Developing a Project Plan to deliver the stated objectives first requires the breakdown of the outputs into key identifiable milestones. The planned achievement of each milestone can then be broken down to a number of tasks to be completed at the appropriate time.
The standard technique applied to developing a project plan covers seven elements:
• Creating a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• Creating a team structure and individual responsibilities
• Estimated effort and duration for each task
• Preparing the schedule (Identify and link any task dependencies (i.e. tasks that cannot start until another is complete - start to finish; tasks that can start at the same time - start to start
• Allocating resources to the tasks (Resource Breakdown Structure)
• Determining the budget
• Risk analysis and contingency (Elbeik & Thomas, 1998)
When your Project Plan is completed this must be considered and approved by the Programme/Project Board
Note: |
Remember planning tools should be selectively applied according to the complexity of the project. Inflexible application of planning tools and over - optimistic scheduling are among the "common reasons for project failure". |