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Ishan Gaba is a Research Analyst at Simplilearn. He is proficient in Java Programming, Data Structures, and Project Management. Graduated in Information Technology, Ishan is also passionate about writing and traveling.
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Introduction to Project Management
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“Hi, Aniket, good to see you again!” My manager greeted me after I came back from my two-month annual vacation to India. Back then, I was working as a product manager at Zalando, one of Europe’s biggest fashion e-commerce companies.
After coming back, I asked my manager if she knew what I would be working on next. We had a one-hour meeting and I learned that I’d be leading one of the most complex products — a completely new version of our in-house content management system. I was elated, to say the least.
At the end of the day, I was assigned the task of coming up with a rough project plan for this product. Even though I had worked on creating multiple project plans back then, I was nervous. This product was complicated and had hundreds of use cases. I didn’t know where to start. This was the first taste of building a project plan for a highly complex product.
In this blog, we’ll cover the importance of project planning and its key elements. We’ll look at a project plan template, walk through a realistic example, and cover tips for efficient project planning in your organization. Let’s get started!
Before we get into project planning, it’s important to understand the lifecycle of a project:
Since we are focusing on project planning, we’ll deep-dive into its different elements. However, to do that, we first need to understand why project planning is important.
The project that I was given to lead at Zalando was a highly complex one. The estimated timeline for completing the project was one year — this is fairly high in the software development world.
There were three engineering teams involved each with 7–8 team members. When it comes to complex projects, it’s essential to have a strong project plan in place.
Here are a few reasons why project planning is important:
As they say “without a goal, you can’t score.”
Every project needs a goal or outcome for the team to understand what they are supposed to do. Project planning helps achieve that.
Initial project planning helps to understand how much estimated time the team will take and how much money the project requires. The latter includes salaries of employees, hardware costs, training, etc.
This is an extremely important part of a project plan. Project planning helps identify potential blockers or risks , thereby enabling the project manager and teams to create a risk mitigation strategy.
A strong project plan helps everyone understand their responsibilities. This, in turn, helps the teams collaborate effectively and finish the project within the timeframe.
Next, let’s review the key elements of project planning:
This is pretty self-explanatory, it’s what the project is going to hopefully achieve by the end. It’s important to have SMART goals so they’re as specific and unambiguous as possible.
This is the very first element of a project plan that the team decides on. Scope helps the teams understand what they need to achieve and gives direction to the product. Scope typically includes objectives, goals, expected deliveries, and project limitations.
This helps teams understand when they need to deliver the project and how to divide the project into small, executable milestones that fit into the total timeline. It also includes the allocation of resources, personnel equipment, and necessary training.
The budget details the financial part of the project. Questions like how much total money needs to be spent to finish the project, what are the funding sources, what are the revenue projects, etc. are answered via budgeting. This also includes the salaries of team members, training costs, equipment costs, etc.
Every project comes with its own risks. Risks are factors that could impact the project’s successful completion. These could be the availability of resources, legal and/or regulatory compliance, or technology limitations.
Assessing risks early on helps detail how they can be mitigated to successfully deliver the project. One point to note is that it’s not possible to identify all the risks early on. For example, no companies could predict the magnitude of the outbreak of COVID-19. This proves that some risks are beyond the control of the company and teams.
A project requires effective collaboration between different team members, such as designers, engineers, marketers, sales personnel, etc. To achieve this, a project needs to have a strong communication plan. This includes meeting schedules, modes of communication, and reporting requirements.
As mentioned in the risks section, there are times when the project needs to change because of unidentified or unplanned risks. These changes might affect the scope, timeline, budget, resources, or any other part of a project.
This is why a change management plan needs to be discussed. This plan outlines how a project can be changed, how to communicate changes to stakeholders, and how to address concerns or conflicts.
Every project has stakeholders. Stakeholders can either play an active role in finishing projects, such as engineering and designers, or simply may just be interested in the status of the project, such as higher management.
Having a stakeholder management plan will keep the stakeholders educated and engaged, thereby removing any blockers or concerns.
As mentioned earlier, a project requires active collaboration between different teams and team members. This is why a clear definition of who will work on what is extremely important. It also helps to outline the responsibilities of every team member, project manager, project sponsor, etc.
Here is a free project plan template that I created. Feel free to use it at your convenience. This highlights all the points that are mentioned above in the key elements of the project planning section.
You can make a copy of this template to customize for your projects by going to File > Make a copy .
Let’s go through an example to create a project plan using the above template.
We’ll start with the project goal. As mentioned earlier, the first part of a project plan is to understand the needs of the project. The outcome of this is to have a specific goal and outcome. This is the most critical part since it will drive the entire project.
For example, let’s say we work for an established e-commerce company that’s doing well in selling fashion products and we’ve already identified a need of selling second-hand products. In this case, the goal is to “enable sellers to sell second-hand products at their desired price.”
Once the goal is identified, the next step is to define the scope. This helps to deliver results faster. Here’s an example: to enable sellers to sell second-hand products at their desired price on an e-commerce shop, we need to: enable a new categorization “second-hand” on the website for the users to discover; build systems to enable sellers to sell the second product at their desired rates; and define return and exchange policies.
These are just a few of the things that the team will need to work on. And hence, it’s important to scope the project so that it’s easier for the team to deliver. For example, enable sellers to sell second-hand t-shirts at their desired price. This will help the team only focus on one category as compared to tens of other categories, thereby having a clear scope to work on.
Next, we have timeline. As mentioned previously, this helps the team know how soon they need to deliver the project. For our example, we could say that our goal to enable sellers to sell second-hand t-shirts at their desired price should be finished in three months. Every month, there will be a smaller release related to the project goal.
Next up is the budget. This falls in the bucket of the sponsor. Usually, that’s someone from higher management. We need to know what physical resources, human resources, and physical locations are necessary
For example:
Risks are an extremely critical part of a project that helps identify potential risks early on and create a contingency plan. We can ask ourselves things like, “What if the project is not delivered within the timeline?” “What if the project requires more budget?” or “What if the company doesn’t find sellers to sell second-hand products?”
For the first question, we could de-scope the project depending on what needs to be finished. For the second, evaluate the reasons and find funding opportunities, And for the third question, we could understand the reasoning and iterate the product (or close it, depending on the feedback).
This is the backbone of the project and keeps the project audience together.
Here’s an example of a communication plan:
Questions such as “What happens if something goes wrong?” are taken care of in this section.
I nform the primary stakeholders, who, in this case, are higher management (including the CEO, CTO, and CPO) ASAP in case of changes. Also, evaluate the cost of the change and communicate the same.
This part talks about who are the relevant stakeholders, how should they be informed, and how often. In this case, the stakeholders are the higher management, engineering team, operations team, and design team. They should be informed via email once every two weeks.
Lastly, every project requires active collaboration between different teams. And hence why it’s necessary to understand who is involved in the project and what their roles are.
For example, engineering will work to build the software, the design team will design the features and the end-to-end flow, and the project manager will lead the project.
Here is the template with all the filled answers.
The following are some lessons learned and advice I’d give for effective project planning:
A good project plan can help the team sail the winds smoothly. It forms the backbone of the project. A project plan can give clear visibility to all stakeholders, thereby helping everyone accomplish the desired goal.
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Thanks a lot for your hard work and great samples! Really appreciate. I think project planning also requires digital tools for planning. Kanbantool.com seems to be a great match here. I bet you have heard about kanban 🙂 Thanks once again and wish you luck, and all smooth i professional life 🙂
Project Transition Planning: Process, Checklist, Tools
Home Blog Project Management Project Transition Planning: Process, Checklist, Tools
In business terms, change is more crucial. As new competitors arise, the need for transition becomes indispensable. This is precisely where transition planning comes into play. It is not merely a few steps that you can follow to achieve the perfect transition.
Project Transition planning helps ensure a seamless project journey from one phase to the next. Teaming up with meticulous foresight and strategic decision-making, one can transform uncertainty into a fantastic opportunity.
In most layman's language, project transition planning can be considered a strategic method that helps in the smooth transition from a project's implementation to its maintenance and completion within an organization.
The individual or group in an organization who is in charge of the transition takes care of all the tasks and plans the activities that a project team needs to perform in each phase.
Apart from the ones already mentioned, there are quite a few other roles that transition plan project management can help assist. They are:
The first question that might arise after learning about project transition planning is, "Why is transition planning important?" Here’s the answer! The primary purpose of a transition project plan within a business is to consolidate all goals, strategies, and priorities into one comprehensive plan, ensuring a smooth and successful shift. With a well-defined plan, the entire process becomes manageable, the employees start getting confused, and insecurity develops within the country.
All this planning is essential before someone else takes over the roles after the transition. It is a very fruitful way to ensure nothing goes unnoticed and that all the roles and responsibilities are handed over without hiccups.
However, if you want to know more about why transition planning is vital to project management, be a part of some Project Management classes , and witness transition planning at both organizational and personal levels. Along with this, as an organization, one must always prioritize the employees. As a part of the transition team, it is essential to understand that a successful transition helps establish the employees' financial security.
Having a checklist is always beneficial and is not just limited to transitioning. The checklist acts as a guidebook comprising all the critical transition activities that one must complete by specific timelines to ensure the process is completed within the set time frame.
A project transition plan checklist also helps keep the organization organized while the transition is ongoing. Here is an example of what a transition checklist looks like. As you can see, the above transition checklist example describes the process of shifting a patient with ongoing clinical care to an alternative setting. It clearly mentions the responsible people, general information about the transition, and the entire procedure.
A project transitional plan is a vital tool that helps ensure a smooth and successful organizational change. Whether implementing new strategies, adopting new technologies, or undergoing a leadership change, a well-planned transition can help reduce disruptions. In addition, it helps maximize the chances of a successful outcome without any minor hiccups, which are often highlighted as one of the importance of transition planning. Alongside this, the PMP course will help you further learn and implement the transitional plan.
Below is the step-by-step guide to help you implement a transition plan format most effectively:
Having an example or a sample to cross-check your checklist when handling the transition management plan is always beneficial. Below you will find a transition plan example that you can use to correlate with your plan or get an idea about how to create a project transition plan:
The below checklist comprises all the necessary steps and associated activities to completely transform from the implementation phase of Project AI to the maintenance phase. Also, the PRINCE2 course online will help you advance your project management career.
Step 1: Wrap up the Project AI implementation phase.
Timeline: To be completed within five days from the day of successful implementation of the project and two days before beginning the next phase.
Step 2: Test the outline of the digital database.
Timeline: To be completed within three days, starting from the day of creating the outline and two days before starting with the next part.
Step 3: Secure the finalized database of the project.
Step 4: To be completed within seven days, starting from the initial troubleshooting of the maintenance database and two days before the beginning of the final step.
Step 5: Launch the use of the Project AI maintenance database.
Timeline: Finish this immediately once the database is live.
Take a deep dive into the trending KnowledgeHut's Project Management Courses:
Although hundreds of ALM tools are available, not all are useful. Here's a checklist of the features one must check before choosing the right tool for the company. Tools with all the features help create different types of transition planning without any hassle. These features are:
Some prominent ALM tools are:
When there is a need for any transition within a company, project transition planning is a crucial aspect. Companies and individuals involved with the management can draw inspiration and learn by utilizing the various project transition plan examples.
A well-defined and designed transition plan format serves as a framework that ensures a smooth and efficient transition. Getting a grasp on how to write a transition plan enables the individuals involved to outline goals effectively, assess risks, allocate resources, etc., for a seamless project handover. As an individual, you can learn more about transition planning by opting for KnowledgeHut Project Management and certification courses.
If one is looking from a company's viewpoint, the primary purpose of the transition is to enable the business to adapt, evolve and thrive in response to changing circumstances.
The three main components of transition planning are as follows:
There are quite some advantages of transition planning.
Kevin D. Davis is a seasoned and results-driven Program/Project Management Professional with a Master's Certificate in Advanced Project Management. With expertise in leading multi-million dollar projects, strategic planning, and sales operations, Kevin excels in maximizing solutions and building business cases. He possesses a deep understanding of methodologies such as PMBOK, Lean Six Sigma, and TQM to achieve business/technology alignment. With over 100 instructional training sessions and extensive experience as a PMP Exam Prep Instructor at KnowledgeHut, Kevin has a proven track record in project management training and consulting. His expertise has helped in driving successful project outcomes and fostering organizational growth.
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Master project planning: essential components, steps, and tools.
