the project management plan contains the project scope that defines what needs to be done to meet the project objectives.

But how exactly is the project management plan actually developed? Don't worry, that is what our next chapter is going to explain…

Previous: Planning a Project

Next: Developing the Project Management Plan

Chapter 24: Planning the Project

In the previous chapters, we learnt how to Initiate a Project, how to create a project charter, how to identify stakeholders and how to prepare a stakeholder management strategy.

The next big step after initiating a project is to plan for the project.

What is Project Planning?

Any Project that needs to be executed has to be planned. Any tasks that was begun without proper planning and due diligence is almost always a failure. So, as a responsible project manager you have to plan your project properly to ensure that, your baby is a success. After all, which project manager wants to spend months of his time on a failing cause? Atleast, I don’t …

What are the Phases Involved in Project Planning?

Project Planning involves 4 important phases. They are:

1. Planning the Project Scope
2. Planning the Project Resources
3. Planning the Project Schedule
4. Planning Quality & Risk Management

Each of these 4 phases is equally important and have a significant impact on the success of the project.

As Project Managers we need to put in dedicated effort to plan for each of these phases and as expected, the PMP exam covers each of these in depth.

In the forthcoming chapters, we will be starting with Project Scope Management and then move on to the other phases in Project Planning one by one.

Previous: Important Terms & Definitions

Next: Introduction to Project Planning

Chapter 6: The Project Lifecycle

In the previous chapter, we learnt what a process is and the fact that, they are used widely in the project management lifecycle. In this chapter, we are going to understand the project lifecycle.

So, lets get started!!!

Project Lifecycle:

From initiation/authorization to completion/closure, a project goes through a whole lifecycle that includes defining the project objectives, planning the work to achieve those objectives, performing the actual work, monitoring and controlling the progress, and closing the project after receiving the product acceptance or after cancellation of the project.
The below picture depicts the relation between the various stages in a projects lifecycle. Each of these stages is a process group and there are a variety of processes involved in each of these stages.

Let us now take a detailed look at these stages, one by one:

Initiating a Project:

This stage defines and authorizes the project. The project manager is named, and the project is officially launched through a signed document called the project charter, which contains items such as the purpose of the project, a high-level product description, a summary of the milestone schedule, and a business case for the project. Another outcome of this stage is a document called the stakeholder register, which identifies the project stakeholders and important information about them. The processes used to perform this stage fall into a group called the initiating process group.

Trivia:
The term high-level means lacking details or not including the details. This term will be used frequently and its good to know what it means. A high level activity would usually involved a detailed activity usually worked out through a process called progressive elaboration which we covered a couple of chapters back.

Planning a Project:

In this stage, you as the project manager, along with the project management team, refine the project objectives and requirements and develop the project management plan, which is a collection of several plans that constitute a course of actions required to achieve the objectives and meet the requirements of the project. The project scope is finalized with the project scope statement. The project management plan, the outcome of this stage, contains subsidiary plans, such as a project scope management plan, a schedule management plan, and a quality management plan. The processes used to perform this stage fall into a group called the planning process group.

Executing a Project:

In this stage, you as the project manager, implement the project management plan, and the project team performs the work scheduled in the planning stage. You coordinate all the activities being performed to achieve the project objectives and meet the project requirements. Of course, the main output of any project is the project deliverables. Approved changes, recommendations, and defect repairs are also implemented in this stage. But where do these changes and recommendations come from? They arise from monitoring and controlling the project. The stakeholders can also suggest changes, which must go through an approval process before implementation. The project execution is performed using the processes that fall into a group called the executing process group.

Monitoring and controlling:

You monitor and control the project through its lifecycle, including the execution stage. Monitoring and controlling includes defending the project against scope creep (unapproved changes to the project scope), monitoring the project progress and performance to identify variance from the plan, and recommending preventive and corrective actions to bring the project in line with the planned expectations in the approved project management plan. Requests for changes, such as change to the project scope, are also included in this stage; they can come from you or from any other project stakeholder. The changes must go through an approval process, and only the approved changes are implemented. The processes used in this stage fall into a group called the monitoring and controlling process group.

Closing a Project:

In this stage, you manage the formal acceptance of the project product, close any contracts involved, and bring the project to an end by disbanding the project team. Closing the project includes conducting a project review for lessons learned and possibly turning over the outcome of the project to another group, such as the maintenance or operations group.
This stage is applicable even for Terminated/Cancelled Projects. Terminated projects (that is, projects cancelled before completion) should also go through the closing stage. The processes used to perform the closing stage fall into the group called the closing process group.
Don’t forget the last, but not the least, task of the closing stage: Project Closure Party!!!

