Skip to main content

Delivering the right results with a Real Project Plan



There is a common theme when delivering a project; it requires finesse to obtain all the relevant information to ensure the information is accurate. However, there has to be a distinct separation on the information being delivered, in particular, the separation between, if it is a plan or a schedule. A plan is where the approach is mapped out to deliver versus the schedule which covers the tasks and dates. 

Depending on the size of the program it is best to use Microsoft project to build plans as opposed to using Excel. When reporting high level milestones for governance purposes Excel is an invaluable tool, but to use it solely during the delivery of a project is recipe for failure. If an Audit is conducted it can be looked upon as a violation of SDLC practices.

Strategic plans can deliver business value; the default project plan can be used as a starting point, but some things cannot be automated or standardised. These kinds of tools so only be used for reference purposes, and not as shortcuts to doing the thinking about what is really needed to execute successfully. It is a fine balance between reinventing the wheel each time and working with your own data.

Plan out the success criteria with stakeholders and craft out the high level milestones that task will roll-up to deliver the vision. The tasks must be prescriptive and should be done in short form tweet like entries. Declarative entries should be used to perform and validate. Words like Secure, Verify, Validate, Obtain, Draft, Approve and Distribute should be commonplace throughout the plan. 

Project plans which require rework have the following characteristics;

  •        Task durations are greater than 10 or 15 days.  When would it be known that a 60-day task is late?  On the 61st day it is too late to affect any kind of change. Tasks that have a long duration require subtask items to allow for follow-up and remediation.  
  •        Keep the schedule up to date, if all stakeholders agree to the approach and its reflected in the plan, then it should be used to manage day to day deliverables.. Tasks that are past due with no percentage completed is a red flag.   Find out if teams have skipped tasks or decided certain deliverables have been deemed out of scope.
  •        Tasks are not prescriptive enough to convey work deliverable.   It doesn’t have to be overly elaborate but at least include enough information to make it reusable  

Unfortunately, Project Managers tend to get assessed on the existence of artefacts but not necessarily on the quality of products that get produced.    It is time to start looking at how project plans connect to success criteria and how the details drive the intended result.   Start performing self-checks and peer reviews and include stakeholders in the process.   Share plans with them and ask them to comment on dates and resource availability. That is a great way to get buy-in and learn from others.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Revisiting Managing Stakeholders, how to Nurture and thrive the relationship.

  Stakeholders can make or break projects, in order to ensure project success, effective stakeholder management is required. Identifying key stakeholders, dealing with difficult ones and creating a management plan can be overwhelming if you don't know where to start. Building positive relationships with stakeholders and proactively meeting their expectations can make the life of a project manager much, much easier.
Post a Comment
Read more

How to Resource Plan

When managing a project or a project portfolio, it’s critical that resources and workload for each are intelligently distributed. Without proper resource allocation, projects can quickly get out of control in terms of expense and duration. With the right resource planning techniques, effective planning and management of resources in any industry can set you up for success. But before the break down on how Projectmanagementcompanion.com provides the perfect tools for resource planning and management, there must be a firm understanding on what resource planning is and how to compose a resource plan. Resource planning is one of the steps required when writing a business plan where all the resources in a proposed project are identified. This is achieved by creating a summary for managing workload that is comprehensive enough to make sure all the resources that are needed to complete the project are clearly identified. This summary is going to help get a buy-in from the sponsor an...
Post a Comment
Read more

The difference between a Project Manager and a Scrum Master

By the nature of the work that Project Managers and Scrum Masters do, the two are not particularly closely aligned, even if it seems at first glance that they are. Managing a project is not the same as being a Scrum Master. Scrum Masters have the role of mentoring, teaching, coaching and facilitating, while the role of the Project Manager is to ensure that the project runs to time and budget. This means that the Scrum Master relies on more of the so-called “soft skills” involved with helping people to move forward, while the Project Manager takes a more methodical, and arguably more of a “hard skills” approach. While both roles have an interest in ensuring a high level of team performance and driving efficiency within the team, the ways in which they go about this are very different. The Scrum Master facilitates and coaches, while the Project Manager assesses risk and manages issues and conflicts.  Looking closer at what Project Managers and Scrum Masters do in terms of ...
Post a Comment
Read more