What is Project Planning?
Project planning refers to the planning of tasks to be performed for the achievement of objectives. It comprises of goals and objectives and defines the ways of achieving them. Project planning simply means the steps that you need to follow to achieve your targets or goals. This is a process which shows how a project is executed, monitored, controlled and closed.
Project planning tells the way in which project can be accomplished within given time frame. It involves establishing the scope and defining objectives and steps to attain them. Project planning is concerned with deciding in advance what, how, when and who will perform all the steps necessary to accomplish objectives. It is an application of skills, knowledge and tools to a broad set of activities to fulfil specific requirements of a specific project. Project planning is part of project management and can be performed manually or by using project management software.
Steps in Project Planning
Steps in Project Planning are as follows:
- Create and Analyze Business Case: First step in project planning is detecting the problems or issue for which project is to be undertaken. It involves proper analysis of the business case to have a better understanding of it which helps in outlining the problems. Proper knowledge of business case helps in finding out solutions and how organizations will benefit from overcoming such issues.
- Identify and Meet Stakeholders: It is important to identify and include the interest of all business stakeholders in project plan. Stakeholders are the one which will be affected by your project plan results like project managers, team and customers. It is essential to meet the key stakeholders to discuss and understand their needs which would help in deciding the project outline.
- Define Project Scope: Scope of the project tells what is required to be achieved and what is not to be. Proper explanation of project scope will help in understanding its limits. It will help in ensuring that all activities go in accordance with plans and there is no deviation.
- Setting goals and Objective: Project manager should set the goals and objectives to be achieved by the project. These goals and objectives provide the direction for making efforts for achieving desired outcomes.
- Identifying Deliverables: Deliverables are results expected from the project. These are specific outcomes that your project needs to achieve to meet the desired goals. Proper deadlines should be decided for all these project deliverables and ensured that all these deadlines are met properly.
- Create a schedule: Project schedule is essential for the effective performance of the project and helps in measuring its progress. It clearly defines time period for each task of project that is when a particular task should initiate and end. Project schedule provides a timeline for the entire project by setting routine of each and every project activity.
- Assigning task: Assigning role and responsibility to each member of team is must for avoiding any confusion and disorder within organization. Everybody should clearly know what they are required to do for performing efficiently.
- Carry out a risk assessment: It means assessing all the risk associated with the entire project. Identification of all potential risk along with their effect on the project and their chances of occurrence is important for properly dealing with them timely.