Are your projects often failing? Are you constantly creating new plans after spending months on a project? Or do you struggle to correctly create a budget estimate for your projects? If these issues seem familiar, then you would want to learn more about project planning.
Understanding the components of project planning, correctly executing project planning steps , and finding the right tools with the necessary features will be a game-changer for you.
Before getting into the nuances of project planning, let’s first understand what it means.
This can be defined as a strategic project planning process of outlining and organizing the necessary steps to achieve project objectives. In simple terms, project management planning helps you create a roadmap for your project. It helps you figure out what needs to be done, how you will do it, and how you keep everything on track. You start by defining your goals and breaking down the work into manageable tasks. Then, you estimate how much time and resources each task will require.
You also need to anticipate potential risks and establish ways to communicate and stay in control. And once the project is in motion, you’ll set up systems to monitor progress, manage any changes, and ensure you’re sticking to your project constraints.
Explore the diverse paths of project planning with vertical, horizontal, and joint approaches to achieve project success.
1. Vertical Planning (Waterfall Planning): Vertical planning, also called waterfall planning, involves sequentially organizing the project’s phases, starting from the beginning and progressing step by step.
2. Horizontal Planning (Agile Planning): Horizontal planning, also known as agile planning, entails simultaneously planning different aspects or parts of the project. This approach allows for flexibility and adaptability.
3. Joint Planning (Integrated Planning): Joint planning, sometimes termed integrated planning, combines elements of both vertical and horizontal planning. Some project parts are planned sequentially, while others are planned concurrently. This method integrates structured and flexible planning approaches.
We can infer from the project planning definition that it provides a solid foundation for successful project execution. Now let’s go in-depth to understand the importance of project planning!
Project planning sets clear objectives and gives everyone on the team a direction towards which they have to work. It’s like having a roadmap that lays out the project’s scope, deliverables, and milestones from beginning to end. This way, you stay on track and make sure your project is in line with the overall organizational goals.
When you plan your projects effectively, you are able to make the most out of your resources. You figure out ahead of time the people, equipment, and materials you will need so you don’t run into any shortages or end up with too much of something. This way, you make sure you have the right resources when you need them, which helps you avoid delays and get the most productivity out of your team.
When you plan your projects, you have to think about all the things that could go wrong and devise ways to handle them. You do risk assessments to spot potential challenges ahead of time and come up with backup plans. This way, when unexpected stuff happens, it doesn’t throw you off completely. It helps you make better decisions and keeps your project tough and resilient.
While planning projects, you are able to set up timelines and budgets that actually make sense. You break down the project plan into the smaller tasks, estimate how long each one will take, and assign the right resources. This way, you can keep an eye on how things are going and catch any potential delays or cost overruns before they become a big problem. It helps you make adjustments and take action quickly so you finish your projects on time and within budget.
Project planning keeps all the important people on board. You involve key stakeholders in the planning process, so you can all be on the same page. It’s all about talking and keeping everyone in the loop about the project goals, what you expect, and how things are going. By setting up regular communication and reporting systems from the get-go, you manage stakeholder expectations, keep things transparent, and work together as a team.
Now that you have seen what planning projects can do for you let’s see the three important components or elements of project planning.
The scope of the project basically talks about what you will do and what you will not do. It’s all about figuring out the specific things you will deliver, the features you will have, and how everything will work. By nailing down the scope, you ensure that everyone involved knows what’s included and what’s not. This way, you avoid scope creep, which is when things get added on and go off track. You would definitely not want that because it leads to delays and budget problems.
When planning a project, you have to figure out how much money you will need and where it will be used. You estimate all the costs, like how much you will spend on labor, materials, equipment, and all those other expenses that come with getting things done. Budget planning is important because it helps you know how much the whole project will cost and ensure you have enough cash to cover it. Plus, it lets you keep an eye on your spending and make sure you stay within the budget you set.
When creating a project plan, you have to map out a schedule that tells you when things are going to happen. You figure out the start and end dates for all the tasks and milestones. You also look at how long each task will take, what tasks depend on others, and the order they have to be done. This timeline planning is key because it helps you manage your resources and efficiently coordinate tasks.
You can spot the critical paths that could slow us down and mark your big milestones. By setting up realistic timelines that you can actually achieve, you can keep an eye on how you are doing, catch any potential delays, and take action to keep things on track.
Also Read: 5 Phases of Project Management
Creating a project plan is essential to keep your project on track and make sure it succeeds. Here are seven steps to help you create a complete project plan:
Step 1: Define Your Project’s Goals: Start by clearly stating what your project is all about, what you want to achieve, and what you’ll deliver. Make sure everyone involved understands this.
Step 2: Identify Everyone Involved: Figure out who’s part of your project team, who the clients are, who’s sponsoring it, and who will use the end product. Understand their roles and expectations to communicate and work together effectively.
Step 3: Set a Timeline: Make a realistic schedule with specific start and end dates for each part of your project. Think about which tasks depend on others and make sure you have enough time for everything. Tools like Gantt charts can help you see the schedule visually.
Step 4: Break It Down: Divide your project into smaller tasks and sub-tasks. Organize them in a list to assign responsibilities and track progress easily.
Step 5: Get the Resources You Need: Determine what you’ll need for each task, like people, equipment, and materials. Make sure you have what you need when you need it to avoid delays.
Step 6: Deal with Risks: Identify potential problems that might come up during your project. Make a plan to handle these issues and be ready with backup plans if they happen. Keep reviewing and updating your risk plan throughout your project.
Step 7: Keep Everyone in the Loop: Set up a way to share project updates with everyone involved. Decide how and when you’ll report progress through updates or meetings.
Remember, your project plan can change as your project moves forward. Keep an eye on it, make adjustments when needed, and make sure your project stays on the path to success.
Project planning is the process of outlining the steps needed to complete a project successfully. It involves defining the project goals, identifying tasks, creating a timeline, assigning resources, and establishing a communication plan.
Here are some examples of project planning in different fields:
These are just a few examples of project planning. The specific steps involved in project planning will vary depending on the size and complexity of the project. However, the basic principles of project planning are the same: define the project goals, identify tasks, create a timeline, assign resources, and establish a communication plan.
Effective project management is essential in today’s fast-paced business environment, and several tools have emerged to streamline the process. Here, we explore these project management tools , each offering unique features and capabilities to suit various project management needs.
Quixy: A no-code Quixy simplifies project management with BPM innovation and user-friendly workflows.
Trello: Trello, known for its Kanban-based approach, streamlines project tasks efficiently.
Monday.com: Monday.com offers versatile dashboards, automation, and pre-built templates for seamless project management.
Wrike: Wrike prioritizes communication and transparency with real-time analytics for performance insights.
Asana: Asana is a feature-rich solution that emphasizes strategic goal-setting and workflow visualization.
Notion: Notion is ideal for small teams, offering customizable project planning tools and collaboration features.
Microsoft Project & Portfolio Management: Microsoft Project excels in single project management with budget tracking and interactive dashboards.
Choosing the right project management tool is crucial for your team’s success. Whether you need simplicity, flexibility, or comprehensive features, these tools offer various solutions to help you manage projects efficiently in today’s dynamic business landscape.
Also Read: Supercharge Project Management with No-Code Apps
Also Read: Project Management Hacks 101
No-code tools and project planning make a perfect duo, combining the strengths of simplicity and efficiency. No-code tools empower individuals without extensive coding knowledge to create sophisticated applications and workflows effortlessly. These intuitive platforms provide a visual interface that enables users to drag and drop elements, configure logic, and automate processes without writing a single line of code.
By integrating project planning into this equation, teams can seamlessly map out tasks, allocate resources, set timelines, and collaborate effectively. This combination streamlines the development process, ensuring efficient project management while eliminating the need for complex coding. With no-code tools and project planning working hand in hand, individuals and teams can unleash their creativity and productivity , delivering innovative solutions without the traditional barriers of programming expertise.
Quixy can be your end-to-end project planning and management tool because of its unique combination of features:
Quixy offers a comprehensive solution for planning, managing, and tracking your projects from start to finish. It empowers both technical and non-technical users to create efficient workflows and boost project success.
Also Read: Important Project Management Statistics to Watch
Project planning is the backbone of successful project execution. By following project planning steps, including defining objectives, allocating resources, and creating timelines, you can stay organized, efficient, and focused on achieving your goals. With the aid of project planning software like Quixy, collaboration and communication are enhanced, making the entire process smoother and more productive. So, embrace the power of project planning apps and watch your projects thrive!
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Q. what are the most important tasks for project planning.
The most important tasks in project planning include: 1. Defining the project scope. 2. Creating a detailed schedule 3. Allocating resources effectively. 4. Identifying risks. 5. Establishing communication channels for efficient collaboration.
Project planning is crucial as it sets the foundation for project success. It clarifies objectives, estimates resources, manages risks, and aligns stakeholders’ expectations. Effective planning ensures efficient resource utilization and enables teams to deliver projects on time and within budget.
When planning a project, estimating is necessary to determine each task’s time, cost, and resource requirements. Accurate estimation helps set realistic deadlines, allocate resources effectively, and manage project constraints. It also identifies potential bottlenecks and enables informed decision-making to ensure project success.
To plan a project, start by clearly defining objectives and stakeholders. Create a timeline, break tasks down, allocate resources, and consider risks. Keep communication open and adapt the plan as the project progresses.
Project planning tools enhance management through streamlined organization, automated workflows, improved communication, and real-time updates. They provide transparency, support risk management, allocate resources efficiently, maintain documentation, and offer data analysis capabilities. These tools adapt to different methodologies, making them versatile for projects of all sizes and complexities. Essentially, they empower teams to manage projects efficiently, leading to successful outcomes.
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Organize your projects with project plans to keep things on track—before you even start. A project plan houses all the necessary details of your project, such as goals, tasks, scope, deadlines, and deliverables. This shows stakeholders a clear roadmap of your project, ensures you have the resources for it, and holds everyone accountable from the start. In this article, we teach you the seven steps to create your own project plan.
Project plans are essential to keeping your project organized and on track. A great project plan will help you kick off your work with all the necessary pieces—from goals and budgets to milestones and communication plans—in one place. Save yourself time (and a few headaches) by creating a work plan that will make your project a success.
Project planning is the second stage in the project management process, following project initiation and preceding project execution. During the project planning stage, the project manager creates a project plan, which maps out project requirements. The project planning phase typically includes setting project goals, designating project resources, and mapping out the project schedule.
If you're still unsure about what a project plan is, here's how it differs from other project elements:
Project plan vs. work plan: A project plan and a work plan are the same thing. Different teams or departments might prefer one term or another—but they both ultimately describe the same thing: a list of big-picture action steps you need to take to hit your project objectives .
Project plan vs. project charter: A project charter is an outline of your project. Mostly, you use project charters to get signoff from key stakeholders before you start. Which means your project charter comes before your project plan. A project charter is an outline of a simple project plan—it should only include your project objectives, scope, and responsibilities. Then, once your charter has been approved, you can create a project plan to provide a more in-depth blueprint of the key elements of your project.
Project plan vs. project scope: Your project scope defines the size and boundaries of your project. As part of your project plan, you should outline and share the scope of your project with all project stakeholders. If you’re ever worried about scope creep , you can refer back to your pre-defined scope within your project plan to get back on track.
Project plan vs. agile project: Agile project management is a framework to help teams break work into iterative, collaborative components . Agile frameworks are often run in conjunction with scrum and sprint methodologies. Like any project, an Agile project team can benefit from having a project plan in place before getting started with their work.
Project plan vs. work breakdown structure: Similar to a project plan, your work breakdown structure (WBS) helps you with project execution. While the project plan focuses on every aspect of your project, the WBS is focused on deliverables—breaking them down into sub-deliverables and project tasks. This helps you visualize the whole project in simple steps. Because it’s a visual format, your WBS is best viewed as a Gantt chart (or timeline), Kanban board , or calendar—especially if you’re using project management software .
Project plans set the stage for the entire project. Without one, you’re missing a critical step in the overall project management process . When you launch into a project without defined goals or objectives, it can lead to disorganized work, frustration, and even scope creep. A clear, written project management plan provides a baseline direction to all stakeholders, while also keeping everyone accountable. It confirms that you have the resources you need for the project before it actually begins.
A project plan also allows you, as the person in charge of leading execution, to forecast any potential challenges you could run into while the project is still in the planning stages. That way, you can ensure the project will be achievable—or course-correct if necessary. According to a study conducted by the Project Management Institute , there is a strong correlation between project planning and project success—the better your plan, the better your outcome. So, conquering the planning phase also makes for better project efficiency and results.
