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Effective Planning for Big Projects - Summary
November 16, 2008 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Best Practices, Project Plan Development
Effective Planning for Big Projects - Summary (#11 in the series Effective Planning for Big Projects)
By Timothy Prosser
With the right knowledge and a bit of project management savvy, you can create a plan, or set of plans, that will be effective, easy to communicate and maintain, and which will guide your project to successful completion.
To summarize this series:
- Consider the audience(s) and design the plan to track and communicate only what is necessary to successfully execute the project.
- Establish an understanding, based on the general pace of business (which may change during different phases of the project), of how often updates will be needed or new information will be available. Also identify and document where to get information on task completion, delays, and process changes.
- Design your plan(s) with a timing granularity that matches the length and complexity of your project, and enhances clarity.
- Seek a happy medium between being comprehensive and effective - too much detail is as bad as too little.
- Organize the plan into functional areas, and, where possible, show the interactions between those areas.
- Avoid excessive detail in the master plan by providing subordinate plans to functional groups participating in the project, and include only their inputs, outputs, major reviews, and status checks as integration points in the master plan.
- Use symbols and acronyms only as necessary, and include reference information (the “secret decoder ring”) to explain them. Terms well known to all stakeholders may be omitted from references, but check to be sure of this.
- Avoid including tasks and events that can’t be tracked and assessed, but include those that will provide critical evidence of project status and be relatively easy to find out.
- Structure the plan so it can be easily followed on screen, and can be printed out for reference, review, and the marking-up of changes.
- Prepare a key date list only when the master plan is too unwieldy for easy reference, or when plan dates must be communicated to a recipient such as a supplier who should not see the master plan for security reasons.
- Prepare snapshot and look-ahead documents only when the master plan is too unwieldy to be used directly, or when there is a need to focus attention on a small part of the process or timeline.
Timothy Prosser - Ann Arbor, MI
Timothy spent the past ten years planning vehicle development programs and tracking parts at a major auto manufacturer in the Detroit area, employed by Integrated Management Systems, Inc. of Ann Arbor, MI (www.imsi-pm.com).
Past experience, in reverse order, includes 3 years writing and supervising technical documentation at a major automotive supplier, 7.5 years engineering computer printers for Unisys Corporation, 3 years of technical work in the image processing and automatic inspection industry, 5 years of network and peripheral service work for ADP, Inc., and 3 years selling wholesale electronic parts.
Education includes an MBA from The University of Michigan (1991), a BS in Geography from Eastern Michigan University (1974), and *countless* training classes by various employers. Timothy has also taught many seminars on project management and various tools involved in the work.
Timothy is a lifetime musician (www.mandolinmaniac.com, www.martianentropyband.com), a 30-year amateur radio operator, and writes a number of blogs including www.timprosserfuturing.wordpress.com.
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