Project planning templates for project management
Use project planning templates to get your project going faster. Organize tasks and milestones while facilitating communication by using templates product development, marketing, business plans, goals, and employee onboarding.
What are project planning templates?
Templates provide frameworks that follow best practices for specific types of projects and help you plan and manage them from beginning to end.
Simple project planning
Track progress and take notes on a calendar with an easy-to-use project planning template.
Agile project planning
Plot milestones and tasks and use charts with this agile project planning template.
Product development and launch
Plan every stage of a new product launch with this project planning template.
Project goals and objectives
Break a large project down into smaller goals with this project goals and objectives template so you achieve every milestone on time.
Benefits of project planning templates
Discover how templates help you achieve the objectives of any project.
Ready to get started?
Ramp up fast
Skip building and formatting plans for entire projects from the ground up. Just download project planning templates.
See and share information
Get an in-depth view of project status and easily communicate it with your team.
Stay on task and on track
Manage tasks and milestones throughout your project timeline.
Keep track of resources
Know where you stand at all times with employees and outside contractors.
Adapt as needed
Assess and adjust on the fly with easy-to-edit templates.
Essential reading about project planning
Explore resources that will help you save time and achieve your goals for every project, from kickoff to final reporting.
![[noalt]](https://img-prod-cms-rt-microsoft-com.akamaized.net/cms/api/am/imageFileData/RE52MuD?ver=f3eb&q=90&m=6&h=291&w=517&b=%23FFFFFFFF&l=f&o=t&aim=true "The project manager’s guide")
The project manager’s guide to planning a perfect project
![[noalt]](https://img-prod-cms-rt-microsoft-com.akamaized.net/cms/api/am/imageFileData/RE52Sjh?ver=dc19&q=90&m=6&h=291&w=517&b=%23FFFFFFFF&l=f&o=t&aim=true "5 project management tools to save time and money")
5 project management tools to save time and money
![[noalt]](https://img-prod-cms-rt-microsoft-com.akamaized.net/cms/api/am/imageFileData/RE52Sjp?ver=890d&q=90&m=6&h=291&w=517&b=%23FFFFFFFF&l=f&o=t&aim=true "How to pick a cloud-based project planning solution")
How to pick a cloud-based project planning solution
Explore microsoft project.
Discover a powerful yet simple project management tool to plan, manage, and deliver work effortlessly—from one-time projects to large initiatives.
Frequently asked questions
A project planning template is a document that follows a standard format based on the type of project and helps define the scope and objectives with a list of essential elements such as stakeholders, scope, timelines, estimated costs, and methods of communication with team members.
Project planning templates let you quickly start new projects, set organizational standards, and facilitate processes.
It’s relatively easy to find free project planning templates online that are available for download. There are project planning templates built into many apps such as Microsoft Project .
Project plan templates actually do much more than help you plan a project. They help you manage it, track information such as costs and timelines, and lets you see the big picture and communicate important information to people on your team.
There are many different types of project planning templates. Chances are the type of project or project management style you use will have planning templates. These range from Agile to Scrum and Kanban to Waterfall and everywhere in-between.
What Are The Benefits of Planning a Project?
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The benefits of planning a project
Clear objectives, better chances of hitting milestones, risk assessment.
More efficient resource allocation
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Benefits Management for Projects: How to Make a Benefits Management Plan
A project is a vehicle to deliver benefits to its stakeholders. These benefits include improved quality, reduced cost of production, better customer service, increased customer retention and so on.
Identifying, describing and measuring these benefits is called benefits management. Having a benefits management plan lets project managers maximize these outcomes for the organization and stakeholders, and it’s part of any successful project management plan.
What Is Benefits Management?
Benefits management is the method of investing time and resources in order to drive positive change in a project. This is done by identifying, planning, measuring and tracking benefits from the beginning of the project to the end, when all benefits have been achieved.
Benefits management involves specific, measurable, agreed upon, realistic and time-bound benefits. These benefits can apply to organizational change, process, project benefits or strategy planning. All of these definitions respond to a need for the alignment of project outcomes and business strategies.
While benefits management can speak to outcomes larger than an individual project, it always aims to increase the success of any project. According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), many organizations don’t measure (and therefore don’t manage) benefits, which means only a small number of organizations are achieving their targeted benefits. Meeting expectations on a project should be the bare minimum and more attention needs to be focused on benefits management.
What Is the Purpose of Benefits Management?
