Dec 2009 Issue: Project Planning

Welcome to Our December Issue

In this month’s issue, we’ll be focusing on Project Planning. It’s in the planning stage that a project’s success or failure is often determined, and time spent on up-front planning will pay off many times before the project is concluded. A clue to how important planning is? PMI devotes 20 (almost 50%) of their total project management processes to planning.

Included in this issue:

• Consider Organizational Culture in Your Project Planning
• Project Management Q&A
• Build Reality Into Your Project Plan and Approach
• Two Common Planning Mistakes
• Reading Room: Planning
• Resource: University of Minnesota PMO
• Plan for Project Security
• Project Planning Quick Tips

Next Month’s Topic: Negotiation and Conflict Resolution

If you’re not a regular subscriber, sign up for pmPractitioner today and be notified when next month’s issue is available!

pmPractitioner is published as a service to the project management community. Each issue provides practical project management solutions and tips adapted from a variety of business publications and resources.

Consider Organizational Culture in Your Project Planning

Just as each individual has his or her own unique personality, organizations typically have a unique, well-engrained culture. Clues to the culture of your own or your client’s organization can be found in their shared beliefs, values and norms.

This is important to you as a project manager because the organizational culture will often directly impact your project and the likelihood of its success. During project planning, try reflecting on the organizational culture questions listed below and tailor your approach accordingly for optimum project effectiveness.

Is team involvement and interaction supported appropriately?

• Ensure that key players are involved from the beginning.
• Enhance communication between participants through face-to-face joint planning meetings, clearly defined communication processes and appropriate tools.

Is planning valued as a true work activity within a project and adequate time given to it?

• Use effective planning techniques such as team sessions to build an initial WBS.
• Ensure that project managers and team members are trained on appropriate planning techniques and tools.

Is the project planning process in your organization systematic, consistent and structured?

• Ensure that planning activities are integrated and focused on the customer need and required outcomes.
• Confirm that plans are supported by appropriate project organizations.
• Make sure that company goals are understood and projects are linked to them.

Does the team respond to new ideas, opportunities and external forces in a robust and flexible way?

• Encourage new approaches to project planning if what exists is not working.
• Create a project climate where opportunities are quickly seized and fed into the project team and/or senior management for decision-making and action.
• Address ideas and opportunities quickly and decisively, staying focused on the ultimate outcomes needed.

Adapted from Fundamentals of Accelerated Project Performance, Action for Results, Inc., 2007

Project Management Q&A

Test your project management knowledge with these questions or use them as an exercise to help prepare for your PMP certification exam.

1. The process of continuously improving and detailing a plan as more detailed and specific information and more accurate estimates become available is known as:

2. During the Estimate Activity Resources process, a slightly overeager project assistant provides you with a list of the following items which they consider to be resources that need to be estimated.  As Project Manager, you know that one of them does not belong on the list, as it is not an example of resources that you will estimate. 

Which one is it?

Answers appear at the end of the newsletter.

Build Reality Into Your Project Plan and Approach

Nothing is more helpful to a project manager and team than having a realistic project plan on hand as they start their project. A realistic appraisal of the project represents a holistic understanding of the world, stakeholder actions, conditions and boundaries as they actually are (or were) at the time of planning.

To gain a foothold on reality as you plan your project, be sure that you:

• Understand and agree on the scope and requirements.
• Clarify and prioritize constraints.
• Understand, document and validate assumptions.
• Base time duration estimates on the total effort and actual availability (and skill-level) of resources.
• Understand cross-functional interdependencies and link tasks accordingly.
• Factor in risks.
• Set up an effective change control mechanism.
• Know your stakeholders and what’s most important to them.
• Have a clear definition of success and the critical success indicators that tell you if you’re hitting it.

Adapted from mScholar’s Developing Realistic Project Plans, Action for Results, Inc., 2009

Two Common Planning Mistakes

Even when project managers try their best to plan well, there are two mistakes that crop up quite regularly in project planning:

1. The people who must implement the plan are not involved in the planning process.

This can occur for a variety of reasons, including that the project manager plans unilaterally or because an organization makes use of a “planning group” whose job it is to plan all upcoming projects. However it happens, the result is inaccurate estimates, overlooked work or lack of commitment on the part of the individuals who must execute the plan.

