Your Project Management Coach: Best Practices for Managing Projects in the Real World

Chapter 4

Getting to Know a Project Plan

Up until this point in the life of a project, the big question has been “Will they approve the project?” Now that the project has gotten past that huge hurdle, a multitude of new questions beg to be answered: Who? What? When? How? How much?

The answers to these new questions address how you plan to implement the project and accomplish what it's supposed to do. When you put all the detailed answers together, you have a project plan that you can use to manage the project to its conclusion.

The project plan is a detailed definition of the work to be done, how much it will cost, who will do the work, and when the project will be done. It isn't a single document. It's actually a repository for all plans, charts, and other documents you need to define, track, and manage the project.

In addition, the project plan contains the scope and requirements documents, the project charter, risk management plan, and more. It provides information about the project stakeholders, not the least of which is the person at the helm — you, the project manager — who keeps the ship sailing toward its goal.

This chapter introduces the components of a project plan and how they contribute to completing a project successfully. Subsequent chapters in Part III of this book cover the components in detail.

What Work Has to Be Done?

After you've obtained approval for a proposed project, the first thing to do is get your brain around what actually has to be done to accomplish ...