How to Effectively Plan a Project

I worked my entire career in the highly technical, thoroughly regulated hazardous waste management business. As a generalist and English major without an advanced degree, it was pretty unusual for me to be a senior manager in that field, and yes, I took some grief from the many chemical engineers I worked with about my non-STEM academic credentials.

But I learned a tremendous amount from the technically erudite people with whom I worked and was fortunate to have had that opportunity. One discipline that I came to understand deeply and had some responsibilities for over time was project management.

The engineers I worked with were great project managers, and over time by witnessing their discipline and taking in depth project management training myself, I came to appreciate just how critical good project management was to all aspects of a successful business, and really to accomplishing many things in life generally.

The first step in project management is project planning, and it is an immensely valuable approach to organizing your thoughts on literally any “big thing” or many small things that you want to accomplish. It’s simply a systematic way of engaging your thinking about what you want to achieve, and it pays significant dividends in getting stuff done in a timely way without nasty surprises.

The first project management textbook I used was about 300 pages with about 100 pages of appendices; very detailed, as technical subjects tend to be. I’m guessing the project planning chapters were half the book.

Nonetheless, the basic thinking approach for project planning is straightforward and applicable to most of our endeavors in life. Boiled down, which is what we English majors and generalists tend to do, here is the Cliffs Notes version of how to define your project, presented as a checklist of aspects to consider thoroughly.

Enjoy!

Project Planning & Development Checklist

I. Scope (What is to be achieved?)

A. Why is this being done? What is the purpose?

B. What are the project’s attributes?

C. What are the benefits?

D. What are the risks?

E. What are the effects?

F. What are the impacts?

G. Does the scope have priorities within it? Are some aspects of scope more important than others?

H. What will happen if the scope changes? What are impacts on schedule or budget / resources?

I. Beware of scope “creep” — when a project’s scope balloons or never stops expanding.

J. Develop a task list of how the scope will be achieved.

II. Schedule (When do things need to be done?)

A. How long will certain activities and tasks take to achieve the scope?

B. What is the sequencing of activities and tasks?

C. What activities and tasks are dependent on things happening beforehand?

D. What contingencies need be planned for? What happens if something is late or early?

E. What unplanned events can impact the schedule? Weather? Availability of resources? Business conditions?

F. Is there “float” in the schedule? (Places where things can be late with no effect.)

G. What is the “critical path” in the schedule? (The sequence of activities and tasks that will take the longest.)

H. Can the schedule be “front loaded” to get off to a fast start? (Getting project momentum early is very helpful.)

I. What are the significant milestones in the schedule?

K. Develop a timeline that shows the task list scheduled over time.

III. Budget / Resources (What will the project cost?)

A. Estimate the project budget in dollars.

B. What will the project’s components and materials cost?

C. What other resources will be needed? What are the costs of people, contractors, consultants, equipment, information, other?

D. How will the budget and resources be allocated over the schedule timeline?

E. Is there competition for resources that could impact the project?

F. Develop a flow chart that shows budget dollars and resource allocation over the life of the project.

IV. Project Driver (What is most important to project success?)

A. What is the project driver: scope, schedule or budget?

B. A rule of thumb is there can only be one driver.

C. Be aware of the interplay between scope, schedule and budget. Change one aspect, and the two other aspects will be impacted.

D. Beware of any tendency to plan the perfectly designed project done fast at lowest cost. That generally is impossible to achieve.

There you have it: a simplified checklist and straightforward methodology for planning your next project or activity.

If you adequately consider Scope, Schedule, Budget and Project Driver, and reassess periodically how your assumptions may be changing, you are better likely to complete your project as you planned it, on time and within budget.

(Original art by J.E. Hargate)