To create a clear project management plan, you need a way to track all of your moving parts . No matter what type of project you’re planning, every work plan should have:
Goals and project objectives
Success metrics
Stakeholders and roles
Scope and budget
Milestones , deliverables , and project dependencies
Communication plan.
Not sure what each of these mean or should look like? Let’s dive into the details:
You’re working on this project plan for a reason—likely to get you, your team, or your company to an end goal. But how will you know if you’ve reached that goal if you have no way of measuring success?
Every successful project plan should have a clear, desired outcome. Identifying your goals provides a rationale for your project plan. It also keeps everyone on the same page and focused on the results they want to achieve. Moreover, research shows that employees who know how their work is contributing to company objectives are 2X as motivated . Yet only 26% of employees have that clarity. That’s because most goal-setting happens separate from the actual work. By defining your goals within your work plan, you can connect the work your team is doing directly to the project objectives in real-time.
In general, your project goals should be higher-level than your project objectives. Your project goals should be SMART goals that help you measure project success and show how your project aligns with business objectives . The purpose of drafting project objectives, on the other hand, is to focus on the actual, specific deliverables you're going to achieve at the end of your project. Your project plan provides the direction your team needs to hit your goals, so you can create a workflow that hits project objectives.
Your project plan provides the direction your team needs to hit your goals, by way of your project objectives. By incorporating your goals directly into your planning documentation, you can keep your project’s North Star on hand. When you’re defining your project scope, or outlining your project schedule, check back on your goals to make sure that work is in favor of your main objectives.
Once you’ve defined your goals, make sure they’re measurable by setting key success metrics. While your goal serves as the intended result, you need success metrics to let you know whether or not you’re performing on track to achieve that result. The best way to do that is to set SMART goals . With SMART goals, you can make sure your success metrics are clear and measurable, so you can look back at the end of your project and easily tell if you hit them or not.
For example, a goal for an event might be to host an annual 3-day conference for SEO professionals on June 22nd. A success metric for that goal might be having at least 1,000 people attend your conference. It’s both clear and measurable.
Running a project usually means getting collaborators involved in the execution of it. In your project management plan, outline which team members will be a part of the project and what each person’s role will be. This will help you decide who is responsible for each task (something we’ll get to shortly) and let stakeholders know how you expect them to be involved.
During this process, make sure to define the various roles and responsibilities your stakeholders might have. For example, who is directly responsible for the project’s success? How is your project team structured (i.e. do you have a project manager, a project sponsor , etc.)? Are there any approvers that should be involved before anything is finalized? What cross-functional stakeholders should be included in the project plan? Are there any risk management factors you need to include?
Consider using a system, such as a RACI chart , to help determine who is driving the project forward, who will approve decisions, who will contribute to the project, and who needs to remain informed as the project progresses.
Then, once you’ve outlined all of your roles and stakeholders, make sure to include that documentation in your project plan. Once you finalize your plan, your work plan will become your cross-functional source of truth.
Running a project usually costs money. Whether it’s hiring freelancers for content writing or a catering company for an event, you’ll probably be spending some cash.
Since you’ve already defined your goals and stakeholders as part of your project plan, use that information to establish your budget. For example, if this is a cross-functional project involving multiple departments, will the departments be splitting the project cost? If you have a specific goal metric like event attendees or new users, does your proposed budget support that endeavor?
By establishing your project budget during the project planning phase (and before the spending begins), you can get approval, more easily track progress, and make smart, economical decisions during the implementation phase of your project. Knowing your budget beforehand helps you with resource management , ensuring that you stay within the initial financial scope of the project. Planning helps you determine what parts of your project will cost what—leaving no room for surprises later on.
An important part of planning your project is setting milestones, or specific objectives that represent an achievement. Milestones don’t require a start and end date, but hitting one marks a significant accomplishment during your project. They are used to measure progress. For example, let’s say you’re working to develop a new product for your company . Setting a milestone on your project timeline for when the prototype is finalized will help you measure the progress you’ve made so far.
A project deliverable , on the other hand, is what is actually produced once you meet a milestone. In our product development example, we hit a milestone when we produced the deliverable, which was the prototype. You can also use project dependencies —tasks that you can’t start until others are finished. Dependencies ensure that work only starts once it’s ready. Continuing the example, you can create a project dependency to require approval from the project lead before prototype testing begins.
If you’re using our free project plan template , you can easily organize your project around deliverables, dependencies, and milestones. That way, everyone on the team has clear visibility into the work within your project scope, and the milestones your team will be working towards.
In order to achieve your project goals, you and your stakeholders need clarity on your overall project timeline and schedule. Aligning on the time frame you have can help you better prioritize during strategic planning sessions.
Not all projects will have clear-cut timelines. If you're working on a large project with a few unknown dates, consider creating a project roadmap instead of a full-blown project timeline. That way, you can clarify the order of operations of various tasks without necessarily establishing exact dates.
Once you’ve covered the high-level responsibilities, it’s time to focus some energy on the details. In your work plan template , start by breaking your project into tasks, ensuring no part of the process is skipped. Bigger tasks can even be broken down into smaller subtasks, making them more manageable.
Then, take each task and subtask, and assign it a start date and end date. You’ll begin to visually see everything come together in a cohesive project timeline . Be sure to add stakeholders, mapping out who is doing what by when.
We’ve established that most projects include multiple stakeholders. That means communication styles will vary among them. You have an opportunity to set your expectations up front for this particular project in your project plan. Having a communication plan is essential for making sure everyone understands what’s happening, how the project is progressing, and what’s going on next. And in case a roadblock comes up, you’ll already have a clear communication system in place.
As you’re developing your communication plan, consider the following questions:
How many project-related meetings do you need to have? What are their goals?
How will you manage project status updates ? Where will you share them?
What tool will you use to manage the project and communicate progress and updates?
Like the other elements of your project plan, make sure your communication plan is easily accessible within your project plan. Stakeholders and cross-functional collaborators should be able to easily find these guidelines during the planning and execution phases of your project. Using project planning tools or task management software that integrates with apps like Slack and Gmail can ensure all your communication happens in one easily accessible place.
Next, to help you understand what your project management plan should look like, here are two example plans for marketing and design projects that will guide you during your own project planning.
Let’s say you’re the Content Lead for your company, and it’s your responsibility to create and deliver on a content marketing calendar for all the content that will be published next year. You know your first step is to build your work plan. Here’s what it might look like:
You establish that your goal for creating and executing against your content calendar is to increase engagement by 10%. Your success metrics are the open rate and click through rate on emails, your company’s social media followers, and how your pieces of content rank on search engines.
There will be five people involved in this project.
You, Content Lead: Develop and maintain the calendar
Brandon and Jamie, Writers: Provide outlines and copy for each piece of content
Nate, Editor: Edit and give feedback on content
Paula, Producer: Publish the content once it’s written and edited
Your budget for the project plan and a year’s worth of content is $50,000.
Your first milestone is to finish the content calendar, which shows all topics for the year. The deliverable is a sharable version of the calendar. Both the milestone and the deliverables should be clearly marked on your project schedule.
You’ve determined that your schedule for your content calendar project plan will go as follows:
October 15 - November 1: The research phase to find ideas for topics for content
November 2 - November 30: Establish the topics you’ll write about
December 1 - January 1: Build the calendar
January 1 - December 31: Content will be written by Brandon and Jamie, and edited by Nate, throughout the year
January 16 - December 31: Paula will begin publishing and continue to do so on a rolling basis throughout the year.
You’ll have a kick-off meeting and then monthly update meetings as part of your communication plan. Weekly status updates will be sent on Friday afternoons. All project-related communication will occur within a project management tool .
Kerry Hoffman, Senior Project Manager of Marketing Operations at ClassPass , oversees all marketing projects undertaken by the creative, growth, and content teams. Here are her top three strategies for managing project plans:
Identify stakeholders up front: No matter the size of the project, it’s critical to know who the stakeholders are and their role in the project so you ensure you involve the right people at each stage. This will also make the review and approval process clear before the team gets to work.
Agree on how you want to communicate about your project: Establish where and when communication should take place for your project to ensure that key information is captured in the right place so everyone stays aligned.
Be adaptable and learn other people’s working styles: Projects don’t always go according to plan, but by implementing proper integration management you can keep projects running smoothly. Also, find out how project members like to work so you take that into account as you create your plan. It will help things run smoother once you begin executing.
Congratulations—you’re officially a work planning pro. With a few steps, a little bit of time, and a whole lot of organization, you’ve successfully written a project plan.
Keep yourself and your team on track, and address challenges early by using project planning software like Asana . Work through each of the steps of your project plan with confidence, and streamline your communications with the team.
If you’ve ever missed a deadline, gone over budget, or faced an unhappy team or client, you know just how tough managing projects can be. It’s not fun to let people down.
That’s why we believe having a plan is the most important thing you can do as a project manager—for your own peace of mind as well as that of your project mates.
A plan is your best defense against the common pitfalls that cause projects to fail. Let’s take a look at 10 benefits of project planning and why having a plan is so important in project management.
Imagine building IKEA cabinets with only a picture of the finished kitchen to go by. You’d start out completely overwhelmed, and every wrong move you make would only amp up your stress and frustration. And anyone else you rope into the build will feel it too.
You’d never bring that kind of pain on yourself, so why do that to your team and projects?
Think of a project plan as the instruction manual that guides everyone seamlessly through the steps to success—no wild guesses needed. This kind of clarity sends confusion packing and makes way for project peace to settle in.
Learn more about how to reduce project stress.
Good project planning doesn’t just neutralize negative project vibes. It provides a positive boost of confidence to everyone involved in the project.
You don’t have to wonder if progress is keeping pace with the deadline. Your team doesn’t have to guess what they should tackle next. And leaders and clients don’t have to worry about whether you’ve got a strategy for delivering what they need on time and budget.
It’s all right there in your plan!
Everyone knows communication is important in project management . And a plan is one of the most effective communication tools you can use to keep everyone informed about your project. That’s because it documents every important detail about your project—even when things change.
With TeamGantt, you don’t have to act as the sole go-between pushing projects forward. Everyone has access to the plan and can check up on progress and collaborate on work in real time.
Having all your project communication streamlined around a centralized plan leads to better efficiency and fewer mistakes. That’s something everyone can get behind.
Agile workflows tend to skip the plan in favor of getting down to the tasks at hand. But a plan doesn’t have to get in the way of project work.
In fact, a plan rallies your team around a single project vision so they can power through tasks faster. Priorities are clear, expectations are aligned, and everyone knows exactly what needs to happen to cross the finish line on time.
With a plan, your team can easily see how their work affects others and impacts the final deadline. This provides an extra boost of motivation to stay on track and keeps confusion from bogging your project down.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a lot of plans I never write down or share with anyone. Funny enough, these “plans” never seem to go anywhere.
It’s not a coincidence. Plans that aren't documented don’t hold anyone accountable.
When your team and stakeholders can be called out on tasks in a plan everyone has access to, it raises the stakes. Clearly outlining roles and responsibilities in your plan will push people to get things done on time and up to standard. It really is that simple.
Lay a clear path to success with a visual plan that’s easy to understand, and keep everyone in sync with flexible workflows and team collaboration.
Agile may not run on deadlines, but stakeholders do. If you want to earn goodwill and trust, you need to deliver projects on time.
Here’s the thing: Having one big date to shoot for isn’t enough. You’ve got to ensure you’re making the right progress along the way.
That’s where a plan comes in.
A plan breaks the project timeline down into measurable steps so you can track progress against the final deadline. If things start running behind, you can intervene early and determine what needs to shift to right the ship.
Bonus: When you assign people to a task or milestone in TeamGantt, they’ll get notified when it’s coming due so you don’t have to send constant reminders to keep them on task.
Get simple tips for meeting and managing your project deadlines.
In the ideal world, your team would only work on one project at a time, making it easy to keep workloads balanced. But that kind of project focus is a luxury at most organizations.
Project planning enables you to map out a schedule that takes your team’s entire workload into account. That way you don’t load anyone up with too many tasks or assign deadlines they can’t possibly make.
In TeamGantt, you can check team availability across projects right from your gantt chart.
This makes it easy to figure out who has time to do the work when you need it so your project has a better chance of delivering on time without burning people out.
Learn more about resource allocation in project management.
