Planning

Planning Phase

• The planning phase develops more detail plans on what has to
  be done, based on the information from the initiation stage
• Translates needs into more specific tasks
• For example, when we want to buy a house we need to do more specific things like checking the surrounding, transport, price etc

Things to Plan

• Some of the planning includes
  • Scope – the actual tasks to be done based on the scope document e.g. find supplier, lowest quote, check specification of hardware
  • Time or schedule – the duration and time taken
  • Communication – how will information be distributed e.g. email, video conference

Scope Planning

• Scope refers to all the work involved in creating the products of the project
• In scope planning we try to define the work or tasks that has to be done

Importance of Scope Planning

• The things that needs to be done will determine the duration of the project and the cost (Triple constraints)
• A scope has to be properly defined for so that
  • things that are not within scope can be identified and dealt with
  • an accurate estimation of time and cost is possible

Scope Planning Activities

• Scope planning builds on and adds details to the output of the initiation stage
• Scope planning involves the following
  • Scope statement
  • Scope change procedure
  • Work breakdown Structure (WBS)

Project Scope Statement

• A scope statement is a document that states in further details (compared to a project charter) on what has to be done
• The document has to be reviewed with the customer and the internal team to gain consensus or agreement
• The scope statement serves as the foundation in defining the activities required to complete the project
• It includes the following:
  • Project justifications
  • Product description
  • Major deliverables
  • Time and cost estimates
  • Assumptions – things that is not likely to change (e.g. number of users using the system will not exceed 1000 users)
  • Constraints – Limitation to the project (e.g. money, staff, time to complete)
• Always reviews these with the other stakeholders

Deliverables

• Deliverable - High level description of what is to be done or accomplished along the way as the project progresses to produce the final product
• A project usually requires a few or more deliverables
• A typical IT project will usually have the following deliverables
  • Requirement (user requirements , system) e.g. survey, meeting with other department personnel
  • Purchase of equipment (e.g. hardware/software)
  • Testing (e.g. with customer, within the team)
  • Training of user (e.g. print manual, book room, conduct lesson)

Scope Change

• There are often changes to a scope as a project evolves due to reasons such as
  • Change in resources available
  • Change in user requirement
  • New technology available
• Change has impact to the project scope and has to be analyzed before deciding whether to implement

Scope Change Process

• Scope change process defines what to do when a change is being requested
  • a standard form to submit request. Includes information such as description, reason and person requesting
  • analyze the impact on scope, budget, schedule and quality due to change
  • accept or reject request after discussion with affected stakeholder
  • update every stakeholders of the status of the request

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

• The purpose of the WBS is to break down the main project deliverables down to small manageable activities
• These smaller manageable activities are called work packages
• These work packages developed will allow time estimates, resource assignments and cost estimates

Approaches to developing WBS

• Analogy approach - using similiar project's WBS
• Top-down approach - starting with the main activities and then going into the details
• Bottom-up approach - team members determine the detail tasks and try to group them together to form a high level plan

Source: PMP, Prince2