Project management – Planning

An old adage which is completely true for project management: Failing to plan is planning to fail.

Characteristics for planning a project:

  • dilligence
  • investement of time
  • gathering sufficient information in order to have a detailed plan that helps avoid as many mishaps as possible

Scop, schedule and cost – 3 key areas

  1. Scop (what needs to be done to deliver the project)
    • first establish the project objectives
    • the tasks that need to be performed
    • the resource that will be required
    • determine the limitations of the project
    • work breakdown structure = one of the most important project management deliverables.
  2. Scheduling (how you plan to manage your time)
    1. Defining the activities
    2. Scheduling these activities
    3. Estimating the activity resources required (materials, people, equipement)
    4. Estimating the activity duration to complete (amount of work needed to complete individual activities using the estimated resources)
    5. Developing the schedule
  3. Costing the project (control the project costs using a budget). A constraint.
    • estimate the resources required
    • estimate the duration of these activities
    • prepare a cost estimation
    • seek additional budget or trade-off by reducing scope