Project Management Tips and Techniques:
Define and Plan Your Work Before You Start to Execute the Project
Tom Mochal

Each month, Tom Mochal, President of TenStep, Inc. presents project management tips and techniques for planning and managing a project. TenStep, Inc. has a comprehensive, scalable project management process called TenStep (www.TenStep.com), as well as a project lifecycle process called LifecycleStep (www.LifecycleStep.com). Tom has also published a popular book called Lessons in Project Management that can be purchased at  www.TenStep.com.  Pipeline readers receive 20% off any TenStep or LifecycleStep purchase by entering the coupon code of "Pipeline" in their purchase.

It is important that all project tams spend time defining and planning the project work before it begins. It should make sense that small projects need a shorter planning cycle and larger projects need a longer planning cycle. The effort required to plan the project depends on the amount of information and the level of detail that needs to be understood and documented. The duration required to define the work depends on the length of time necessary to discover and document the information, as well as the time required to gain agreement and approval from the client. At times, the project manager can get frustrated because of the difficulty in gaining agreement with the client on scope, timeline and cost. But that is exactly the reason this work is done ahead of time. Think of the problems you will encounter trying to gain agreement with the client on scope, schedule or cost when the work has started and the deliverables are actually being produced.

Before the project execution begins (analysis, design, construct, etc.), a number of items need to be in place. For smaller projects, many of these conditions are met informally or implicitly. However, the larger a project gets, the more important it is that these criteria be met formally and explicitly.

• Client gives approval to begin planning. Normally, implicit approval is assumed to have occurred for the project to even get this far to begin with. However, if the project did not have a business case prepared and if it did not go through an authorization process, then explicit approval should be sought before project planning begins.

• Project is formally defined. This is documented in the Project Charter, which contains objectives, scope, assumptions, deliverables, budget, etc. For medium or small projects, this might be the Abbreviated Project Charter or a simple Service Request.

• Project schedule is created. A schedule must be prepared and used to manage the effort. This includes checkpoints, or milestones, when the project can be evaluated to ensure that it is appropriate to continue.

• Client gives approval to begin project. This is signified through an approved Project Charter. The Sponsor should sign the document to ensure agreement.

• Project Management Procedures are defined and approved. Procedures must be in place to describe how the project manager will manage issues, communication, risks, quality, scope, etc. This is especially true for large projects and less important as a project gets smaller. The best situation is when these procedures are defined at the organization level.

• Project team resources are assigned. You must have the right people to staff and execute the project. Sometimes valid, approved projects must be delayed because people with the right skills are not available.

Okay, now you are ready to begin. As stated earlier, small projects do much of this preparation quickly and informally. However, the larger your project is, the more rigorous and formal the definition and planning process should be.

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