Project Management: Project Planning

Project planning is part of the Project Manager's armory that must be in place to ensure that effective control of time and cost/budget over time is managed within the project environment.

To do this a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) must be identified and activities associated with each element of it. Activities have dependencies on one another, normally known as relationships and occur in a logical manner.

i.e. I can't start the car until I've turned the key in the lock

Would be shown as : Turn Key in lock -> Start car

This is known as a finish to start relationship. There are also Start to start, finish to finish and start to finish relationships.

Project Management Activities

Activities require resources to ensure it can be completed. These can be both material and human resources. (i.e. an electrician, a JCB, a plank of wood are all resources) an estimate is made of the likely resources required to complete an activity and the duration of time.

Finally costs can be attributed to each resource on each activity in a project which should result in the total cost for that project if all the activities have been defined.

Once established and agreed the plan becomes what is known as the baseline. This is what the project will be measured against throughout it's lifespan.

As the project progresses, the plan should progress as well, monitoring the progress being made and ensuring activities are taking place when they should be and resources (and therefore costs) are in line with expectations. Analysing this information is what is called Earned value management

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Project Management

Project Management Tutorials:

• 10 Truths for Successful Project Management

• Scope Triangle

• Critical Path

• The Mythical Man Month

• Defining the Project Scope

• Scope, Visions and Goals

• Using Project Goals to Filter Requirements

• Difference between a Business Case and Project Proposal?

• Return on Investment

• Requirements Specifications

Project Management Templates

Here are some Project Management templates you can get on our partner's site.

	The Change Management Kit provides the documentation required to control changes to the scope, deliverables and resources within the project. The Change Request template allows staff to raise a change request within the project.
	The Project Planning Kit provides you with all of the project management templates, documents and forms required to plan a project by helping you to schedule time, cost and resources.
	The Quality Management Kit includes a suite of templates used to assure and control the quality of deliverables within a project.
	Project Initiation Kit Start a new project by documenting a business case, undertaking a feasibility study, defining the project scope, recruiting key staff and locating them within a project office.
	Project Execution Kit Manage time, cost, quality, change, risks and issues during the execution of your project, as well as supplier procurement and customer acceptance.
	Project Closure Kit Helps close your project by handing over deliverables and documentation to the customer, terminating supplier contracts and releasing resources back to the business.