You can’t avoid project change, so you might as well embrace it. Despite common misconceptions, planning gives you the flexibility to adapt to change more easily so you have a better chance of hitting your project goals.
That’s because a plan holds all the important project details in one place. When something unexpected pops up, you can weigh the potential impact on project scope, timing, and workloads and adjust your plan to forge a new path forward.
When these updates are documented in your plan, it’s easy to bring your team and stakeholders up to speed on the changes so you can all move forward successfully together.
Learn how to manage project change, and get a free change request template.
Just like change, risk is an inherent part of project work . While you can’t control every possible risk, you can manage it with a project plan.
Think of your plan as a living document that lets you keep a thumb on the pulse of your project as it progresses. You can look ahead in your project and address issues before they become a major problem.
For example, a plan lets you monitor the pace of work to ensure you’re not blowing through your budgeted hours faster than expected. That way you can have important scope or budget discussions early and avoid unwelcome surprises (and unhappy stakeholders) down the road.
A lot of factors can drain the profit out of projects. Any of these sound familiar?
With a plan, you’re more likely to hit your project goals on time and budget. And less time and money wasted means more room for your business to actually grow.
Ready to put planning at the center of your projects? TeamGantt makes it easy to create, track, and collaborate on all your project plans in minutes.
You’ll have all the features you need to ensure projects finish on time and under budget—from drag and drop simplicity and team collaboration to customizable views and workload management.
Best of all, it’s all wrapped up in a simple and intuitive interface your whole team will love. 😍
Give TeamGantt a free try today!
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Without a proper understanding of the benefits of project management software for your business, you and your team could miss out on 10 tremendous perks.
So read on to learn more about the benefits of project management software for business.
Read more: Project Management Guide for Beginners
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One of the biggest benefits of implementing project management software is heightened productivity. While project management software can help promote productivity in a variety of ways, it all boils down to providing employees with the resources they need to do the best work possible by having a dedicated space that clearly shows their personal obligations, project resources, and essential information. Project management software cuts the guesswork out of project work so teams can spend more time focusing on productive work and creativity.
Project management software is also a great way to unite teams collaboratively anywhere in the world that they clock in from. Commenting options give teams the ability to instantly provide updates and notes about individual tasks and projects. Tagging features help notify specific team members of relevant communications instantly. Some solutions even offer the ability to chat with teammates individually or in a group chat, eliminating the need for lengthy emails or redundant meetings (because let’s be honest we could all use a little time back in our day).
By all means, task tracking ranks at the top of the list of perks that project management software provides. Upon initiation of a new project, teams can use project management software to keep a log of all required project tasks, with the flexibility to add or change tasks at any time. What’s more, teams can utilize various task views, such as Gantt charts, calendar views, list views, and more to plan deadlines and key project goals down the line visually.
In project management, one of the most frequently asked questions is “How are things going?” Thankfully, project management software makes it easy to keep tabs on project progress at as detailed a level as you require, whether that’s a 30,000-foot view or progress specific to an individual.
One of the least discussed perks of project management software is the ability to house and store documents, files, and multimedia elements. Project management software is designed to make it as easy as possible to access project tools, and having the added capability of storing and attaching files to specific projects and tasks streamlines work tremendously. Some solutions, like Notion, even have additional features that support Wiki capabilities so teams can embed documentation for operations and training material as well.
When you’re a project manager, you spend as much time managing relationships as you do projects, especially when external stakeholders are involved. Thankfully, project management software can help you keep stakeholders in the loop without any additional work involved. Most solutions offer the ability to email updates directly from the application and share specific project data and updates while maintaining control over the access level and visibility guest users have over the interface.
Multi-project management can be a headache without the proper tools. When it comes to juggling stats across projects, multi-project dashboard views help provide overviews of more than one project at once, while limiting the data to the most important components.
Managing workloads and individual contributors in the heat of a challenging project adds unnecessary stress and complication to the project dynamic. Instead, opting for project management software offers an easier and more accurate way to gather insights about individual users’ progress, tasks, and workload. Many solutions even offer time tracking, which can help freelancers in particular keep track of their workload.
Project management software enables teams to organize tasks, deadlines, correspondences, and project information all in one place, which helps teams optimize their workflows while reducing their need to jump across multiple platforms. Having a dedicated project home base makes it easy to locate resources and information when you need them, instead of shuffling through a stack of paperwork.
When’s the last time you heard someone say, “Boy, I sure would love to send a few dozen emails”? Never? Exactly. Project management software helps eliminate task redundancies in three ways: workflow automations, templates, and generative AI features.
Automations generate automatic commands based on customized triggers that you generate; for example, update the project manager when task 1 is complete. Similarly, template options allow teams to generate preset project settings and layouts based on industry or project-specific needs. Finally, the power of artificial intelligence has recently been implemented in project management software to help teams generate short bits of content and speed up workflows.
Read more: Top 10 Project Management Software Buyer’s Guide
While the needs of each team are unique, there are a few ways to ensure a project management solution is a strong fit:
Need extra guidance in selecting a solution?
Read more: How to Choose Project Management Software
Aside from the benefits listed above, project management software provides the baseline data for teams to make data-driven decisions. Whether it’s estimating a timeline, evaluating workloads, or deciding the best way to resolve roadblocks in project work, project management software provides a baseline of information to reference from what otherwise would be harder to determine through traditional project management methods.
Read more: Nailing the Decision-Making Process
Project management software is designed to be customized and personalized to the precise needs of your team, whether that’s catering to team size, industry, project type, or others. From personalized task tags to project metrics and even color schemes, there are hundreds of project management software solutions available to meet the needs of every type of team.
Read more: 8 Best Free Project Management Software for 2024
Just because your team is utilizing the power of project management software doesn’t mean the foundational concepts of traditional project management go out the window. In fact, project management software is designed to accentuate and bolster the same strategies that project teams have relied on for years.
In the same way that there are a variety of project management methodologies to choose from, a wide range of solutions offered to consumers cater to specific project needs and ideologies. For example, kanban-focused solutions, such as Trello, cater to the needs of Agile teams.
Read more: A Complete Guide to Agile Project Management
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Caps bs 11 term 2 week 2 – 3 transformation of a business plan into an action alan, topic – transformation of a business plan into an action plan.
Transformation of a business plan into an action plan (including Gantt charts and timelines) – collaboratively or independently
• Transformation of a business plan into an action plan (e.g. planning tools: Gantt charts or Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) with timelines and responsibilities, project planning)
Project planning is a project management discipline that addresses how to complete a project in a certain time frame, usually with clearly defined stages, milestones and designated resources. It starts after a project has been initiated and before its execution begins.
A project plan, also known as a work plan, is a detailed document that clearly elucidates a project's scope, goals, tasks, deliverables, milestones, communication channels, budget and deadlines. The aims of a project plan, and indeed of project planning, are to provide a clear roadmap or blueprint for project execution, to provide early warning of project requirements, and to ensure the project stays on track toward completion.
Project plans differ by project, but in general, the planning activity is divided into these steps:
A project plan can be supported by other plans that address specific areas of a project. Supporting plans can encompass human resources, communication methods and risk management .
Enterprises often have an IT project planning guide that identifies the processes to be used. Tools used for the scheduling parts of a plan include Gantt charts and PERT charts . Many project management software tools, including Microsoft Project, Asana, Jira, Trello and Zoho Projects, also include project planning capabilities.
Project planning is important because it helps guide and streamline every other phase of a project. It lays out the basics of a project, which include the following:
Planning enables project managers to turn an idea into reality in an organized manner. It identifies who will be involved in the project, clarifies roles and responsibilities, and helps to maintain accountability throughout the project lifecycle. It also helps to prevent scope creep and budget overruns, as well as frustration and confusion among team members. In addition, a detailed plan shows project stakeholders and sponsors that the necessary resources -- personnel, funds, etc. -- are available for the project, which can be important to ensure continued support, funding or sponsorship for the project.
Some of the other key benefits of project planning include the following:
Every project plan includes at least three major components:
Other important components of a project plan include the following:
In addition to these components, some project plans link to other documents, such as the project charter, statement of work , RACI chart , risk management plan, quality management plan and work breakdown structure.
Projects typically pass through five phases. The project lifecycle includes the following:
An effective project planning process includes the following 10 steps:
Project planning and project management software facilitate the project planning process. The best tools support collaboration among stakeholders, have intuitive user interfaces, and provide built-in time tracking and invoicing.
Some popular planning tools according to experts include the following:
Learn more about the various tools that help with project management .
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This guide is brought to you by projectmanager, the project planning software trusted by 35,000+ users worldwide. make a project plan in minutes.
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A project plan is a series of formal documents that define the execution and control stages of a project. The plan includes considerations for risk management, resource management and communications, while also addressing scope, cost and schedule baselines. Project planning software is used by project managers to ensure that their plans are thorough and robust.
ProjectManager allows you to make detailed project plans with online Gantt charts that have task dependencies, resource hours, labor costs, milestones, the critical path and more. Plus, your team can execute the plan in any of our five project views, while you track progress along the way with dashboards. Start today for free.
The project plan, also called project management plan, answers the who, what, where, why, how and when of the project—it’s more than a Gantt chart with tasks and due dates. The purpose of a project plan is to guide the execution and control project phases.
As mentioned above, a project plan consists of the following documents:
This guide aims to give you all the information and resources you need to create a project plan and get it approved by your customers and stakeholders. Let’s start with the basics of writing a project plan.
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Use this free Project Plan Template for Word to manage your projects better.
Your project plan is essential to the success of any project. Without one, your project may be susceptible to common project management issues such as missed deadlines, scope creep and cost overrun. While writing a project plan is somewhat labor intensive up front, the effort will pay dividends throughout the project life cycle.
The basic outline of any project plan can be summarized in these five steps:
Each of the steps to write a project plan explained above correspond to the 5 project phases, which we will outline in the next section.
Any project , whether big or small, has the potential to be very complex. It’s much easier to break down all the necessary inclusions for a project plan by viewing your project in terms of phases. The Project Management Institute , within the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK), have identified the following 5 phases of a project:
Address all aspects of your project plan with this free project plan template for Word . This in-depth template will guide you through every phase of the project, as well as all the elements you need to outline for a proper document. Download your template today.
We’ve created also created other project planning templates to help you create all the different documents that make up a project plan, like the project schedule, project budget or resource plan.
Now that we’ve learned how to make a project plan, and identified the stages of the project management life cycle, we need to emphasize on the importance of the project planning phase.
The project planning process is critical for any kind of project because this is where you create all the documents that will guide how you’ll execute your project plan and how you’ll control risks and any issues that might occur. These documents, which are part of the project management plan, cover all the details of your project without exception.
There are project plan templates out there that can help you organize your tasks and begin the project planning process—but we here at ProjectManager recommend the use of project planning software. The feature set is far more robust and integrated with every project phase compared to an Excel project plan template, and is a great way to ensure your actual progress stays aligned with your planned progress.
Once you write a project plan, it’s time for implementation . Watch the video below to see how project planning software helps organize a project’s tasks, resources and costs.
Project planning tools has become an invaluable tool for project managers in recent years, as it provides them the ability to maintain and automate the components we outlined above. Project planning software is a great tool to facilitate project management processes such as schedule development, team management, cost estimation, resource allocation and risk monitoring.
Beyond that, planning software also allows managers to monitor and track their plan as it moves through the execution phase of the project. These features include dashboards, for a high-level view of the project’s progress and performance, and in-depth reports that can be used to communicate with stakeholders.
Project planning software comes in all different sizes and shapes. There are some that focus on a single aspect, and others that offer a suite of planning features that can be used in each one of the project planning steps. What’s right for your project depends on your specific needs, but in general terms, project planning software is a much more powerful tool than project planning templates .
Related: 20 Must-Have Project Management Excel Templates
Online project planning software is highly flexible and adaptable to your team’s style of work. It has features that are designed to assist you throughout your project planning process.
Before the rise of planning software, project managers would typically have to keep up with a disjointed collection of documents, excel spreadsheets and so on. Savvy managers, however, make use of the project management tools available to them to automate what they can, and streamline what they can’t.
Some of the time-saving benefits of project planning software include the following.
A Gantt chart is the most essential tool for the project planning process. Organize tasks, add their duration and they automatically populate a project timeline . Set milestones to break the larger project into manageable phases, and link task dependencies to avoid bottlenecks later in the project.
When planning a project, you need more than a to-do list. Seek out a planning software with a task list feature that lets you set priority levels, filters and collaborate. It’s a big plus if you can also make personal task lists that are private to manage your own work.
