Very often, the trickiest part of planning a new project when it lands up in an email is identifying the tasks that need special attention. It is a major part of project planning and to get through the project effortlessly we have to be careful. There are many project managers who find it difficult to tell what is important in a project. Where to start? How to organize the things and how to assign the tasks to teams? Are you familiar with the same problem? If yes, you probably will be going through the following symptoms while planning a project.
- You keep changing priorities
- You try to do multitasking because you are confused
- Which tasks to complete first and which ones can be done later
- Lots of chaos and mess
- Delay in important tasks
Can you relate them well? It’s not the end. You can easily get out of the things that trouble you by following the right direction. To energize your project management plan you have to build a path for project management success. Firstly, find out what is important in your project.
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What’s important in a project?
Planning is a part of project that helps us to find out how we get things done. Let’s take a project management plan example from our daily routine. We are the project for us and we need a plan for everything from what we are going to wear today to what we are going to eat for lunch. It is something that gives us satisfaction to take a step forward. Planning is something which needs to be done from the first day itself. Just as for our parents we are a project and they have planned to take care of us from our childhood. They have a plan for everything including our food, schools, career, future goals, living and almost everything. Similarly, while starting to work on your new project we should have a plan to identify what is important in that project for us. There are project management techniques and methodologies to easily define the most important tasks. Take care of your project by being the parents and protect the future of your project. And more than this there are some other clear reasons for sketching a project plan.
Why project plan will make your life easier?
Planning your project will help you with the following;
Better transparency of your own work
As a project manager it role and responsibility to promote transparency in your office. To bring transparency in your management activities you will have to keep your clients and team informed about every step in your project. When you have a project management plan on a project management tool you can create milestones, task lists and explaining the small processes of your work.
You become more organized
A comprehensive plan for your projects is a fine way to handle the orders at the same time. You can easily underestimate the processing time of your projects if you do not consider it when you start working on the project and you will end up missing a deadline. You can track the planning process and stay organized by knowing the amount of time needed for each task and how to handle them.
No more daily plans
Once you have designed carefully the routine for work, there is no need to plan daily what you should be doing and how things will work. You can get a project management plan and have a checklist by your side to make sure you are following the routine. It helps you to keep your focus on your to do’s and goals. This eliminates the need to plan your activities every morning and you can wake up knowing the tasks you have for the day.
Focus on the project goal
Having the right plan will help you identify meaningful project goals and objectives. A project will succeed if it has clear goals and objectives and having a project plan will make it sure not to lose yourself on the way. With every step you plan, it should connect you to the end goal of your project. Every milestone should bring you closer to the finished product, and you can stay focused on the end goal.
But, what exactly does come in a good project plan?
A masterful project plan will will require detailed project management to get the story right that tells about project goals, objectives and deliverables.
It is not much complicated to learn how to make a project plan. Include these essential elements in your project plan to keep your teams running smoothly and making your project a success.
Essential elements of a project management plan
Stakeholder management: A project is successful if it exceeds the expectations of stakeholders who have vested interest in your project. The first thing to look after when starting with your project management plan is to pull out all the information that matches with the requirements of stakeholder. If your stakeholder is not happy, your project cannot be a success even if all the deliverables are met and objectives are satisfied. Make sure you identify all the stakeholders in your project including project team, top management, internal customers, external customers, your manager, peers, resource managers, contractors and others.
Scope management: After you know the impact of stakeholders on your project, next comes understanding the scope and value of your project that will clearly define a approach for your team to manage the project. Plan is more than just knowing the dates. It is about gathering all the information about your projects.
- The major deliverables
- How to reach the deliverables
- Who will play what role in the deliverables
- What is the WBS (Work Breakdown Structure)
- What is (and isn’t) included in your project?
Your plan should include answers to these questions and a strategic plan for your project.
Time management: A good time management is to work efficiently for increased productivity and effectiveness. For project managers it is important to plan the project activities, sequence them, decide on resources and develop the schedule to manage time with proper planning. Also, try to keep distractions away, make task lists and define priorities, estimate and track time accurately to for better time management.
Schedule: Which tasks of your project are responsible for producing each deliverable? Having a schedule of how well defined your project is, using a Gantt chart to help you map out all the activities can give you an overview of when your project will be completed. Detailed project schedule is an essential element of your project planning. Your schedule should also include details on who you’ll be communicating with, and in what form.
Budget Details: Few projects are set to have an unlimited budget while a few of them are limited to certain budgets, so managing the project budget should be considered before planning the project. When it comes to estimating costs be realistic by including projected overtime hours, consulting fees, equipment, software purchases, travel expenses, and other expenses. Try to be as precise as possible and effective budget management should be your primary focus on project planning.
Congrats, you are done with your project plan. With ProofHub’s project management app, you can plan all your requirements to make your project life much easy. Though you will have to follow your project plan in a streamlined way to make your project perfect as only planning will not make your project perfect, but it surely give a jump-start to your project.
