20 Tips For Better Project Plans

You know what it takes to carry your project plans forward. Some of you have been delivering projects for years. Every so often it helps to brush up on all the little things that help make your project planning skills optimized for the projects you’re working on today.

Follow our 20 tips that serve as good reminders for helping you execute your projects on time and under budget. Where helpful, we’ve added links to some of the ProjectManager.com tutorials, articles and even support videos, too. Even though you might not be a user of our particular software, these tutorials offer detailed views and step-by-step walkthroughs of how to apply some of these tips in action.

1. Link Plans To Timesheets

Your project plan should be linked to your project team’s timesheet app. This means that as they work on tasks and make progress towards completing them, the schedule will automatically update to say that the work is underway. It’s a fast way of getting status updates where no one has to do any extra work.

2. Add New Tasks Regularly

It’s no small task remembering to add every task, especially when you’ve got back-to-back meetings, phone calls, fires to put out and constraints like the 8-5 work week. Try to add new tasks as you go, when you’re on the go, rather than at the end of the week. Use your mobile phone to quickly jot down tasks when you’re chatting with that colleague or when you’ve figured out how to put out that fire. When you sit back at your desk, add your captured notes right away. Consider task tracking part of your daily multi-tasking effort.

3. Create Baselines

Take a baseline of your plan. This is a snapshot in time. It’s useful because you can then look back and see what was originally agreed and how things have changed since then. Check out Jennifer Bridges video training guide on how to create baselines.

4. Add Resources

Each task on your plan should be assigned to a person, rather than floating in the breeze with no accountability. That not only helps you understand who is doing what, it helps them see their complete work program and plan their time accordingly.

5. Use Milestones

Milestones mark key points in the project like the completion of a phase or the start of a new tranche of work. They are also really helpful when it comes to reporting, as you can measure your progress against these key points and not every single task.

6. Establish The Critical Path

The critical path is the shortest path through the project. If anything along this route changes, such as more work being added, then the project will take longer. If you know the tasks on the critical path, you can make sure that they don’t slow down so you will reach your end date as planned. To learn more about how to determine your project’s critical path, check out this video tutorial with Jennifer Bridges.

7. Involve Your Team

You can’t produce a plan by yourself. Make sure that your whole project team gets involved—and stays involved. They will have useful insight into the work that needs to be done.

8. Get It Approved

Once your plan is produced ask to discuss it with your sponsor. Get them to approve the plan as it stands so that you have a clear mandate to proceed.

9. Use Change Control

When the plan changes (and it will!) use a formal change control process to evaluate the change and then update the plan. You might want to take another baseline view at this point. Change control helps you manage changes in a structured way.

10. Be Iterative

Don’t expect to get it right first time. An iterative plan is one that evolves over time as more clarity is gained on the project. This is the way that Agile project teams work, and it’s also something you can do in a non-Agile environment.

11. Do Risky Work First

Put the tasks with the highest degree of risk at the beginning of the project, if you can. Then if anything goes wrong you have the longest possible time to sort it out!

12: Establish Costs

How much are your tasks going to cost? Make sure you prepare budget estimates for each task as this is a great way to get a comprehensive project budget.

13. Use Online Tools

Online project management tools are the easiest way to manage your project plans. Anyone can make changes from wherever they are, or if you prefer you can limit access to only yourself. Being online makes it easier to check status or to add a new task even if you aren’t at your desk. Read Jason Westland’s article on how to get the most out of your online tools here.

14. Use a Gantt Chart

Gantt charts are an easy way to visualize the project and the work involved. You can also see how tasks link together and how long the whole thing is going to take.

15. Create Dependencies

Dependencies are the way in which tasks link to each other. Sometimes one task has to finish before another one can start. Or a task has to start at the same time as another task. It’s easy to add dependencies on a Gantt chart or a project schedule, and your software will automate the planning to show you how long the work will take once all the dependencies are taken into account.

16. Let Your Team Update It

If you are the only person who can update the plan, then more of the work falls to you. Find ways to let your trusted project team members update certain tasks so that you split the burden between you. This could be automatically through an interface (like timesheets) or directly into the plan itself.

17. Plan Backwards

 You might not be able to do this on all projects, but if you have a fixed date in mind for the delivery of your work then planning back from that will help you work out if you have enough time to do everything. If you find out that you don’t have enough time, you can then work out how to handle that!

18. Control Scope Creep

Scope creep is where extra work is added to the plan in an uncontrolled way. Make sure that everyone on the team knows that all changes have to go through the formal process so that you don’t find yourself working on a never ending project.

