Making good project planning in 8 steps
When you have to realize a project as a project leader, making a good project planning is the first important step. After all, proper planning helps you to determine what and who you need to complete the project on time. You can make a good project planning with the following 8 steps.
Step 1: Capturing Start and Finish
When entering the project, it is always important to determine when the project is started and when it must be ready. The start date is when the first real activity is performed. The end date may relate to the complete completion of the project through an evaluation or presentation, but can also include the first realization or delivery of the project. It is important to set these different dates in advance and to properly coordinate what is meant by them.
Step 2: Distinguishing phases
The ability to make a clear project planning is one of the skills that a good project leader must have. The second important step in making such a planning is to distinguish between the various important (main) phases of the project. A phase is a natural stage that occurs within every project and in which a different important part of the project is always central. For example, every project has a start-up or preparation phase, a development phase and an elaboration phase. There is also always an implementation phase, whether or not followed by an evaluation or aftercare phase. Some projects also have a research phase and a phase of dissout. In order to make good planning with a logical structure, it is therefore important to be clear in advance of which important phases the project will exist exactly.
Step 3: Exposing parts stages
Depending on the size of the project, each phase can also be divided into various parts. After recording the different phases, it is therefore time to expose the different parts per phase by step. It helps to create a hierarchical overview of this with the project team, so that all parts can be clearly and in order of weight. If you work for a client, you can go through this hierarchical representation with him before you continue with the next steps of the planning. This way you can be sure that no important things will be overlooked. Do you have trouble mapping all the parts? You may be able to draw on the planning of previous projects or experts.
Step 4: Determine sequence activities
You have now arrived at the project planning phase in which all main phases and the associated parts have been determined. You have also verified the construction of the project with the client or the other members of the project team. Now it is important to connect to each part of concrete activities or tasks. Work out each component into individual tasks and consider whether they should be performed simultaneously or one after the other. In the latter case, the order of tasks or activities must of course also be determined. In fact, you are already making a chronological project planning in general. This part is also called the critical path of the project by project managers. Only when all the activities or tasks are met can the project be completed.
Step 5: Assign employees to activities
Next, it is necessary to determine who will perform which activity or task. First of all, map out the available employees and their skills. Place this next to the overview of activities made at step 4. Which employee will be responsible for which activity? Pay close attention to the order of activities, so that the run-in cannot stagnate. Some tasks can only be started when a certain activity is completed. It is therefore important to strategically assign the employees to every task, so that delays in the realization of one task do not also frustrates the rest of the project planning.
Step 6: Estimate and Capture Lead Times
Now that it is clear what tasks there are and who will take them on, it is important to actually start the schedule of time. For this it is necessary to determine the lead time per task. Depending on the size and duration of the project, you can make this estimate based on hours, days, weeks or even months. Various planning programs can help with this task, by making the lead time visually visible through a timeline. Making a good estimate of the lead time of each task requires the necessary experience and knowledge. You may be able to gather information from the client, from other project members or you can find information online to make a better estimate. In order to build up knowledge for the next process, it is smart to register the actual time used in the planning in addition to the estimated time; so you can make a more realistic estimate with a next planning. All in all, finding the right balance between tight planning and sufficient reserve time is the task of a good project planner. Over-ambiglance planning can lead to frustration and stalling, while planning with too much backup time can delay and be demotivating.
Step 7: Determining Final Deadlines
Now that all lead times have been mapped, it is time to set the final deadlines. They are sometimes referred to as milestones. Which group of related tasks and activities do you want to have absolutely finished at what time? Clearly indicate this in the project planning, so that the team always has clear anchor points to work towards. In the planning, you can also clearly show which deadlines are crucial: when they are not reached on time, the entire project will be delayed. By properly monitoring these deadlines you prevent the final end date from being met.
Step 8: Publish planning
The time has come: you have achieved clear planning with lead times and hard deadlines. Now it is important to convert these into a handy and clear planning that is easy to handle for the whole team. For this you can use special project planning software or you can, for example, make a schedule in Excel. Make sure that each team member clearly sees what their tasks are and when they need to be completed. It is then important to publish the project planning and make it accessible to the entire project team. Of course, it is important to continuously monitor the progress of the project after the publication of the planning. Where necessary, the project planning must be adjusted in the interim, so that the final deadline can be achieved.