![]() Don’t waste all of your effort making something that only you’ll see. Get more out of your project plan by presenting it.You create a plan and then continually refine it. Proper project planning isn’t difficult, but it does takes time.A project plan should be much more than a roadmap to give a client a complete view of a project, it should be combined with an estimate and a statement of work too.Enables the agreement of the all-important live dateīefore you dive in, remember these important points about project plans:.Enables you to baseline and track your project progress properly.Provides milestones for tracking project progress (and dates for client approvals).Helps you show who does what task, when and forecast your resource requirements.Enables you to visualise the entire project and see the interdependencies between tasks.Gives you information that enables you to estimate properly and define a project’s outputs and project scope. ![]() Clarifies the process and activities that will lead to the project’s outputs and deliverables.Here are seven reasons why project plans are probably the single most important piece of project documentation. Find below 7 reasons why you shouldn’t give up on project plans just yet. When done well, project plans bring many benefits to your projects. Instead of a static document, our project plans need to come to life-the best project plans today are ones that are accessible, readily understandable for a wide variety of users, and highly adaptable. Fast-paced industries with complex projects (such as digital and IT) are demanding a new approach to project planning. These arguments do bring up an important point about project plans. You can’t know unless you’ve got something to measure against.Įven so, there are still plenty of people who’d say, “But aren’t project plans for complex IT projects just a waste of time?” They argue that project plans don’t reflect the reality of the tasks at hand, that they artificially constrain your teams from self-optimizing, and that they’re perpetually out of date due to constant changes. And it’s not just for clients-as a project manager, you’ll need that project plan to ascertain if the project is on track. The reality is that c lients need to know what they’re getting, when, and for how much before signing off. If you opt for the No Project Plan Alternative, it’s difficult to answer these seemingly basic project management questions. When is the project going to be delivered?.If you’re asking yourself,ĭoes a project plan even matter in this post-waterfall era of agile-everything?Īfter all, clients still want answers for questions like, Once the pride of project managers everywhere, the humble project plan has got itself a bit of a bad reputation. Here’s what a project plan typically includes: Project plans can be as simple as a scribble on the back of a napkin or a few lines in Excel, but it’s usually presented as a Gantt chart, made in Microsoft Project or a similar alternative planning tool. It serves as a roadmap that shows the project phases, key activities, and their start and end dates, dependencies between tasks, and project milestones. What Is A Project Plan?Ī project plan is a document, often presented as a Gantt chart, that shows each step to take a project from A to B. Step-By-Step Guide To Creating A Project Planīy the end of this post, you’ll know how to write a project plan, what to include, and how to make it as useful as possible in your projects.Project Planning Basics ( What is a project plan? Why does it matter?).What we’ll cover in this project plan guide: You want to know how to make a project plan that’s useful and realistic-and in this post, I provide the background, examples, checklist, and step-by-step instructions to help you do exactly that. Why hasn't work? Transform your work with Smartsheet.
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