When you hear the words ‘project planning’, what do you think about?
In my experience, most people immediately think of the age-old Gantt chart.
What is project planning?
Definition
Integrated planning is the application of management processes that bring together the planning of benefits, success criteria, scope, quality, time, resources, cost, risk, communications etc to create the project management plan.
Definition from APM Body of Knowledge 8th edition
Project-work planning
Project-work can be divided into phases that must be accomplished in order to achieve the project goal. Division into phases and intermediate deliverables is useful in planning as it provides a framework for budgeting, scheduling, allocating resources and appropriately assigning team members and experts, as well as a mechanism for arranging milestones and project reviews.
When using a linear life cycle approach, the assumption underpinning integrated planning is that all the work can be defined, estimated, scheduled, risked, resourced and costed – so that a baseline can be established from which deployment can be managed and controlled.
When using an iterative life cycle approach, a baseline plan is still required, but the assumptions underpinning the plan are different, with flexibility and agility built into the thinking.
Watch: What is a baseline plan?
Linear life cycle
When using a linear life cycle approach, the assumption underpinning integrated planning is that all the work can be defined, estimated, scheduled, risked, resourced and costed – so that a baseline can be established from which deployment can be managed and controlled.
When using an iterative life cycle approach, a baseline plan is still required, but the assumptions underpinning the plan are different, with flexibility and agility built into the thinking.
For all people working to plan and deliver either standalone projects or projects within programmes and portfolios, the following are necessary:
- Contract award: Selecting suppliers and setting up contracts for success.
- Risk identification and analysis: Ensuring that the knowable risks are understood and the project plans take account of variability and risk events.
- Scheduling: Time-based planning with an emphasis on activities and resources.
- Estimation: is the approximation of time and cost required to complete the scope of work to the defined quality requirements.
- Resource optimisation: Managing scope, quality, time and cost in a constrained system.
- Cost planning: Understanding where costs fall over time.
- Contingency planning: Ensuring plans reflect required confidence levels.
- Deployment baseline: Agreeing the integrated plan to enable managed deployment.
Related reading
This research project comprised of a critical evaluation of current methods used by project planners and evaluators in the public and third sectors to quantify social benefits and costs... read more.
This paper looks at how organisational design supports the effective management of multiple competing projects, comparing theory – as represented by the body of literature on the subject – with practice, in three case studies of hospitals undergoing major change... read more.
While researching my previous blog on why the ‘why’ of a project often goes missing, it was notable that another ‘P word’, planning, kept coming up.
Trying to predict the outcome of a project a couple of months down the line during the initial planning phase can sometimes feel like trying to predict the weather on a specific day in the next season, in a different country.
Why do so many projects fail? There are many individual factors behind failure, but one overarching explanation could be that the ‘why’ of a project – its objective or purpose – simply gets lost in the focus on the ‘what’, ‘how’, ‘how much’, ‘when’ and ‘where’.
So many project managers don’t have good planning skills. It’s difficult to condense a full day training course into 10 sound bites…but here it goes... read more.
As anyone who has ever managed a project will know, plans evolve. Whether it’s the scope of the project or the timeframe, change is inevitable... read more.
Data sensitivity. All data is probably somewhat sensitive. We wouldn't be sharing it, administrating it, loading legacy versions of it into new business elements, etc. if it weren't important, right?... read more.
APM Body of Knowledge 8th edition
The APM Body of Knowledge is a foundational resource providing the concepts, functions and activities that make up professional project management. It reflects the developing profession, recognising project-based working at all levels, and across all sectors for influencers, decision makers, project professionals and their teams.
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