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Project Management: Plan the Work

September 11, 2007 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Plan Development

Project Management: Plan the Work (#2 in the series Small Business Project Management: Turning Great Ideas into Reality)
By Jeri Merrell

Plan the Work is article 2 of 4 in a series on Small Business Project Management: Turning Great Ideas into Reality.

The next step is to brainstorm more detailed requirements, start designing and do some more detailed planning. Expect to invest about 30% of your total project time and effort here.

Dive into the Details

If possible, talk to a representative group of your e-book customers. If not, try to put yourself in their shoes. Again, using the example of the information product, answer questions including, but not limited to:

  • What do they need from the product?
  • What level of detail and depth – and terminology do they need? (lay, technical, executive, etc.)
  • Will it be it a simple product, or interactive?
  • If interactive, what data are you going to send back and forth with your users? Be specific.
  • What security requirements do you have for that data?
  • How will users access the product?
  • How will fulfillment be handled?
  • How many consecutive downloads or streams should be handled at once?
  • How will you provide customer and technical support to users?
  • Will you need to analyze statistics on the product?

At this point in the game, sometimes it’s helpful to put together a few screen mockups. They don’t need to be functional – a Photoshop mockup works just fine. It gives you something tangible to help you think through the options.

It’s important to understand that requirements are never final. Daunting, isn’t it? They are updated throughout the life of your project as you learn by doing, so better refine your objectives. Your first cut at requirements becomes your target; it is a baseline to measure the impact of any changes later on in the project.

One note on change – the cost impact of changing the scope of a project grows dramatically as the project nears completion.

Form and Function

After you’ve gone through the analysis process, it’s time to design your product. Usually this includes both a physical, architectural design and an informational design. This might include:

  • A diagram of where your product will live, connections to any other systems, and how it will be served to customers
  • A diagram of the fulfillment and any payment processes
  • Using the information product example, a detailed outline of the ebook content itself
  • A mockup of a couple of options for information product look and feel
  • A mockup for the user interface that will serve up the e-book

Consider whether a design review session might be helpful to you. Once you reach a point where you have some solid, useful information pulled together, sit down with a trusted associate or mentor to get some interim feedback.

Planning for Gold

You don’t need a sophisticated project management planning package – a word processing document and/or spreadsheet works just fine. If you’re working on this project with a partner or group, a document collaboration system – a wiki, shared file system or private blog - can be really helpful because email attachments can create version control problems over time.

A few basic project documents to consider developing and maintaining:

  • A project schedule, identifying planned milestones, due dates, and critical dependencies
  • An immediate action item list, including task description, time frame and person assigned
  • An issues list, including description, urgency, timeline and person assigned
  • A budget, with actual spending (including your time!) reconciled against projected budget

Jeri Merrell, PMP, is an IT program manager for GCI, an Alaskan telecommunications company. She has worked in project management for the last ten years and her focus has been varied, exploring many facets of the industry: business process, product development, infrastructure, IP telephony, business intelligence and application development. She writes technology and business focused articles at http://www.ungeekit.com.

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