10 Steps to Planning a Project

Step 1: Create a Project Plan

Firstly, you need to create a comprehensive Project Plan, which is critical to the success of the project. The Project Plan identifies the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) of the phases, activities and tasks to be undertaken. It defines the sequencing, duration and dependencies of each task, as well as the generic resources and financial expenditure required to complete your project.

Step 2: Create a Resource Plan

Following the creation of a Project Plan, a detailed assessment of the resources required to undertake the project should be made. The required labor, equipment and materials should be listed and the amount of each resource quantified. Finally, the resource consumption should be scheduled to provide the Project Manager with a complete view of the total amount of resource needed for each stage of the project.

Step 3: Create a Financial Plan

The Financial Plan describes the total quantity of financial resources required during each stage of the project. The total cost of each item of labor, equipment and materials is calculated, as well as the total cost of undertaking each activity within the Project Plan.

Step 4: Create a Quality Plan

To ensure that the project deliverables meet customer requirements, a Quality Plan is developed. This plan explicitly lists the quality targets to be achieved, and a suite of Quality Assurance and Quality Control activities are scheduled to ensure that the required level of quality is achieved throughout the project.

Step 5: Create a Risk Plan

Managing Project Risk is a critical process within the Project Lifecycle. To mitigate risk effectively, all foreseeable project risks are identified and rated in terms of their likelihood of occurrence and potential impact on the project. The risks are prioritized and a set of actions identified to reduce the likelihood of each risk and its impact on the project should it occur.

Step 6: Create an Acceptance Plan

The key to customer satisfaction is in gaining approval from the customer that the deliverables meet the quality criteria stated in the Quality Plan. To ensure that customer acceptance is sought for each deliverable produced by the project, an Acceptance Plan is created. The Acceptance Plan provides a schedule of Acceptance Reviews which are undertaken to gain customer acceptance for the completion of each deliverable within the project.

Step 7: Create a Communications Plan

A Communications Plan is a document which describes the information to be provided to project stakeholders to keep them informed of the progress of the project.