UNIVERSITY OF ZAMBIA

CENTER FOR INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

CONSULTANCY AND TRAINING UNIT

MODULE 3: PLANNING
 PROJECT PLANINNG

• When you get given a new project it’s tempting to

rush off and start doing the work. There are things to
buy, people to talk to and a huge task list to write.
Right? Stop!
• Before you get too far into the doing of the project
you need to step back and plan the work. If you want
to manage your project successfully you need a
bigger picture view of everything that needs to
happen and how it is going to get done.
• That’s what project planning gives you. Yes, it
slows down the start of the ‘doing’ but it saves
you a ton of time longer term when you can
whizz through the different steps knowing
exactly what’s coming next. Trust us, planning
is invaluable!
 What is Project Planning?

• First, let’s clarify what we are talking about. Many people

think of the project plan as the project schedule: The list
of tasks and dates that tell you what to do when. That
schedule is part of your project plan, but it’s not the only
part.
• Project planning refers to everything you do to set up
your project for success.
• It’s the process you go through to establish the steps
required to define your project objectives, clarify the
scope of what needs to be done and develop the task list
to do it.
 What is Project Planning?

• The activities in project planning are varied

because you have to work out how to achieve
your goals.
• Every project is going to be different as the
objectives will be different.
• Most of the work of planning is thinking about
what you need to do to get everything done
and putting the structure in place to make that
happen.
 What is Project Planning?

• By structure, we mean the processes and governance to

keep everything running smoothly.
• These are things like the change management process, the
budgeting process, how you are going to sign off the
deliverables when the time comes, what quality measures
are important and things like that. We’ll cover those in
more detail later.
• The end result of project planning is…ta da!… a project
plan.
• This is a document or set of documents that explain what
you are going to do and how you are going to do it.
 What is Project Planning?

• Pro Tip: Remember, project managers don’t

plan to fail, they simply fail to plan. You’ve got
this!
 Why You Need A Project Plan
• The project planning phase comes at the start of the project: It’s after
the initiation phase where all you’ve really done is got approval to go
ahead and put the basics in place (like appointing you as the project
manager) and before the delivery phase where you actually do the
work.
• We plan at the beginning to save time later.
• A good plan means that you don’t have to worry about whether
those people are going to be available on the right dates – because
you’ve planned for them to be.
• You don’t have to worry about how to pay those invoices – because
you’ve planned your financial process.
• You don’t have to worry about whether everyone agrees on what a
quality outcome looks like – because you’ve already planned what
quality measures you are going to use.
 Why You Need A Project Plan…
• It sets out the processes that everyone is expected
to follow so it avoids a lot of headaches later.
• For example, if you specify that estimates are going
to be worked out by subject matter experts based
on their judgement and that’s approved, later no
one can complain that they wanted you to use a
different estimating technique. They’ve known the
deal since the start.
• Planning streamlines the doing.
 Why You Need A Project Plan…
• Project plans are also really helpful for
monitoring progress.
• You can go back to them and check what you
said you were going to do and how, comparing
it to what you are actually doing.
• This gives you a good reality check and
enables you to change course if you need to,
bringing the project back on track.
 How Long Does Project Planning Take?

• This is hard to answer. It’s going to take longer to plan a moon

landing than building an app.
• The best way to estimate how long your project planning phase
will take is to look at similar projects that have happened before
and see how long it took them to plan.
• Talk to the project manager as well, if you can, because they’ll
have a view on whether that length of time was enough or not!
• It’s easy to see how long other projects took if you have a project
management tool that archives your old project schedules and
makes the data available to everyone who needs it. You can then
search for similar projects and study their schedules in detail.
 The Tools for Project Planning

• Project planning is all about working out what to

do and how to do it, so you need to get a lot of
people involved.
• There are several good tools and techniques for
getting information from other people including:
1. Workshops
2. One-to-one meetings or interviews
3. Surveys or customer focus groups to gather and
validate requirements
 The Tools for Project Planning
• Pro Tip: Try using brain writing in these sessions to get the
most out of the available time.
• You should also arm yourself with a lot of sticky notes. They
are incredibly useful for noting down important things that
should be in your project plan.
• You can also use them to help structure your plan by writing
down the key headings and then moving them around as
required until you have a flow that looks right.
• Finally, you’ll need an online project management system to
store your plan in. Make sure that everyone in the team can
access the latest version of the project plan.
 The Elements of A Project Plan

