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Create a project plan

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A project plan is a document that outlines the scope, schedule, resources, and deliverables of your project. A project plan is essential for managing your project effectively and achieving your goals. A good project plan should also have its own governance mechanisms to avoid poor practices, detect risks early, and provide the agility and insights to adjust quickly.

In this article, we'll show you how to create a well-structured project plan that covers all the critical areas, is actionable, accurate, realistic, and clear, and provides a feedback loop for improvement.

Cover all the critical areas

Your project plan should cover (at least at a milestone level) all the key areas of activity in your project. If not, you might miss important dependencies and effort. Some of the key areas you should include in your project plan are:

  • Business process mapping
  • Application lifecycle management
  • Solution design and development
  • Data migration
  • Integration
  • Testing
  • Training
  • Cutover
  • Reporting and business intelligence

You should also include any other activities that are specific to your project scope or methodology.

Make your project plan actionable

Your project plan should direct your project activities at least at the milestone level. If not, it might not be useful or effective for managing your project. To make your project plan actionable, you should:

  • Break down your tasks into manageable units that can be assigned, tracked, and completed within a reasonable time frame.
  • Use clear and consistent naming conventions for your tasks and milestones.
  • Define dependencies between tasks and milestones so that you can identify the critical path of your project.
  • Assign owners and resources for each task and milestone so that you know who is responsible and accountable for them.
  • Use metrics such as percentage complete or remaining work to measure your progress.

Keep your project plan up to date, accurate, and realistic

Your project plan should reflect the current state of your project as closely as possible. If not, it might mislead or confuse you or other stakeholders about the status of your project. To keep your project plan up to date, accurate, and realistic, you should:

  • Update your tasks regularly with actual progress, effort, and duration data.
  • Use evidence-based methods for estimating your tasks, such as historical data, expert judgment, or parametric models.
  • Review and adjust your plan periodically to account for changes in scope, risks, issues, or assumptions.
  • Communicate any changes in your plan clearly and promptly to all stakeholders.

Make critical tasks clear

Your project plan should accurately identify the critical path so that project leadership can focus their attention on those tasks. To make critical tasks clear, you should:

  • Use simple and concise language that avoids unnecessary jargon or technical terms.
  • Use visual aids such as charts, graphs, or heatmaps to present your data in an easy-to-understand way.
  • Propose actions or solutions for resolving any problems or risks.

Provide clear accountability

Your project plan should clearly identify accountability for the outcomes both at the workstream level and overall. Project teams often create a RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted, informed) matrix at the start of the project. It might not provide the right level of accountability for all areas, though, and it isn't always referenced during the project implementation. Make sure the project plan asks whether accountability (not responsibility) for the outcome is clear. It helps keep accountability fresh in everyone's mind and makes the project more agile with faster decision-making.

Provide a feedback loop

Your project plan should provide a feedback loop that helps you improve your project based on the findings from status reports and other sources. If it doesn't, you might miss opportunities to learn from your mistakes or successes. To provide a feedback loop, you should:

  • Define a regular process for reviewing your status reports and generating explicit actions for improvement.
  • Consider all the other controls and procedures in your project that can provide useful feedback, such as daily stand-ups, design reviews, sprint playbacks, or risk discussions.
  • Assign owners and resources for each action and track their progress and outcomes.
  • Communicate the results of your feedback loop clearly and promptly to all stakeholders.

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