Workflows ensure proper execution of your plan, and no feature does this better than kanban boards. Customize boards to match your workflow and drag and drop cards as teams get their work done. See what work needs to be done and keep the focus on productivity with this feature.
A dashboard can keep your project plan on track. Try and find a dashboard that’s synced with your planning tools, so everything updates automatically. It will make reporting easier too.
For a plan to go smoothly, you have to know what your team is working on. Find a way to balance your team’s availability with the project schedule. Workload features that map out resource allocation and holidays can be a big help here.
Rarely do you need to only focus on one project at a time. Give yourself the flexibility to manage multiple projects at once in the same tool. A roadmap feature that maps all of your projects on one timeline can be a lifesaver.
Before we dive into how to create a project plan, it helps to be familiar with some of the terms that you’ll run across. Here is a list of general terms you’ll encounter in this guide.
The project planning process is critical for the success of your project, and as a project manager, you have to think about all the elements that make up your project management plan such as work, time, resources and risks.
Now, we’re going to take you through the main project planning steps :
By following these project planning steps, you’ll clarify what you need to achieve, work out the processes you need to get there and develop an action plan for how you are going to take this project plan outline forward.
If you have a project, there’s a reason for it—that’s your business case . The business case outlines reasons why the project is being initiated, its benefits and the return on investment. If there’s a problem that is being solved, then that problem is outlined here. The business case will be presented to those who make decisions at your organization, explaining what has to be done, and how, along with a feasibility study to assess the practicality of the project. If approved, you have a project.
Every project has stakeholders , those who have a vested interest in the project. From the ones who profit from it, to the project team members who are responsible for its success. Therefore, any project manager must identify who these key stakeholders are during the project planning process, from customers to regulators. Meeting with them is crucial to get a better picture of what the project management plan should include and what is expected from the final deliverable.
It refers to the work required to accomplish the project objectives and generate the required deliverables. The project scope should be defined and organized by a work breakdown structure (WBS). Therefore, the project scope includes what you must do in the project (deliverables, sub deliverables, work packages, action items ), but also what is nonessential. The latter is important for the project plan, because knowing what isn’t high priority helps to avoid scope creep ; that is, using valuable resources for something that isn’t key to your project’s success.
You’ll need a capable project team to help you create your project plan and execute it successfully. It’s advisable to gather a diverse group of experienced professionals to build a multi-disciplinary team that sees your project management plan from different perspectives.
Once you define your project scope, you’ll have a task list that must be completed to deliver your project successfully. To do so, you’ll need resources such as equipment, materials, human capital, and of course, money. Your project budget will pay for all this. The first step to create a project budget is to estimate the costs associated with each task. Once you have those estimated costs, you can establish a cost baseline , which is the base for your project budget.
Goals and objectives are different things when it comes to planning a project. Goals are the results you want to achieve, and are usually broad. Objectives , on the other hand, are more specific; measurable actions that must be taken to reach your goal. When creating a project plan, the goals and objectives naturally spring from the business case, but in this stage, you go into further detail. In a sense, you’re fine-tuning the goals set forth in the business case and creating tasks that are clearly defined. These goals and objectives are collected in a project charter , which you’ll use throughout the project life cycle.
A project can have numerous deliverables. A deliverable can be a good, service or result that is needed to complete a task, process, phase, subproject or project. For example, the final deliverable is the reason for the project, and once this deliverable is produced, the project is completed. As defined in the project scope, a project consists of subprojects, phases, work packages, activities and tasks, and each of these components can have a deliverable. The first thing to do is determine what the final deliverable is, and how you will know that the quality meets your stakeholder’s expectations. As for the other deliverables in the project, they must also be identified and someone on the team must be accountable for their successful completion.
The project schedule is what everything hangs on. From your tasks to your budget , it’s all defined by time. Schedules are made up by collecting all the tasks needed to reach your final deliverable, and setting them on a project timeline that ends at your deadline. This can make for an unruly job ahead, which is why schedules are broken into phases, indicated by milestones , which mark the end of one project phase and the beginning of the next.
The plan is set, but it still exists in the abstract until you take the tasks on your schedule and begin assigning them out to your team members. Their roles and responsibilities must be clearly defined, so they know what to do. Then, when you assign them tasks from your plan, they should be clear, with directions and any related documentation they will need to execute the tasks.
Every project has some level of risk . There are several types of risk such as scope risk, technical risks and schedule risk, among others. Even if your project plan is thorough, internal and external factors can impact your project’s time, cost and scope (triple constraint). Therefore, you need to regard your planning as flexible. There are many ways to prepare for risk, such as developing a change management plan, but for now, the most important thing to do is to track your progress throughout the execution phase by using project status reports and/or project planning software to monitor risk.
As discussed above, a project management plan is a document that’s made of several elements. Before we get into a detailed explanation of each of them, it’s important to understand that you should include them all to have a solid project plan. The components that you’ll need might vary depending on your project, but in general terms, you’ll need these main documents to create your project management plan:
Your ultimate goal is to ensure a successful project for your stakeholders. They’re invested, and will not be satisfied twiddling their thumbs without looking at project status reports to track progress. By constructing a work breakdown structure (WBS) during the project planning phase you can break down the project for them so that they understand how your project plan will be executed. Keeping stakeholders informed is important to manage their expectations and ensure that they’re satisfied. Having regular planning meetings where you present progress reports are a great way to show them that everything is moving forward as planned and to field any questions or concerns they might have. Your stakeholder management plan will specify how you’ll engage stakeholders in the project.
Project planning software is a tool that helps to plan, organize and manage the schedule and resources needed to complete a project. ProjectManager is an award-winning project management software that organizes projects from planning to completion. Sign up for a free 30-day trial and follow along to build a thorough project plan that covers every detail.
Tasks are the building blocks of any project and the start of any plan is identifying all the tasks that lead to your final deliverable.
Open the tool to add your tasks on the Gantt chart or one of the other multiple project views. You can import a task list from any spreadsheet or use one of our templates to get started.
Every task has an estimated duration, which is the time it will take to complete it. They will also require a certain amount of funding, which needs to be collected to formulate your plan.
Add the start and end dates for each task in the Gantt and they populate a project timeline, so you can see the whole project laid out in one place. There’s also a column for task costs.
Tasks are not always separate from one another. Often one cannot start or stop until another has started or stopped. That’s called a task dependency and needs to be noted in your plan.
Link dependent tasks by dragging one to the other. A dotted line indicates that they’re linked, so you stay aware of the fact and can avoid bottlenecks later in the project.
A milestone indicates the end of one phase and the beginning of another, which helps with tracking and morale. The baseline sets your plan so you can compare it to actual progress.
There is a filter on the Gantt that automatically sets the baseline, so you can use it to track your actual progress against the plan. The baseline can also be locked with a click.
Getting the team and the tool together is how a project plan becomes actualized. The easier and seamless this transition, the faster you’ll get to work on the project.
Invite your team from the software and it generates an email with a link. Once they follow that link, they’re in and have access to the tools they need to manage their tasks.
Keeping track of your progress and then updating stakeholders is both how you stay on track and manage your stakeholders’ expectations.
See progress as it happens on our real-time dashboard, which calculates data and displays it over six project metrics. Reports can be filtered and shared for a deep dive into those numbers.
No plan remains the same throughout a project. Things happen and changes are demanded. Therefore, being able to edit your plan easily is key to the project planning process.
Edit your plan on the Gantt by a simple drag and drop. Move the old date to the new date and not only is that task fixed, but any impacted tasks are also updated automatically.
ProjectManager is an award-winning software that helps managers plan and helps teams get organized. Gantt charts control all aspects of your project plan from scheduling to assigning tasks and even monitoring progress. Multiple project views provide transparency into workflow and give everyone the tools they need to be at their best.
Ready to make your plan? Try ProjectManager today with this free 30-day trial.
The project manager is responsible for producing the project plan, and while you can’t make up all the content yourself, you’ll be the one banging the keys to type it all out. Use templates where you can to save time. Download our free project plan template and write your plan in double-quick time!
The purpose of a project management plan is to serve as a guide for the execution and control phases. The project plan provides all the information necessary for the execution phase such as the project’s goals, objectives, scope of work, milestones, risks and resources. Then, this information helps project managers monitor and control the progress of the project.
We plan at the beginning to save time later. A good project plan means that you don’t have to worry about whether the project participants are going to be available on the right dates—because you’ve planned for them to be. You don’t have to worry about how to pay those invoices—you’ve planned your financial process. You don’t have to worry about whether everyone agrees on what a quality outcome looks like—you’ve already planned what quality measures you are going to use.
A good project plan sets out the processes that everyone is expected to follow, so it avoids a lot of headaches later. For example, if you specify that estimates are going to be worked out by subject matter experts based on their judgement, and that’s approved, later no one can complain that they wanted you to use a different estimating technique. They’ve known the deal since the start.
Project plans are also really helpful for monitoring progress. You can go back to them and check what you said you were going to do and how, comparing it to what you are actually doing. This gives you a good reality check and enables you to change course if you need to, bringing the project back on track.
Tools like dashboards can help you make sure that your project is proceeding according to plan. ProjectManager has a real-time dashboard that updates automatically whenever tasks are updated.
The project planning process already discussed only scratches the surface of what is a deep well of practices created to control your project. They start with dialogue — speaking to stakeholders, teams, et al.
The deliverable for your planning phase is a document called the project plan. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) – Fifth Edition says that the project plan is made up of lots of subsidiary plans. These include:
That’s a lot of documentation.
In reality, it’s rare that you’ll produce these as individual documents. What you need is a project plan that talks about the important elements of each of these. There’s no point creating a big document that sets out exactly how your business works anyway. If you already have a structured risk management process , then don’t waste time writing it all down again in your project plan.
Your project management plan needs to include enough information to make sure that you know exactly what processes and procedures need to be followed and who needs to be involved. Get your project plan approved by your stakeholders, your project sponsor and your team so there are no surprises later. As explained above, project planning charts and techniques such as Gantt charts, CPM, WBS or PERT can help you create your project plan.
This is hard to answer. It’s going to take longer to plan the moon landing than a new dating app.
The best way to estimate how long your project planning phase will take is to look at similar projects that have happened before, and see how long it took them to plan. Talk to the project manager as well, if you can, because they’ll have a view on whether that length of time was enough or not!
It’s easy to see how long other projects took if you have a project management tool that archives your old project schedules and makes the data available to everyone who needs it. You can then search for similar projects and study their schedules in detail.
A project plan is all about working out what to do and how to do it, so you need to get a lot of people involved. There are several good tools and project planning techniques for getting information from other people including:
You should also arm yourself with a task management tool , like a list or a kanban board. They are incredibly useful for noting down important things that should be in your project plan. Kanban board software can help structure your plan by writing down the key headings and then moving them around as required until you have a flow that looks right.
Finally, you’ll need an online project management system to store your project management plan in. Make sure that everyone in the team can access the latest version of the project plan.
Your project plan is not a document written in stone. You should be referring back to it and making changes to it as often as you need to. Parts of it, like your project schedule, will change almost daily. Other parts, like your procurement plans and cost management processes, won’t change at all during the life of your project.
The important thing to remember is that if your project management plan isn’t working for you, think about what you can do to change it. It’s there to guide your project management, not restrict you from doing the right thing. If you need to review how you manage work and project resources, then go back and review it. Make the changes you need, get the plan approved again and share it with the team.
Yes, this happens–most of the time! It’s rare to have all the information at the beginning of a project. Most managers want you to dive in and get started, but you might not have the luxury of knowing all the details.
That’s OK; we have techniques to help deal with uncertainty.
First is the project assumption. You use these to put caveats on your plan and to document the things that you assume to be true at this point in time. For example:
You get the picture. Then, if the design team comes back and says that they want the product to be a totally new palette of colors and that Marketing has to approve that, you are justified in saying that you’ll have to change the timescales on the schedule to make that possible.
You planned based on an assumption (that everyone agreed to, because you got the document approved) and that assumption turned out not to be true.
The most important thing to remember is that you shouldn’t rush the project planning process. Done properly, project planning takes time. And it’s worth doing it properly because if you don’t, we guarantee that you will hit problems later on as people won’t understand what they are supposed to do and why.
Great planning sets you up for success. It gives you the confidence of knowing that you’ve got all your processes, tools and systems in place to deliver the perfect result.
Now that you’ve learned all about project planning, it’s time to take action. Sign up for a free 30-day trial of ProjectManager and start planning your project today!