19. Add Contingency Time

Projects always take longer than you expect because generally you are doing something that the company has not done before ,which makes it hard to plan accurately. Add some contingency time of between 5% and 20% to allow for this and for unforeseen problems.

20. Share It

Make sure your plan is accessible to everyone on the team by sharing it. Someone will spot something that isn’t accurate, and together you will be able to work on it and get a better quality plan as a result.

Plan online with your whole project team using ProjectManager.com. It’s fast, easy to use and requires no training. Everyone will be looking at professional Gantt charts and sleek reports within minutes.

THE 10 KNOWLEDGE AREAS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

The Project Management Professional (PMP)^® certification exam includes ten knowledge areas, and project management is one of them. These knowledge areas are key components associated with successful project management. The list of all ten components include:

1. Project integration management
2. Project scope management
3. Project time management
4. Project cost management
5. Project quality management
6. Project human resource management
7. Project communications management
8. Project risk management
9. Project procurement management
10. Project stakeholder management

THE 5 PHASES OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

There are five designated phases of project management. These phases provide a roadmap to accomplishing the targeted goals of each project. The phases include:

1. Conception and Initiation: The first phase is where the high-level project goals and definition are developed. At this phase, feasibility is determined through discussion and feasibility testing. Once the project is accepted by stakeholders, a project charter or a project initiation document (PID) is created, outlining the purposes and requirements of the project.
2. Definition and Planning: At this phase, a roadmap is created to help guide teams towards specific targets throughout the project. The scope of the project is defined and a comprehensive project plan is developed. The plan identifies variables like cost, quality, available resources, and a realistic timeline. The project plan also establishes performance measures, which are generated using the scope, schedule, and cost of the project. Roles and responsibilities for team members are divvied out accordingly, distributing accountability across the project.
3. Launch or Execution: The project execution phase is when deliverables are developed and completed. There are many moving parts during this phase, like team development, resource assignment, system tracking, project scheduling, and plan modifying. This phase is where the “meat” of the project is completed, and consistent status reports and performance updates keep all goals in check.
4. Performance and Control: This phase is geared towards measuring project progression and performance to ensure that all tasks align with the original project plan. Key performance indicators (KPIs) help to determine if the project is on track based on components like project objectives, quality deliverables, effort and cost tracking, and project performance.
5. Project Close: This phase signals the completion of a project. Project managers are tasked with terminating contractors, recognizing valuable team members, and evaluating a project to identify strengths and weaknesses. After the project is completed, PMs must still create a punch list of unaccomplished tasks and perform a final budget analysis that will go into the final project report. All documents must be gathered and stored for future reference.

PROJECT TIME MANAGEMENT TIPS

Half of project management is learning how to allocate time to individual projects to stay on track. Here are some tips specific to the time management side of project management:

• Use resource calendars to delegate tasks and keep track of timelines, especially when you have overlapping resources.
• Leverage the project scope and use it as your guide.
• Use milestone lists to identify and analyze each significant point in your project.
• Create daily to-do lists and reassess your lists at the end of each day.
• Share project plans with team members so everyone knows what is expected, and when.
• Reference historical information to make estimates on new projects.
• Break down tasks into manageable chunks.
• Consider all dependant tasks to ensure efficiency and stick to schedules throughout the project.
• Don’t micromanage — trust that the team will complete the work.
• Set up meetings sparingly, only when issues are presented or need to be solved quickly.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT BEST PRACTICES

Managing a project is a large feat full of many moving parts. There are four major best practices that can help all PMs effectively tackle their next project. These best practices include:

1. Expect delays: Obstacles can pop up at any point during a project, and being prepared for these issues will prevent unnecessary stress and delays in the long run. Complete a risk analysis early on to ensure you have a plan in place should an issue arise, and  add a cushion to timelines should delays occur.
2. Estimate accurate durations: As a PM, you are responsible in guiding team members towards an achievable timeline. Coaching employees to break down work into smaller, manageable chunks will lead to more accurate duration estimates and timelines.
3. Consider everyone’s way of thinking: Not all people work in the same way. Some people may be linear thinking, rooted in logic and numbers, while others prefer to break down objectives and detail each step of every plan before proceeding. Taking this into consideration and balancing all team members’ work styles will better prepare you for leading a project. Play to the strengths of each team member, and leverage those strengths wherever possible.
4. Sometimes you need to take a break from the plan: Project management is not a set-in-stone process, and you must remain flexible to adapt to changes that occur. That’s why, when issues arise, it may be helpful to step away from the project plan and bring your team together to brainstorm a solution. Having the right tools in place to facilitate collaboration and communication will expedite this process and the eventual resolution.