• A lot of project planning is talking to your team, getting

the views of the people who will be affected by the
project and working out how it all hangs together.
• There’s a lot of chat and a lot of thinking time.
• The end result of your planning phase is a document
called the project plan.
• A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge
(PMBOK Guide) – Fifth Edition says that the project plan
in made up of lots of subsidiary plans
 The Elements of A Project Plan
1. A plan for managing the HUMAN RESOURCES on the team both in
terms of availability and skills
2. A plan for MANAGING COSTS and the BUDGETING ELEMENTS of
the project including any procurements or supplier engagements
you might have.
3. A COMMUNICATIONS PLAN setting out who is going to receive
messages about the project, when and in what format.
4. A plan for dealing with PROJECT RISK including the processes for
logging and tracking risks
5. A QUALITY PLAN that specifies the quality targets for the project.
• That’s a lot of documentation.
 The Elements of A Project Plan…
• In reality, it’s rare that you’ll produce these as
individual documents.
• What you need is a project plan that talks about
the important elements of each of these. There’s
no point creating a big document that sets out
exactly how your business works anyway.
• If you already have a structured risk
management process then don’t waste time
writing it all down again in your project plan.
 The Elements of A Project Plan…
• Your project plan needs to include enough
information to make sure that you know
exactly what processes and procedures need
to be followed and who needs to be involved.
• Get your project plan approved by your
stakeholders and project sponsor as well as
the team themselves so there are no surprises
later
 How To Create A Project Plan

• By now you’ve probably got a good idea of how to go about

creating your project plan.
• You need to spend time with your team:
1. CLARIFYING WHAT YOU NEED TO ACHIEVE TOGETHER (VISION)
2. working out the PROCESSES you need to get there (MISSION)
3. DEVELOPING AN ACTION PLAN for how you are going to take
this forward. (ACTIVITIES)
• Ultimately, the project manager is responsible for producing the
project plan and while you can’t make up all the content
yourself, you’ll be the one banging the keys to type it all out.
• USE TEMPLATES WHERE YOU CAN TO SAVE TIME.
 How To Manage Your Plan

• Your project plan is not a document written in

stone.
• You should be referring back to it and making
changes to it as often as you need to.
• Parts of it, like your project schedule, will change
almost daily.
• Other parts, like your procurement plans and
cost management processes, won’t change at all
during the life of your project.
 How To Manage Your Plan….
• The important thing to remember is that if your
plan isn’t working for you, think about what you
can do to change it.
• It’s there to guide your project management,
not restrict you from doing the right thing.
• If you need to review how you manage project
resources, then go back and review it. Make the
changes you need, get the document approved
again and share it with the team.
 How To Plan When You Don’t Have All the Answers

• Yes, this happens – most of the time! It’s rare

to have all the information at the beginning of
a project.
• Most managers want you to dive in and get
started and you might not have the luxury of
knowing all the details.
• That’s OK; we have techniques to help deal
with uncertainty.
How To Plan When You Don’t Have All the Answers

• First is the PROJECT ASSUMPTION.

• You use these to put caveats on your plan and to
document the things that you assume to be true at this
point in time.
• For example:
1. We assume that the RESOURCES WILL BE AVAILABLE.
2. We assume that the REQUIRED FUNDING is available.
3. We assume that the colors requested will be in line
with the company brand and that Marketing sign off is
not required.
 How To Plan When You Don’t Have All the
Answers…
• You get the picture.
• Then, if the design team come back and say that they want
the product to be a totally new palette of colours and that
Marketing have to approve that, you are justified in saying
that you’ll have to change the timescales on the schedule
to make that possible.
• You planned based on an assumption (that everyone
agreed to, because you got the document approved) and
that assumption turned out not to be true.
• Sometimes your team will know the detail but want to
avoid putting something down in writing.
 Getting Your Plan Approved

• OK, we’ve talked a lot about what project

planning is and why you must do it, so now
let’s get into the detail of how you plan your
project.
• Let’s assume that you already know what your
project is going to achieve and that you have
authority as the project manager to get
started.
 Processes of Planning

1. SCOPE PLANNING – specifying the in-scope

requirements for the project to facilitate
creating the work breakdown structure
2. Preparation of the WORK BREAKDOWN
STRUCTURE – spelling out the breakdown of
the project into tasks and sub-tasks
3. PROJECT SCHEDULE DEVELOPMENT – listing
the entire schedule of the activities and
detailing their sequence of implementation
 Processes of Planning….
4. RESOURCE PLANNING – indicating who will do
what work, at which time, and if any special skills
are needed to accomplish the project tasks
5. BUDGET PLANNING – specifying the budgeted
cost to be incurred at the completion of the
project
6. PROCUREMENT PLANNING – focusing on vendors
outside your company and subcontracting
 Processes of Planning…
7. RISK MANAGEMENT – planning for possible
risks and considering optional contingency
plans and mitigation strategies
8. QUALITY PLANNING – assessing quality
criteria to be used for the project
9. COMMUNICATION PLANNING – designing the
communication strategy with all project
stakeholders