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If you’re a Type A personality, project planning might sound like music to your ears. Setting deadlines, organizing tasks, and creating order out of chaos — what’s not to love?
The reality is that project planning isn’t for everyone. In one survey by Association for Project Management, 76% of project professionals said their main project was a source of stress . Poor planning, unclear responsibilities, and overallocation are often the culprits behind the stress.
An effective project plan helps teams stay within budget, scope, and schedule, while delivering quality work. In short, it gets you to the finish line without the stress.
A project plan, also known as a work plan, is a blueprint of your project lifecycle. It’s like a roadmap — it clearly outlines how to get from where you are now (the beginning of the project) to where you want to go (the successful completion of the project).
“A project plan is an action plan outlining how…[to] accomplish project goals,” says Jami Yazdani , certified Project Management Professional (PMP), project coach, project management consultant, and founder of Yazdani Consulting and Facilitation .
A comprehensive project plan includes the project schedule, project scope, due dates, and deliverables. Writing a good project plan is key for any new, complex project in the pipeline.
Why Are Project Plans Important?
Project plans allow you to visualize your entire project, from beginning to end—and develop a clear strategy to get from point A to point B. Project plans steer stakeholders in the right direction and keep team members accountable with a common baseline.
Project plans help you stay agile
Projects are bound by what is traditionally called the “iron triangle” of project management . It means that project managers have to work within the three constraints of scope, resources (project budget and teams), and schedule. You cannot make changes to one without impacting the other two.
Modern-day project management has shifted to a more agile approach, with a focus on quality. This means that resources and schedules remain unchanged but a fixed number of iterations (flexible scope) helps teams deliver better quality and more value.
A project plan puts this “agile triangle” in place by mapping out resources, schedules, and the number of iterations — sprints if you’re using a Scrum framework and work in progress (WIP) limits if you’re using the Kanban methodology .
As Yazdani points out, “Project plans help us strategize a path to project success, allowing us to consider the factors that will impact our project, from stakeholders to budget to schedule delays, and plan how to maximize or mitigate these factors.”
Project plans provide complete visibility
A project plan, when created with a comprehensive project management software , gives you 360-degree visibility throughout the project lifecycle.
As a project manager, you need a single source of truth on team members and their project tasks, project scope, project objectives, and project timelines. A detailed project plan gives you this visibility and helps teams stay on track.
Project plans also help to get everyone involved on the same page, setting clear expectations around what needs to be accomplished, when, and by who.
“Project plans create a framework for measuring project progress and success,” says Yazdani. “Project plans set clear expectations for…stakeholders by outlining exactly what…will [be accomplished] and when it will be delivered.”
Project plans boost engagement and productivity
A well-written project plan clarifies how each individual team member’s contributions play into the larger scope of the project and align with company goals. When employees see how their work directly impacts organizational growth, it generates buy-in and drives engagement , which is critical to a project’s success.
“Project plans provide…teams with purpose and direction,” says Yazdani. “Transparent project plans show team members how their individual tasks and responsibilities contribute to the overall success of the project, encouraging engagement and collaboration.”
Writing a project plan requires, well, planning. Ideally, the seeds for a project plan need to be sowed before internal project sign-off begins. Before that sign-off, conduct capacity planning to estimate the resources you will need and if they’re available for the duration of the project. After all, you want to set your teams up for success with realistic end dates, buffer time to recharge or catch up in case of unexpected delays, and deliver quality work without experiencing burnout .
Based on organizational capacity, you can lay down project timelines and map out scope as well as success metrics, outline tasks, and build a feedback loop into your project plan. Follow these project planning steps to create a winning plan:
Defining your project scope is essential to protecting your iron, or agile, triangle from crumbling. Too often, projects are hit with scope creep , causing delays, budget overruns, and anxiety.
“Clearly define your project’s scope or overall purpose,” says Yazdani. “Confirm any project parameters or constraints, like budget, resource availability, and timeline,” says Yazdani.
A project purpose statement is a high-level brief that defines the what, who, and why of the project along with how and when the goal will be accomplished. But just as important as defining your project scope and purpose is defining what metrics you’re going to use to track progress.
“Establish how you will measure success,” says Yazdani. “Are there metrics, performance criteria, or quality standards you need to meet?”
Clearly defining what your project is, the project’s overall purpose, and how you’re going to measure success lays the foundation for the rest of your project plan—so make sure you take the time to define each of these elements from the get-go.
Get clarity on the team members you need to bring the project to life. In other words, identify the key stakeholders of the project.
“List individuals or groups who will be impacted by the project,” says Yazdani.
In addition to identifying who needs to be involved in the project, think about how they’ll need to be involved—and at what level. Use a tool like Confluence to run a virtual session to clarify roles and responsibilities, and find gaps that need to be filled.
Let’s say you’re managing a cross-functional project to launch a new marketing campaign that includes team members from your marketing, design, and sales departments.
When identifying your key stakeholders, you might create different lists based on the responsibility or level of involvement with the project:
Give your project plan an edge by using a Confluence template like the one below to outline roles and responsibilities.
Define roles, discuss responsibilities, and clarify which tasks fall under each teammate’s purview using this Confluence template.
Getting clarity on who needs to be involved in the project—and how they’re going to be involved—will help guide the rest of the project plan writing process (particularly when it comes to creating and assigning tasks).
Now is the time to get granular.
Each project milestone comprises a series of smaller, tangible tasks that your teams need to produce. While a big-picture view keeps teams aligned, you need signposts along the way to guide them on a day-to-day or weekly basis. Create a list of deliverables that will help you achieve the greater vision of the project.
“What will you create, build, design, produce, accomplish or deliver?” says Yazdani. “Clearly outline your project’s concrete and tangible deliverables or outcomes.” Centralize these deliverables in a Trello board with designated cards for each one, like in the example below, so you keep work moving forward.
Each card on a board represents tasks and ideas and you can move cards across lists to show progress.
Defining the concrete items you need your project to deliver will help you reverse-engineer the things that need to happen to bring those items to life—which is a must before moving on to the next step.
Task management is an important component of any project plan because they help employees see what exactly they need to accomplish. Drill down those deliverables into actionable tasks to assign to your team.
You can use either Confluence or Jira for different task management needs. If you want to track tasks alongside your work, like action items from a meeting or small team projects, it’s best to use Confluence. But if a project has multiple teams and you need insight into workflows, task history, and reporting, Jira makes it easy.
“Let your deliverables guide the work of the project,” says Yazdani. “Break down each deliverable into smaller and smaller components until you get to an actionable task.” If a major deliverable is a set of content pieces, the smaller actionable tasks would be to create topic ideas, conduct research, and create outlines for each topic.
Once you’ve broken down all of your deliverables into manageable, assignable subtasks, analyze how each of those tasks interacts with each other. That way, you can plan, prioritize, assign, and add deadlines accordingly.
“Highlight any dependencies between tasks, such as tasks that can’t be started until another task is complete,” says Yazdani. “List any resources you will need to accomplish these tasks.”
When a task has multiple assignees, you need to streamline the workflow in your project plan. Say the content pieces you outlined need to be edited or peer-reviewed. A couple of articles may need an interview with a subject matter expert. Lay down a stage-by-stage process of each piece of content and pinpoint when each team member comes into play so you prevent bottlenecks and adjust timeframes.
Assign tasks to your team and collaborate with employees to set deadlines for each task. When you involve employees in setting workloads and deadlines , you increase ownership and boost the chances of delivering quality work on time.
After all, you want to move projects forward at a steady pace, but you also want to make sure your teams stay motivated and engaged. So, when writing your project plan, make sure to “set realistic and achievable deadlines for completing tasks and deliverables,” says Yazdani. “Highlight dates that are inflexible and factor in task dependencies. Add in milestones or checkpoints to monitor progress and celebrate successes .”
Use Jira and Confluence to create tasks that live alongside your project plan or meeting agendas.
Once you map out all of your tasks and deadlines, you should have a clear picture of how and when your project is going to come together—and the initial writing process is just about finished.
But that doesn’t mean your project plan is complete! There’s one more key step to the process.
While steps 1 through 5 may make up your initial writing process, if you want your project plan to be as strong and complete as it can be, it’s important to share it with your team—and get their input on how they think it can be improved.
“Share the plan with your project team and key stakeholders, gathering feedback to make adjustments and improvements,” says Yazdani.
A tool like Confluence helps knowledge flow freely within teams and departments, leading to better teamwork, higher collaboration, and a shared understanding of priorities. Coworkers can use comments, mentions, notifications, and co-editing capabilities to provide and discuss feedback.
After you gather your team’s feedback —and make any necessary adjustments based on that feedback—you can consider your project plan complete. Hooray!
But as your project progresses, things may change or evolve—so it’s important to stay flexible and make changes and adjustments as needed.
“Expect to update your plan as you gather more information, encounter changing requirements and delays, and learn from feedback and mistakes,” says Yazdani. “By using your project plan to guide your activities and measure progress, you’ll be able to refine and improve your plan as you move through the project, tweaking tasks and deadlines as deliverables are developed.”
Download a template to create your project plan and customize it based on your needs.
A project plan doesn’t have to be a complicated spreadsheet with multiple tabs and drop-down menus. It’s best to use a project planning tool like Confluence — or at least a project plan template — to make sure you cover every aspect of the project. A simple project plan includes these elements:
A project planning process can quickly turn into a mishmash of goals and tasks that end up in chaos but these best practices can give you a framework to create a project plan that leads to success.
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel for every new project! Instead, look to other successful project plans for inspiration—and use them as a guide when writing the plan for your project.
“Review templates and plans for similar projects, or for other projects within your organization or industry, to get ideas for structuring and drafting your own plan,” says Yazdani.
To get started, use a Trello project management template and customize it for your project plan by creating unique lists and adding cards under each list.
Build your team’s ideal workflow and mark each stage of the project plan as a list, with cards for each task.
You may be in charge of spearheading the project. But that doesn’t mean that you have to—or even that you should—write the project plan alone.
“Collaborate with your project team and key stakeholders on crafting a project plan,” says Yazdani. “Input into the project plan supports buy-in to project goals and encourages continued engagement throughout the project.”
With Confluence , you can organize project details in a centralized space and build a project plan collaboratively.
You may be tempted to write (and rewrite) your project plan until you’ve got every detail mapped out perfectly. But spending too much time trying to get everything “perfect” can actually hold up the project. So don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good—and instead of getting caught up in getting everything perfect from the get-go, stay willing and flexible to adjust your project plan as you move forward.
“Focus on outcomes, not plan perfection,” says Yazdani. “While it would be awesome for the first draft of our plan to require no changes while also inspiring our team and ensuring project success, our goal shouldn’t be a perfect plan. Our goal is a plan that allows us to successfully deliver on project goals. Responsiveness to changing needs and a shifting environment is more important than plan perfection.”
Writing a project plan, especially if you’re new to the process, can feel overwhelming. But now that you know the exact steps to write one, make sure you have the tools you need to create a strong, cohesive plan from the ground up—and watch your project thrive as a result.
Atlassian Together can help with project planning and management with a powerful combination of tools that make work flow across teams.
Guide your team to project success with Atlassian Together’s suite of products.
Table of contents
Delivering project work on time hinges on planning right from the get-go. But even if you have the perfect work plan in place, you need ways to visualize it and monitor the work that needs to get done.
In other words, you need a built-for-purpose project planning tool.
If you’re on the market for one that meets your needs, check out our list below. We compiled various tools based on:
We also built this comparison sheet for a summary of how tools compare based on key attributes, including:
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Planning vs execution is an important distinction in project management.
Some tools help you do both project planning and task management at an acceptable level.
Other tools go deeper into project planning to give you the best possible ways to plan at the macro level, forecast based on previous projects, and ensure you set up your team for success.
Which tool is best for you depends on your team’s needs and planning processes ⚙️
</tip>
Advertising and marketing agency teams (as well as other professional service teams) often need a planning tool that’s easy to learn, visual, and flexible. They don’t want to deal with manual work, complex reporting, or difficult setups.
This is why our founders, coming from an agency background, built Float to make life easier for fellow project planners—to help them plan hundreds of projects and manage hundreds of people with ease.
Let's check it out.
🏢 Founded in: 2011 🎯 Primary software category: Resource management 🏆 G2: 4.2 (1,200+ reviews) ; Capterra: 4.5 (1,580 reviews) 🧪 Free trial: yes, 30 days
Being on the market for the past 12 years, Float is the go-to resource and project planning tool for 4,500+ happy teams and two million users in agencies, consultancies, construction and marketing firms, and large tech companies like Atlassian .
