How to Write a Successful Project Plan?
The Project Plan is one of the most important and useful documents in your toolkit, and should be referred to and updated throughout the project lifecycle.
Its initial purpose is to kick-start the project by convincing the decision makers that the project is viable and will meet their needs and timeframes / budgets / expectations.
If the Project Plan is poorly written or contains insufficient detail, the project may not even get past this first decision gate and may never actually get off the ground.
Don't confuse a Project Plan with a Project Schedule. A schedule is merely a component of a Project Plan, and usually takes the form of a timeline / GANTT chart depicting tasks vs. timeline.
A project schedule is a vital tool and should complement the project plan. Larger Project Plans contain several schedules, normally as appendices, that are referred to throughout the document.
Such schedules would include an overall timeline, a test schedule, an implementation schedule, the critical path analysis, a resource allocation schedule....etc
What should be in a Project Plan?
What should be in a Project Plan?
The Project Plan serves as a roadmap for the entire project team providing guidance on the priority of activities, the scope of work, the methodologies and governance to be used, who the stakeholders are, the broad strategy to take, how costs and people will be managed, the quality standards in the project, how the project will communicate with stakeholders, how performance and benefits will be measured...etc
The main areas you need to cover in your plan include:
- Overview
- Project Background
- Objectives & Scope
- Constraints & Assumptions
- Dependencies & Impact
- Issues & Risks
- Methodologies & Strategy
- Controls - Scope, Time, Cost, Quality, Resources
- Communications
- Impacted Business Areas
- Definitions and Acronyms
- Project Related:
- Project Lifecyle
- Traceability Approach
- Change and Issue Management Approach
- Schedule of delivery
- Milestones
- Budget
- CAR Approach
- DAR Approach
- Project Team
- Project Organization
- Project Team Structure
- Roles and Responsibilities
- Staffing & Training
- Project Control
- Process Deviations
- Project Data Management
- Project Metrics
- Performance Measurement
- Project Monitoring and Control
- Quality Objectives and Metrics
- Project Communication
- Stakeholder and User Involvement
- Project Governance
- Project Status Reports & Frequency
- Project Environment
- Infrastructure, Critical Computer Resources and Facilities
- Hardware and Software Environment
- Testing & Training
- End User Training
- Deployment Strategy and Approach
- Training Approach
As you can see there are many elements to a Project Plan, and some of the larger plans can stretch well over a hundred pages. This makes structuring your document all the more important.
A consistent format with a logical order (as below) and clear headings will allow your readers to quickly navigate through the document and get to the details that are important to them.
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