Comprises of;
- Developing project management plan
- Collecting requirements
- Defining scope
- Creating work breakdown structure
- Decomposing the work packages into activities
- Sequencing the activities based on their dependencies
- Estimating activity resource requirements
- Estimating activity durations
- Developing schedule
- Estimating costs
- Determining budgets
- Quality planning
- Human resource planning
- Communications planning
- Risk management planning
- Risk identification
- Qualitative risk analysis
- Quantitative risk analysis
- Risk response planning
- Procurement planning
Consider a scenario where the senior management (sponsor) has identified you as the project manager through the project charter, which got released during the initiation phase of the project. Now, it is time for you to take charge and plunge into action.
Develop project management plan
The first step is to create a plan for plan. This is important because, in a project there can be multiple sub teams operating like;
- The quality assurance team
- The quality control team
- The engineering team
- The documentation team
- The contracting and purchase group
- The H.R team
- The risk management team
- The training group
- Different sub-contractors
The size and complexity of the project determines the length of this list. As a project manager, if you have to complete the integrated project plan (end to end plan), one has to get the committed start and end dates of the individual plans of these sub-groups. So it is helpful to start with a plan for plan, which will help you to release the completed project plan on time. In the PMBOK terminology, this process is known as the ‘Develop project management plan’, which is the first process under planning.
Collect requirements
The second process in planning is ‘Collect requirements’. So far we were operating with the high level requirements like the statement of work (SOW), Request for proposal (RFP), Proposal etc. Now it is time to get into the detailed requirements, and the output of this is the detailed requirements document.
Define scope
The approved and base lined requirements document, along with the work breakdown structure (WBS) forms the scope document.
Create work breakdown structure (WBS)
Once the scope is defined, it is decomposed further into a work breakdown structure. Care must be taken to ensure that there is traceability between the scope document and the work breakdown structure.
Some facts about WBS
- A WBS do not show any sequence of events (does not show any time lines). It shows only the break up of work.
- The lowest level in the WBS is known as a work package.
- Work packages can be between 8 hours to 18 hours of work. For small projects, it is towards 8 hours and for large projects, it is towards 80 hours. That means, if the project is small, as a project manager you will track the work packages at least once in a day and for larger projects the frequency of tracking can be lesser.
- Budgets are frozen at a work package level.
- As a project manager, you exercise control at a work package level only, and not at the activity level.
Define activities
Once the WBS is frozen, the next step is to decompose the work packages into activities. A set of activities constitute a work package.
Sequence activities
The next step is sequencing these activities based on their relationships. There can be four types of relationships among activities;
- Finish to Start, Something has to finish for you to start something else. Unless and until I get the clearance from the government, I will not be able to start the construction of my house.
- Finish to Finish, something has to finish for me to finish something else. Testing has to finish for me to finish defect fixing.
- Start to Start, something has to start for me to start something else. Testing has to start for me to start defect fixing.
- Start to Finish, something has to start for me to finish something else. When the main power supply comes in, I can stop the generator.
In most of the cases it will be finish-start. For sequencing the activities, we use;
- Activity on Arrow (AOA). It is also known as arrow diagramming method (ADM)
- Activity on Node (AON). It is also known as activity on node (AON)
Activity resource estimation
The next step is to estimate the resource requirements for each activity.
Estimate activity durations
Based on the resource requirements and availability, activity durations are arrived at.
Develop Schedule
Using the activity sequence diagrams and durations, schedule is developed. Very often scheduling tools are used to derive the schedule.
Cost estimation
The cost estimates at the activity level are frozen after optimizing the schedule.
Determine budget
The activity level costs are aggregated to derive the project budget
At this stage one must ensure that all the activities pertaining to all the applicable knowledge areas are included in the schedule like;
Quality planning
Human resource planning
Communications planning
Risk management planning
Risk identification
Qualitative risk analysis
Quantitative risk analysis
Plan risk responses
Plan procurements