Float serves as your one source of truth for all project work. Imagine you have a new project briefed by a client. With Float’s intuitive and flexible solution , you can:
🔥 Want a taste of what it is to plan a project in Float? Use this semi-interactive demo and walk through the process of adding a project with milestones and tasks. Click on the purple circles in the screens below (click on the two arrows ↙️↗️ on the top right of the demo to open up full-screen!)
Most importantly, Float’s visual schedule is a life-saver when that dreaded thing happens in your project plan—change. Float makes it easy to shift timelines or reallocate work, allowing you to clearly predict the impact on your team and budgets.
As Justin West, Program Manager at design agency and Float customer A—B partners , says : “Having forecasting connected to a visual tool and not having to be messing around in graphs to figure that out is super helpful.”
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Plan multiple projects and allocate work with confidence with Float
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Float is most suitable for teams up to 1000 people, as larger teams may have different requirements and have more need to combine project planning with other business functions into one place (we’ll see the enterprise platforms a little later).
1. Starter . $6 per person per month, billed annually. Every resource scheduling capability you need, with unlimited projects and powerful reporting. Best for teams of up to 30 people. 2. Pro . $10 per person per month, billed annually. Everything in Starter, plus built-in time tracking, single sign-on (SSO), and workflow features designed to scale. Best for growing teams of 30+ people. 3. Enterprise . A custom plan that includes everything in Pro and is designed for larger organizations with heavier compliance and support needs.
🔥 You can learn more about Float’s pricing plans here .
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<sme-author> Jason Fisher </sme-author>
<sme-position> Co-Founder and Global Studio Director </sme-position>
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Float has made us 50% more efficient in terms of how we're budget tracking and streamlining our workflow. We took on a project at the start of this year, and it was the first time we’d done a project like that. We used the reports from that project to baseline future ones. We've done five more of those projects this year, and every single one came in right on budget exactly where we planned it.
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Small teams, freelancers, or solopreneurs often value flexibility and ease of use over more robust features for project planning. We chose two tools because of their user-friendly UI, which can help you organize your project work and ensure it gets done without fanfare or difficult learning curves.
Here they are:
🏢 Founded in: 2007 🎯 Primary software category: Project management 🏆 G2: 4.4 (13,400+ reviews) ; Capterra: 4.5 (23,000+ reviews) 🧪 Free trial: yes, 14 days
Acquired by large tech company Atlassian in 2017, Trello is known for its Kanban-style view used by thousands of individuals and small companies to organize tasks and projects. Because of its visual design, customizability, and extensive integrations suite, it’s a great tool for teams who need effective task management to complete projects. It's an excellent collaboration solution for small teams.
A downside is that Trello lacks the ability to manage availability and capacity, making it less effective for larger teams or for planning multiple projects across realistic timelines.
Also, many of the essential functions of project planning can be done only through Trello’s power-ups (e.g. Gantt charts, budget tracking). Power-ups are integrations—some of them are owned by Trello, while others are created and owned by third-party developers.
Adding power-ups to gain some features you need can work well if you have few requirements. But once your planning gets more complex, finding and using the right Power-up may get more cumbersome than choosing a ready-to-use tool instead.
1. Free . Best for individuals and small teams. 2. Standard . 5$ per user per month, billed annually, for unlimited boards and checklists. 3. Premium . 10$ per user per month, billed annually, which includes timeline views and dashboards, and more security options (e.g. domain restrictions). 4. Enterprise . 17.5$ per user per month, billed annually, including unlimited workspaces, advanced permission settings, and enterprise support.
🏢 Founded in: 2007 🎯 Primary software category: Project management 🏆 G2: 4.4 (750+ reviews) ; Capterra: 4.6 (2,300+ reviews) 🧪 Free trial: yes, 30 days
Todoist is a productivity tool that allows you to plan task lists and collaborate with others to get work done. It’s less about high-level planning and more about organizing tasks in an easy-to-track way.While not robust enough for larger teams with many requirements (e.g. resource management, capacity planning, or timelines), it’s still a slick and flexible tool for small teams or solopreneurs.
Project planning essentials such as timelines and Gantt charts are possible only through integrations with other tools.
1. Beginner . Free, for up to five projects and email and calendar integration. 2. Pro . 4$ per month, billed annually, for up to 300 personal projects, unlimited activity history, and AI assistant. 3. Business . 6$ per member per month, billed annually, for 500 team projects, roles and permissions, and a shared team workspace.
This category includes two household names in all-in-one project management software. Both tools are impressive when it comes to task management and visualizing projects. But, they’re both limited in terms of resource planning and capacity management , which makes it trickier to know how to assign tasks more effectively, keep workloads manageable, and ensure realistic deadlines.
Let’s take a look:
🏢 Founded in: 2008 🎯 Primary software category: Project management 🏆 G2: 4.3 (9,300+ reviews) ; Capterra: 4.5 (12,000+ reviews) 🧪 Free trial: yes, 30 days
Asana is one of the most well-known project management tools—and much loved by our content team, too! Asana has what you need to schedule projects and tasks, visualize them in multiple views (e.g. Kanban and lists), and identify dependencies and critical paths.
If you value resource planning capabilities though, Asana may be lacking compared to built-for-purpose tools like Float. It all depends on your team’s needs—Nick Patterson, Co-CEO of creative agency Storm+Shelter, made the switch from Asana to Float because they needed an easier way to plan ahead and know what everyone is working on.
“The team has got a lot more of a clear understanding of what's going on, where, and when. We wouldn't have really had that if we were still using Asana for our schedule management stuff,” he mentions.
Want the best of both worlds? Float and Asana can actually work together too , to build a more powerful project planning and management workflow.
1. Basic —Free. Project management for individuals or teams just getting started. Doesn’t include resource management. 2. Premium . $10.99 per user per month, billed annually. Track and plan projects with timelines, milestones, etc. 3. Business . $24.99 per user per month, billed annually. For companies that need to manage portfolios and work across multiple departments. Limited resource management is possible through the “Workload” addition.
🏢 Founded in: 2012 🎯 Primary software category: Project management 🏆 G2: 4.7 (9,800+ reviews) ; Capterra: 4.6 (4,400+ reviews) 🧪 Free trial: yes, 14 days
Monday.com is another extremely popular project management tool. You can see all the work that needs to be done in multiple views, such as lists, calendars, Gantt charts, and Kanban boards. Monday.com’s color-coded, visual interface is easy to read, and allows for many inputs like assignees, files, and deadlines.
The areas where it has limitations involve resource planning and capacity management—as it’s not their priority, these kinds of features (e.g. the ability to clearly see who’s overbooked) remain rudimentary and may affect the ability to plan projects with realistic timelines.
1. Free . Up to two seats for individuals to keep track of work. 2. Basic . $8 per seat per month, billed annually. A plan that helps you manage your team’s work with everything in Free, plus unlimited items and 5GB storage. 3. Standard . $10 per seat per month, billed annually. Everything in Basic, along with timelines and Gantt charts, calendar views, and automations. 4. Pro . $16 per seat per month, billed annually. Everything in Standard, plus time tracking and more automations. 5. Enterprise . Advanced reporting and analytics and multi-level permissions.
The platforms we chose in this category are robust powerhouses that offer multiple solutions. This means they’re not only focused on project planning or project management, but they have other functions too. These platforms may be good for teams that want to centralize tools in one place, but less effective for teams that want the absolute best project planning solution.
Here we go:
🏢 Founded in: 2005 🎯 Primary software category: Work management 🏆 G2: 4.4 (15,000+ reviews) ; Capterra: 4.5 (3,000+ reviews) 🧪 Free trial: yes, 14 days
Smartsheet is a complete work management platform that offers both project planning and resource management features (as an add-on). You can plan projects across multiple timelines and use multiple views, such as Gantt charts and Kanban.
While it’s a very reliable tool with lots of solutions built-in, it requires a lot of manual work and time to make updates and is often reviewed as hard to learn for new users.
1. Free . For one user and up to two editors, suited for getting started on task management. 2. Pro . $7 per user per month, billed annually. Track, share, and manage projects with unlimited sheets, user management, etc. 3. Business . $25 per user per month, billed annually. This plan includes their resource management features. 4. Enterprise . For organizations that need enterprise-level security and controls.
🏢 Founded in: 2008 (as Mavenlink) 🎯 Primary software category: Resource management 🏆 G2: 4.1 (1,300+ reviews) ; Capterra: 4.2 (500+ reviews) 🧪 Free trial: yes, 14 days
Kantata is a professional services automation software that combines finance, project, and resource management tools to provide a comprehensive solution for high-level decision-making. It has anything from business intelligence and forecasting to project planning and automation.
As the platform combines multiple services in one, it’s high in complexity. While it has easy-to-use task management and collaboration features, it’s a more robust and less flexible platform than others on this list.
Choosing Kantata as your tool can be a great benefit to your enterprise team if you want to centralize multiple solutions in one—but know that pricing is custom, and you'll need to reach out to the team directly for a quote, even if you’re still evaluating tools.
To find out about pricing for your company, you have to first provide some information to Kantata such as your industry, company size, and contact details.
While many tools have stable and reliable apps used from a browser, you may also need an app that can be used natively on your computer. Here are two tools that offer this option well:
🏢 Founded in: 2006 🎯 Primary software category: Work management 🏆 G2: 4.2 (3,300+ reviews) ; Capterra: 4.3 (2,400+ reviews) 🧪 Free trial: yes, two weeks
Wrike is primarily a collaborative project management software that helps teams organize their projects, tasks, and subtasks. It also offers resource management features under the ‘Business’ plan to help you plan projects based on your team’s availability.
Its desktop app is available for both Windows and Mac, for all users (including collaborators). With the app, you can do pretty much everything you can on the browser (including working in multiple tabs) and you can also receive desktop notifications.
Another one of Wrike’s advantages is that you can take many actions in offline mode in the mobile apps—even if it’s still limited compared to the online version.
1. Free . For small teams that want basic task management functionality. 2. Team . $9.80 per user per month, billed annually. For growing teams with unlimited projects, tasks, subtasks 3. Business . $24.80 per user per month, billed annually. Set up organization-wide, with automations, resource management, and time tracking features. This plan with resource management is limited to 200 users, after which you’ll need to speak to Wrike’s Sales team about an enterprise plan. 4. Enterprise & Pinnacle . Plans for large teams for unlimited users, with enhanced governance.
🏢 Founded in: 2007 🎯 Primary software category: Project management 🏆 G2: 4.4 (1,000+ reviews) ; Capterra: 4.5 (800+ reviews) 🧪 Free trial: yes, 30 days
Teamwork focuses on streamlining various facets of client operations, such as monitoring performance by clients, projects, and teams. Its project planning features help teams keep work organized in one place with the ability to track capacity and utilization.
It has a remarkable suite of desktop apps, including its own main Teamwork app, a Teamwork Chat app, a Timer, and three additional apps for documents (Document Editor and MS Office) and email (Outlook).
It’s a great option for centralizing any client-related information, but it’s less effective for big-picture planning. Teamwork may also run slower when there are lots of projects and tasks.
Teamwork has five plans (in yearly billing). 1. Free . For up to 5 users and includes time tracking, managing clients, and project management essentials (e.g., tasks, Gantt charts) 2. Starter . $5.99 per user per month, billed annually. More integrations and project management features. 3. Deliver . $9.99 per user per month, billed annually. Includes more reports (e.g. project status, portfolio health, burndown), and teams management. 4. Grow . $19.99 per user per month, billed annually. With budget management tools, resource scheduling, additional integrations, and advanced project management features. 5. Scale . Custom. Includes every feature with advanced, unlimited reports, and retainer management.
Spreadsheets are the freeest of the free project planning tools—but they’re certainly underfeatured. They’re hard to maintain and prone to errors, and they don’t allow for effective capacity management.
There are other tools you could use for free and get the job done. For example, both Asana and Monday.com (mentioned earlier) have free plans that can work well if you have a small team or only a few projects. We also have two more tools that may cover your needs:
🏢 Founded in: 2017 🎯 Primary software category: Project management 🏆 G2: 4.7 (6,900+ reviews) ; Capterra: 4.7 (3,600+ reviews) 🧪 Free trial: no, but free plan
ClickUp is a well-rounded project management tool used by over two million teams, which competes with software like Asana and Monday.com—but we’re including it in this category thanks to its really useful free version.
