What Is Project Planning? How to Write a Project Plan

Project planning is an important component in project management to track your projects and to get a clear idea of the objectives and expected outcomes. From this blog, you will understand what project planning is, its benefits, and how to write a successful project plan for all projects. We will also take you through an interactive conversation on why project planning is crucial to project management. Let’s check each of these one by one.

What is project planning?

Project planning comes in the second phase after project initiation in project management. In this stage, the project team discusses the objectives and project requirements needed to complete the project. They will set up a communication plan and schedule the project to meet the delivery time. In this phase, the tasks are assigned to team members, mentioning the milestones to achieve. The team members can view the project map in the planning stage itself. During the project planning phase, project professionals will set a clear project goal. 

Consider Rebecca and her team as an example. A new team member, Chris, joined Rebecca’s project management team during the middle of the project. Educating the new member with the project goals and expectations is important. One challenge that Rebecca might face is that her team should be prepared with the knowledge of project requirements and goals from the very start phase onwards. A planned project will always be structured so that new members can easily adapt to the flow of the project at any stage. Let's check out a short conversation between them.

Chris - Rebecca, why is project planning important in project management?

Rebecca - Project planning helps team members understand the project requirements and helps achieve success in delivering projects. When the team members are aware of the project needs, it will be helpful for them to estimate the time required to complete the project and determine what resources are required and who to assign each task to.

Methods of setting up Project goals

There are two most popular frameworks for establishing project goals. They are:

1. S.M.A.R.T.
2. C.L.E.A.R. 

What is SMART in project management?

SMART is one of the popular methods for implementing project goals. It stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. This framework will analyze the goals defined for a project and reduce the risk for project managers.

SMART Goal Framework - Introduced by George Doran, James Cunningham, and Arthur Miller at the beginning of the 1980s.

What is CLEAR in project management?

The CLEAR in project management is another method to set up goals that are developed to align with the changing modern working environment. It stands for Collaborative, Limited, Emotional, Appreciable, and Refinable. This goal-setting will help to improve teamwork and communication while managing projects.

CLEAR Goal Framework - Introduced by Adam Kreek, a motivational speaker and gold medal winner of the Olympics from Canada.

Project Planning Benefits

Project planning is an important stage in project management. It represents the steps to complete a project and helps to prevent obstacles during the execution of a project. A good project plan has numerous benefits, like

• It ensures the projects are completed on time within the allocated budget.
• Better communication between team members will be enabled.
• It recognizes potential risks in the initial stage itself.
• Will make sure that everyone is working towards the same goal.
• It makes sure that objectives are met without compromising the quality.

Tools Used for Project Planning

For Project planning, there are various tools available in the market. It can be done manually with everyday tools like a pen and paper. But why do organizations prefer software tools? The software tools help create visual dashboards and have various features that support project planning. The most common tools used are the Gantt chart and risk register.

How to Write a Project Plan

While writing a project plan, a few things need to be considered. It requires careful preparation and forward vision. The team should have an estimate of the resources needed and the time required to complete the project. Knowing those estimates helps them to set the milestones and realistic project end dates. They will be capable of tackling any delays due to sudden circumstances. Depending on the choice of your organization or project leader, your project plan may look different from the exact plan. However, it will help you determine the timeline and each member's roles and responsibilities.

You can follow the below steps to learn how to write an effective project plan:

1. Set up Project Scope and Objectives

   Identifying the project scope and objectives is a crucial step in project planning. There should be a measurable approach to track whether you have attained or are yet to attain the project goal. Each team member should be educated on how their contribution adds value to attain the organizational objectives.

2. Know your Project Stakeholders

   You may be required to collaborate with stakeholders to execute a project. You will let stakeholders know how you wish them to be part of the project and in what ways. Also, understanding your team members' roles is important; that helps you know which task belongs to whom. 

3. Have a Plan on Budget 

   Executing a project will require resources to be allocated. These resources can be money or materials that support the project’s needs. It can vary from hiring employees to deploying software, etc. You have to plan your budget in the project planning phase and, later on, allocate it at the right time, considering no overuse of resources or wastage occurs. Budget planning helps you understand at what project phase you require more budget, and you can think about ways to minimize those expenses without affecting the quality of project delivery.

4. Set Milestones

   You will analyze the workload and the time required to complete it. Then, you will design the achievable milestones that each member can achieve. The concept of creating a milestone is for measuring the progress of a project. 

5. Mention your Project Timeline and Schedule

   You should know the expected project delivery time during the project planning phase. Aligning with the timelines can help you with the smooth execution of the project, and also you will schedule each task based on priority. However, large projects might not have a proper timeline; the timelines and dates will be unknown. In such cases you can distinguish the operational flow of various tasks rather than setting exact deadlines or dates. 

6. Get Feedback and Communicate

   You should refer to the feedback from your team members and stakeholders and then modify the project plans accordingly. Along with that, a communication plan has to be created to convey to team members about the updates and project changes happening in the firm. They should be aware of what things are going on in the firm. It will help them to be capable of immediately responding to any issues since they are aware of the issues upfront. 

Conclusion

Creating a project plan is always an important part of any project. A project plan can help team members and stakeholders have a vision of executing their projects. It also helps them be prepared with the resources and budget required to execute the project. We have discussed the topic ‘what is project planning,’ various project planning benefits and how to write a successful project plan. With the help of a project plan, team members can identify potential challenges and ensure that everyone is working for the same goal.

We have also discussed the tools used for project planning to visually represent the project stages. Project planning lets team members keep track of their milestones and helps them identify the challenges they may face. To learn more about creating a successful project plan, you can enrol in the PMP Certification Training Course offered by Simpliaxis.