2. There is a failure to consider that team members may not be full-time on the project.

Assuming that team members can devote their energies full-time (or even a certain percentage) to a project can lead to a plan that is doomed from the start. The total elapsed time to complete the project will be considerably greater than the time estimated. Involving team members in the planning process is vital, as they are the ones on the “front lines.” Not only will this lead to more accurate estimating, but they can often provide key information that may affect other aspects of planning.

Adapted from Project Planning, Scheduling and Control, James P. Lewis, 2005

Reading Room: Planning

Agile Estimating and Planning, Mike Cohn, Prentice Hall PTR, 2005

Effective Work Breakdown Structures, Gregory T. Haugan, Management Concepts, 2001

Integrated Project Planning, Parviz F Rad and Vittal S Anantatmula, Project Management Excellence, LLC, 2009

Practical Guide to Project Planning, Ricardo Viana Vargas, Auerbach Publishing, 2007

Time Management from the Inside Out, Julie Morgenstern, Holt Publishers, 2004

Resource: University of Minnesota PMO

The University of Minnesota has established a Project Management Office (PMO) to facilitate the organization’s ability to manage its entire collection of projects and serve as a single source of information on project activity.  They have developed their own project management methodology and created a “Project Toolkit” section on their PMO website. Included in the toolkit are a host of downloadable planning templates for the project charter, WBS, risk management plan, scope planning and more. 

University of Minnesota PMO website

Plan for Project Security

How secure is your project information? It can be easy to forget about security as we plan for, and carry through, the day-to-day work of a project. However, many of the documents that are born out of the process contain valuable and proprietary information that should be protected.

How many people have access to your project’s:

• Communications (status reports, issue logs)?
• Electronic repositories (public folders and networks)?
• Physical project assets (Notebooks, laptops, prototypes)?

The importance of project security should not be underestimated, especially considering that many safety measures are relatively easy to plan for and put into place.

Here are a few:

• Security policy reminders on every e-mail and physical document.
• Periodic audits of both assets and processes.
• Non-disclosure agreements for team members, vendors and others.
• System passwords for access to project folders and networks.

Adapted from What Is Project Security?, Darrel A. Raynor

Project Planning Quick Tips

Use Your WBS to Manage Costs
The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) can be a valuable tool for controlling costs. For one thing, changes to the WBS will almost always mean changes to the costs, so they can be managed using an integrated approach. Changes to the budget without associated changes to the WBS usually mean one of two things – the estimate was incorrect, or there was an incorrect assumption when calculating costs. Most of these can be treated as variance and managed accordingly.

Avoid Resource Planning Mistakes
When defining the project calendar, it is sometimes easy to make simple mistakes in estimating the availability of project staff. Here’s a common one:

There are 2080 hours in a typical work-year (40 hours/week X 52 weeks/yr). Some managers use this figure when assigning resources across the project schedule.  However, if not factored properly, this can be a mistake. Individuals are not available 2080 hours each year. Typically, full-time people are available only 1,660 hours each year, considering vacation, illness, meetings and other demands. .

To avoid making this common resource planning mistake, estimate that full-time team members are available to support your project a maximum of 32 hours/week, on average.

Don’t Forget Project Management Activities!
‘Project management’ deliverables and activities are just as essential as the ‘technical’ deliverables and activities in any project.  Some projects overlook this important fact and find themselves in trouble as a result.Think about it. Developing the project plan, coordinating project activities, monitoring progress, managing the schedule, managing the budget, managing subsidiary plans, conducting meetings, documenting and disseminating reports, etc. This represents significant work effort and costs significant money. 

The next time you plan a project, include all PM deliverables and activities in your WBS, schedule and budget. Some project managers use 25% as a thumb-rule to estimate the overall project cost percentage that should be budgeted to support project management activities.

From Action for Results, Inc.

Answers to Project Management Q&A

1. (d) Progressive Elaboration

(A) Scope definition is incorrect. It is a process whose goal is creation of a scope statement.

[Planning], PMBOK Fourth Edition, p. 7

2. (b) is correct.
Resources are staff, equipment, materials, and supplies – so “scope” does not belong on this list. You may estimate scope but at a much earlier point.

Answer (C ) is incorrect. All resources are not human resources.  Equipment, material, and supplies are also resources which will be used by the project to reach its objectives.

[Planning] PMBOK® Guide Fourth Edition, P. 143