While the free version doesn’t offer important tools included in the other plans (such as resource management or integrations), it’s still very usable by small teams because of unlimited free plan members, chat, collaborative documents, and sprint management.
However, where it falls short is more specialized areas of project planning, like scheduling phases and resource optimization . It also lacks robust people and project reports.
The below plans are billed yearly: 1. Free . A plan for personal use, with collaborative docs, Kanban view, and more. 2. Unlimited . $7 per member per month, billed annually. A plan for small teams with unlimited storage, dashboards, and time tracking. 3. Business . $12 per member per month, billed annually. A plan for mid-sized teams that includes everything in Unlimited, alongside more advanced features like SSO, workload management, and advanced time tracking. 4. Enterprise . You need to contact ClickUp for a custom price on a plan for large teams.
🏢 Founded in: 2017 🎯 Primary software category: Project management 🏆 G2: 4.4 (17 reviews) ; Capterra: 4.2 (105 reviews) 🧪 Free trial: yes, 7 days
nTask is an all-in-one project management software with strong collaboration features like managing meetings (e.g. agendas and schedules) and real-time chat.
It has an excellent free plan which includes five team members, unlimited workspaces, and unlimited tasks. Unlike other tools, nTask also offers timesheets as part of the free plan, as well as issue tracking and all available integrations.
1. Basic . Free forever, for teams of up to 5 people, with unlimited workspaces and task lists. 2. Premium . 3$ per user per month, billed annually, for individuals and small teams with unlimited projects. 3. Business . 8$ per user per month, billed annually, for all project management features and priority support. 4. Enterprise . Custom for teams with higher compliance, security, and support requirements.
Manage projects, capacity, and scheduled work in one visual tool.
All of these tools above can be great, depending on what you and your team need. Want powerful resource management to plan projects with realistic timelines and utilize your team correctly? Then, we suggest you check out Float. Want an effective desktop app? Wrike and Teamwork are your best options. Want efficient task management in a user-friendly platform? Take a look at Asana and monday.com.
And if you still need some help figuring out what kind of software you need for different purposes, check out our other comparison guides on capacity planning tools , project scheduling tools , and resource management software .
Happy planning!
Project planning tools are software applications designed to help manage complex project tasks, schedules, resources, and budgets. They offer functionalities to plan, execute, and monitor projects and ensure they meet deadlines and stay within budget.
Project planning tools help streamline project management processes, enhance team collaboration, track progress, manage resource allocation effectively, and ensure timely project completion.
Key features to look for when selecting planning tools for your project teams include:
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Updated October 29, 2023
Taking action at the appropriate time is critical to turning your visions into a viable reality. However, doing so without a proper strategy can be a recipe for disaster.
A well-designed and concrete action plan that weighs all the benefits and possible challenges is the key to executing your vision successfully. Furthermore, it makes tracking progress easier, which in turn helps you attain your goals.
Whether it’s a business, personal, or career goal you are going after, the right action plan can be your roadmap to success. A comprehensive plan details all the information regarding your objectives and projects, such as the resources required, the complexity level of tasks, etc.
Let’s figure out how you can build one to achieve your goals successfully and efficiently.
An action plan serves as a trajectory for the tasks or steps you need to accomplish to reach your goals and objectives. It is a crucial part of your strategic process that helps you improve teamwork planning significantly. Also, a proper action plan allows you to manage projects efficiently.
You have all the essential information in a centralized location that your team can access, making it easier for everybody to monitor progress and plan things successfully. As your company grows and circumstances change, you can revisit and make modifications to meet your latest requirements.
Planning of action items helps you prepare for any obstacles ahead. You’re your teams on track while ensuring impactful results. Furthermore, it also boosts your productivity and keeps everybody focused on urgent tasks.
Here are some of the reasons why an action plan is vital for you:
When it comes to creating an action plan, various practical methods and tools can help you develop a robust action program. Begin by following this straightforward 7-step strategy.
Following these steps for structuring your action plan incidentally also acts as a brilliant roadmap for your idea’s overall presentation and can effectively create a clear goal.
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It is essential to define your scope, create a roadmap, and align it with your strategic planning . Make sure your actions guide you toward company goals. Start by gauging how your team members can contribute and help you achieve your objectives.
If you don’t have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve, it might be challenging for you to plan a new initiative. Defining your current status and where you see your company helps you analyze the situation, explore potential solutions and implement strategies successfully.
S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound) objectives or goals is a method of objective setting that enables employees and managers to set, monitor, and achieve their long-term and short-term goals. This approach brings tractability and structure together.
Once you map out your plan, scope, and aim to accomplish, the next step requires you to set well-defined goals and measurable tools. Create a template to highlight all the tasks that your team needs to perform and deadlines.
It is vital to make sure that your entire team is on the same page, involved in the process, and has access to the document. This way, the projects become manageable while also boosting team productivity.
Furthermore, ensure that the tasks are attainable. If you have more complex tasks, it’s essential to break them down into manageable parts for easy execution.
Once you plan on the action items, prioritize tasks, and set milestones, the next step is creating a visual representation of your action plan. This visualization helps you engage your team and allow everyone to follow through to carry out activities.
A graphical presentation also makes it easier to get a bird’s eye view of your project. This way, you can identify your objectives and tasks that you weren’t able to execute or reach, allowing you to prioritize them to accomplish them.
You can elaborate your action plan with the help of a concept map that can help you explicitly communicate all the essential elements and information — task owners, tasks owners, resources, goals, objectives, deadlines, etc. Also, make sure the document is easily accessible to all.
Additionally, you can also leverage online visual collaboration platforms to help you seamlessly visualize and structure your simple and complex concepts.
It is imperative to align all your activities with specific goals and assign them to relevant team members. When you list and prioritize all your tasks, it helps keep track of your projects’ status, progress, and completion.
You could also structure your task list by importance. This way, everyone knows what needs to be done first to meet your deadlines effectively while ensuring that your employees can manage those tasks. That way, your team will also know their responsibilities and tasks to get done and engage them with a clear vision.
Milestones are the objectives that your team aims to achieve to keep a specific project progressing at a steady pace. Your work will have a lot smoother flow when everybody is clear with goals.
When you set milestones , it serves as mini-goals that help you achieve your central goal towards the end. Adding milestones to your action plan is crucial to give your team members something to look forward to and encourage them to stay motivated throughout.
Before starting your project, it is imperative to ensure that you have the critical resources to complete the tasks successfully. And if you don’t have adequate resources, devise a strategy to leverage what you have effectively. Include all the essential components such as the number of projects, budget, timelines, etc., to make sure you don’t miss out on vital aspects.
Knowing what you have to work with will ensure that any tasks or projects you set out to accomplish have a better chance of succeeding. If you don’t have enough cash, a large enough team, or even enough time to manage every project, you’ll soon find yourself struggling to meet milestones and deadlines.
It is pivotal to allocate time and resources to evaluate your projects’ and teams’ progress. Make sure you conduct frequent follow-ups with team members to see if everybody is on track.
For this reason, you need to elaborate on the follow-up and assessment of teams in your action plan. This will help you implement the strategies that work well and eradicate the ineffective ones.
An action plan is an indispensable tool that helps you guide your way to realizing your goals. It turns your visualization into actionable steps and milestones.
From larger departments in an organization to individual employees, an action plan is a defined methodology that helps you outline your activities, tasks, resources, budget, objectives, etc. This, in turn, allows you to achieve desired outcomes.
JT Ripton is a business consultant and a freelance writer out of Tampa. JT has written for companies like T-Mobile and others.
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Step 8: Communicate. Communication plays a key role in project management and according to the PM role, a project manager spends about 90% of the time communicating. Communication of plans, timely reviews, and change management are all important aspects of the project that need attention at regular intervals.
1) Project Planning- an overview. 2) Discussing the Importance of Project Planning. 3) Exploring the key components of Project Planning. 4) Looking at the five phases of a Project's life cycle. 5) The key tools you need for Project Planning. 6) Steps you can take to create an effective Project Plan. 7) Conclusion.
Project planning assures timely delivery and project success, a crucially necessary process in any technology company. It is the most critical phase in removing threats and project failures. Aiming toward an ideal project plan aids in increasing the likelihood of consumer satisfaction and their confidence in the company for future investments, as there is no success in a business plan if the ...
Project Success. Before it is possible, discuss the impact of the project planning phase on success; it is useful to define what a successful project is. Shenhar, Dvir, Levy, and Maltz (2001) define four levels of project success: 1. Project efficiency. 2. Impact on the customer. 3. Business success.
It's one of the most critical stages of the whole process. Let's see exactly why project planning is so important — not just for the project, but for the entire company and its staff, too. 1. It boosts project performance and success rates. Unfortunately, the project failure rate for most companies is 70 percent.
A project consists of five different phases: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and controlling, and closure. Planning is the second phase of the project life cycle, where a plan after the initiation phase is made so the process of execution may begin. The project plan serves as a roadmap for the entire process of project management.
Planning — this includes the end-to-end planning of the project. The main parts of the planning are defining project goals, scope, complexity, effort, timeline, budget, and risk management. Continuous monitoring — throughout the project, progress is monitored and controlled. Any deviations or blockers are clarified for a smooth delivery.
Step 7: Allocate Various Resources: Every project has its budget, personnel, technology, etc. Identify these resources while outlining the entire process to ensure everything is present in an adequate amount once the transition process starts. Step 8: Address Training Needs: Assess the skill gaps one might have due to transitioning.
Remember, your project plan can change as your project moves forward. Keep an eye on it, make adjustments when needed, and make sure your project stays on the path to success. Examples of Project Planning. Project planning is the process of outlining the steps needed to complete a project successfully.
A project plan houses all the necessary details of your project, such as goals, tasks, scope, deadlines, and deliverables. This shows stakeholders a clear roadmap of your project, ensures you have the resources for it, and holds everyone accountable from the start. In this article, we teach you the seven steps to create your own project plan.
Plans drive communication. Everyone knows communication is important in project management. And a plan is one of the most effective communication tools you can use to keep everyone informed about your project. That's because it documents every important detail about your project—even when things change. With TeamGantt, you don't have to ...
3. Orderly Task Tracking and Strategic Planning. By all means, task tracking ranks at the top of the list of perks that project management software provides. Upon initiation of a new project, teams can use project management software to keep a log of all required project tasks, with the flexibility to add or change tasks at any time.
This timeline will now expose the spots in the project that need more resources and those that are most important to keep the project on track. 2. Brainstorming. Brainstorming can be looked at as the plan before the plan. A plan for anything is a way to organize an approach.
Here are seven keys to successful project planning to help you get started. 1. Think of your plan as a roadmap for stakeholders. Every project needs a roadmap with clearly defined goals that should not change after the first phase of the project has been completed. All stakeholders benefiting from the outcome or involved in executing the ...
Transformation of a business plan into an action plan (including. Gantt charts and timelines) - collaboratively or independently. • Transformation of a business plan into an action plan (e.g. planning tools: Gantt charts or Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) with timelines and responsibilities, project planning)
A project plan, also known as a work plan, is a detailed document that clearly elucidates a project's scope, goals, tasks, deliverables, milestones, communication channels, budget and deadlines. The aims of a project plan, and indeed of project planning, are to provide a clear roadmap or blueprint for project execution, to provide early warning ...
A project plan is a series of formal documents that define the execution and control stages of a project. The plan includes considerations for risk management, resource management and communications, while also addressing scope, cost and schedule baselines. Project planning software is used by project managers to ensure that their plans are ...
A simple project plan includes these elements: Project name, brief summary, and objective. Project players or team members who will drive the project, along with their roles and responsibilities. Key outcomes and due dates. Project elements, ideally divided into must-have, nice-to-have and not-in-scope categories.
7. Kantata. Kantata is a professional services automation software that combines finance, project, and resource management tools to provide a comprehensive solution for high-level decision-making. It has anything from business intelligence and forecasting to project planning and automation.
Timeline, costs, and deliverables should be detailed clearly to show the scope of your project. In the ten sections below, you'll find ten essential elements of a project plan you shouldn't overlook. 1. Outline business justification and stakeholder needs. Before starting your project, it is essential to align the project's goals and needs ...
Build a strategy. 1. Define your scope. It is essential to define your scope, create a roadmap, and align it with your strategic planning. Make sure your actions guide you toward company goals. Start by gauging how your team members can contribute and help you achieve your objectives.