Trivia:
What we refer to as project stages here are not actually the project phases. A project phase is part of the whole project in which certain milestones or project deliverables are completed. All these stages, technically called process groups, can be applied to any phase of a project that is divided into multiple phases.

Project Lifecycle Summary:

Let us wrap up this chapter, by summarizing the project lifecycle and the activities involved in it.

Process Group	Project Stage	Goal	Outcome
Initiating	Starting the project	Authorize the project	Project charter
Planning	Organizing and preparing	Plan and schedule the work to perform the project	Project management plan
Executing	Carrying out the work	Perform the project work	Project deliverables: product, service, results
Monitoring and controlling	Spans the project lifecycle	Monitor the progress of the project to identify the variance from the plan and to correct it	Change requests and recommendations for preventive and corrective actions
Closing	Closing the project formally	Close the project	Product acceptance, contract closure, and archiving

The initiating stage authorizes a project by naming the project manager, the planning stage further defines the project objectives and plans the work to meet those objectives, the execution stage executes the work, the monitoring and controlling stage monitors the progress of the project and controls it to keep it in line with the plan, and the closing stage formally closes the project by obtaining the product acceptance. Each of these stages is performed by using a group of processes. Thereby, these stages are called process groups.

The stages of a project or process groups determine when a process is executed, whereas the processes themselves belong to certain knowledge areas of project management. In the next chapter, we will be looking at the project management knowledge areas.

Previous: Understanding a Process

Next: Project Management Knowledge Areas

Chapter 1: Main parts in Managing a Project

Congratulations to you for choosing to pursue the PMP Certification. Well, to begin this journey we need to understand the 5 main parts in Managing a Project Successfully.

Note: We havent formally defined what a project is, but dont worry just yet. It will be covered will all the syllabus of the PMP Certification in the subsequent chapters.

This chapter is just going to outline the 5 main parts in Managing a Project Successfully.

So, lets get started!!!

Part I: Initiating the Project

This is the first part of the sequence of events that help you to initiate, plan, execute, monitor, control and close a project. All the topics covered herein will deal with the steps required to start a project properly and to ensure that all the due diligence is done in a proper way to result in a successful projects.

In order to initiate a project, you will need to know what a project is, and you will want to have a bird’s eye view of the field of project management. Also, you need to know how projects are selected and Initiated.

All of these are covered in depth in Part 1.

Part II: Planning the Project

You have already defined your project and started it at the end of Part I. You can’t wait to start executing it. But hold on for a moment!

When you are executing your project, how will you know that your project is on the right track? or even better When you are executing your project, how will you know that your project will end in a success?

You can answer the above 2 questions only if you had a proper planning phase before you jumped into executing the project.

Also, to lead the project to success, you have to monitor and control it throughout its lifetime. Planning gives you the tools and the framework to do that. You need to plan for the resources that are needed to complete the project. Any management task has certain risks associated with it. So, you need to have plans to manage those risks and also the quality of the work done.

Initiation determines what will be done, whereas planning embraces that what, refines it, and determines how it will be done.

These are the things you will learn in Part 2

Part III: Executing the Project

After the project is authorized through initiation and planning, it’s time to start the execution. You will be directing and managing the project execution throughout the lifecycle of the project. To perform the project work, you will also need to acquire, develop, and manage the project team. Furthermore, your organization might not have the resources to finish certain parts of the project work. You will need to conduct procurements for those parts of the work. In addition to producing deliverables, project execution will also include assuring quality, distributing information on project progress and issues, and managing stakeholder expectations.

You will learn how to do all these things in Part 3

Part IV: Monitoring and Controlling the Project

Any task has to be consistently monitored and corrective measures taken at times when things are going off-track if it has to be a success. And the same is true with projects as well. You need to continually monitor and control your project. In general, monitoring means watching the course, and controlling means taking action to either stay the course or change the wrong course. Applied to project management, you monitor the project by activities such as making performance measurements to ensure that it is on the track set by the project management plan, and you control the project to keep it on track and to bring it back on track if it falls off.

You will learn about how to Monitor the Progress of your project and how to Control it in Part 4.

Part V: Closing the Project

This is the last and final step in any project. To be honest, common sense tells us that anything that was started needs to end. A project is not an activity that is going to continue for eternity. It will end too.

Finishing a project deliberately means finishing it in a controlled way, not just letting it finish, even when it’s cancelled.

To close a project successfully, you verify the deliverables to the customer and get an acceptance about their correctness. All legal contracts too need to be closed in a proper way.

You will learn, how to do all these things in Part 5.

Last but not the least, you will also learn about Professional and Social Responsibilities as a Project Manager and about behaving ethically and morally during your time as a good manager.

Previous: Tips to get PMP Certified

Next: Introduction to Projects