There are plenty of reasons why you should be concerned not only about project management, but also about how to go about it in a way the produces intended results. Consider these stats:
* 44% of project managers don’t use project management software despite the fact that they can boost performance.
* Most organizations have a dismal project failure rate of 70%.
* 17% of information technology projects turn out so badly that they threaten the going-concern status of companies.
* A mere 2.5% of businesses successfully wrap up all of their projects.
If this doesn’t demonstrate the importance of developing a good project management plan to achieve success rather than crumble in failure, nothing will.
What follows is a look major elements of a project management plan as well as a look into a tool that will simplify the process so that you and your team can work smarter, rather than harder.
Executive Summary
In the executive summary section of your project management plan, your goal is to clearly specify the purpose or objective of the project as well as to outline how to successfully achieve the deliverable. You’ll need to cover aspects such as time, expense, and quality.
It’s important that the executive summary not only explain what the goal or outcome of the project needs to be, but also provide a detailed schedule that includes milestones by which components of the project need to be completed. Someone looking at your executive summary should end up with a good idea of exactly what needs to be done.
Milestones
After you have crafted an executive summary, you’ll want to thoroughly detail and explain expected deliverables by specifying specific project milestones, noting when milestones must be achieved, highlighting cost or expense projections, and listing resource requirements. When working on the milestones part of your project management plan, you should be sure to include
* Milestones covering the entire project lifecycle from beginning to end.
* Diagrams that demonstrate the dependencies among the various project milestones.
* Timeline showing when each task is slated to begin and end.
These three considerations are important since they show the need to understand what needs to be completed to achieve the deliverable, the need for team members to understand the importance of meeting milestone deadlines so that other tasks dependent on these milestones can go on as planned, and the need for a clear outline of start and end dates for all tasks.
Resource Plans
Nest, you’ll want to assign tasks to specific team members and explain exactly what these responsibilities are as well as the expected due dates. This will add a level of accountability and provide workers with a clear understanding of their role and how their role will contribute to the project as a whole. Here are some specific things to include:
Assignment Responsibility: This refers to explaining who is responsible for getting the various components of each project done.
Hierarchy Structure: It’s also important in this section to detail the team hierarchy for each project so that people know their rights and responsibilities as well as understand who to turn to if there’s an issue. This section will also stipulate who is responsible for giving the go-ahead on milestone tasks, okaying spending and doing other related things.
Role Explanations: It’s not only important to ensure that tasks are delegated properly — it’s also important that the roles or positions themselves be described clearly so that anyone in those roles knows exactly what is expected out of him or her.
Budget
Figure out a realistic budget that you can work within. This will give you the information you need to determine, over the course of the project, if you’re on track to achieve your goal, if you need to make changes to stay within your budget, or if you simply need to revise your budget upwards to accommodate any changing circumstances.
The Best Way to Organize Your Project Management Plan
Are you looking for a tool that will help you with creating a project management plan? Gryffin has you covered. Gryffin includes custom templates so that your team can track projects from start to finish, task automation to free up time and streamline workflows, and visibility controls to help you keep an eye on your teams’ progress. Plus, it’s the only project management tool with tasks, files, emails, and chat all in one place. In other words, it’s the only app you need for project management. Give it a try, and see for yourself!