Project Management Planning
You've heard the old sayings about planning. "Plan the work, then work the plan." "Proper planning prevents poor performance." "If you don't plan to succeed, you plan to fail." Perhaps nowhere else are these adages so obvious as in project management planning.
A project management plan is critical to the successful completion of any project, from reorganizing your desk to reorganizing a multinational corporation like General Motors. In almost every business school case study of spectacular failure, the root cause is found in a failure to plan and manage some detail(s) of the project.
Project management planning begins with an obvious question: "Why are we doing this?" What are the business needs that will be met by the project's outcome? What will the finished project do that will meet those needs? Form -- the components of a project plan -- follows the functions that the project is supposed to perform.
The scope of a project is important to plan. No one project is going to solve all problems forever. You have to decide where the project is going to stop. How many square feet of office building will you erect in this construction project management plan? From that one decision flow many components of the plan such as how much concrete, steel, rivets, etc., you will need. A software project management plan will define the scope of the finished software's functions, user base, transaction volume, etc.
The approach that will be taken to performing the many tasks involved in a project is part of the project management planning process. The "approach" is the order in which things will be done, how tasks will be defined and to whom they will be assigned, how the output of tasks will be integrated and used as input to other tasks, and so on.
Project management planning templates are widely available on the Web to help you cover all of the steps involved in planning a project. Project management plan samples are out there too, to help you write up the project management plan document that will be presented to upper management.
Project management planning does not end until the project ends. One must continually monitor and control the unfolding of events to see how their actual results compare to the project management plan and make adjustments as necessary. Project management planning software can help you do this complex function, as well as develop the initial project management plan.