Think of benefits management as the link that connects the delivery of a successful project with change management. That is, the purpose of benefits management is to ensure that change management is driven by benefits. This is how to get the most value from your investment in the project.
Keep the Benefits in Mind
Benefits management is used to manage an organization’s investments, ensuring everyone focuses on benefits as business processes are executed. Benefits management identifies whether projects can produce the business results they were designed to deliver. It then goes about minimizing the risks involved in achieving those benefits and maximizes the opportunity to achieve more benefits. In other words, benefits management makes sure the project continues to create value.
Focusing on benefits leads to better decision-making when managing projects and the allocation of resources related to those projects. Benefits management moves beyond only measuring projects by how efficient they are to include their return on investment over time.
When Should a Program Focus on Benefits?
Benefits should be accounted for at the beginning of a project and followed through to its end. Like any plan, the benefits management plan sets the course early and continues to adjust that course as changes occur throughout the project.
Benefits, though, are usually realized during the delivery phase of the project. Before then, benefits management can add costs to the project. As the project moves towards closure, those costs will decrease and benefits will increase, which continue after the project is completed. However, at that point, they are usually managed by another organization.
What Is a Benefits Management Plan?
A benefits management plan explains what the benefits of the project area and how and when they’ll be delivered. The plan does this by including the following.
- Describing what the benefit is
- Creating a schedule for when the benefit will be delivered
- Identifying who owns the benefits
- Defining the metric used to measure the benefit and what the baseline will be
- Listing the assumptions and risks associated with achieving the benefit
Different Types of Benefits
The benefits management plan will deal with two types of benefits: tangible and intangible. Tangible benefits can be measured, such as cost reductions, while intangible ones cannot be with any accuracy, such as brand awareness.
The business case will inform your benefits management plan, which details the project benefits. The plan will include a baseline so that benefits can be measured as the project is executed.
Once a benefits management plan is made, it will be reviewed throughout the life cycle of the project. This helps to make sure they’re on track with the plan. Some benefits will not be delivered until after the completion of the project. In this case, the benefits owner is responsible for keeping track of them.
How to Create a Benefits Management Plan
The benefits management plan will identify, monitor and track benefits over the project’s life cycle and often after the project is finished. This is used to make sure the organization and benefit owners (those who are the main beneficiaries) stay focused on the benefits throughout this process.
The following steps are common to creating most benefits management plans:
- Identify the benefits. What are the beneficial outcomes to the project stakeholders and the larger organization? This needs to be done before starting the project.
- Create a plan that will realize the benefits; include any assumptions, risks and the tasks needed to reach those potential benefits.
- Each benefit will need to have a metric to measure the outcome in order to track it and make sure as the project is being executed it aligns with the plan.
- Define the roles and responsibilities of those who will manage the benefits.
- Add a plan for taking care of benefits that will continue after the close of the project.
- Develop a reporting plan to communicate the status of the project to stakeholders, either through regular reports, meetings or face-to-face conferences.
- Implement the plan.
- Evaluate the performance of the project after it closes to sustain benefits after the implementation of the project.
Create a Benefits Dependency Map
It is helpful to create a benefits dependency map, which will link the benefits to the organization’s strategic business objectives. This is broken up into five parts:
- A measurable objective that aligns with the organization’s vision
- The end benefit that motivates the stakeholders to invest in the project
- The intermediate benefits add to the end benefit
- The changes needed to achieve the business objectives
- Any process or system supporting the above changes
There’s also a benefits dependency network that defines the investment objectives, benefits, business changes, enabling changes and what technology will be needed.
How ProjectManager Helps Your Benefits Plan
Benefits management plans require the same scheduling, assigning and reporting as any project plan does, which is why you need ProjectManager to manage plans more efficiently. Our cloud-based software gives you real-time data to make better decisions on your projects.
Once you have a task list, input it to our tool and open the Gantt chart project view. To populate these tasks on a timeline, add a start and end date to each task. Now you have an overview of the entire project. You can break up this larger view by setting milestones, which are important dates, such as the start of one project phase and the end of another.
There are more ways to monitor the project and keep everyone updated on its progress. For a high-level view, there are real-time dashboards tracking time, costs and more by automatically taking live data and calculating it into easy-to-read graphs and charts.
When you meet with stakeholders, you need one-click reports at your fingertips which can be easily shared as a PDF or printed out. The up-to-the-minute information is the most accurate picture of the project’s performance and progress, from time left on tasks to portfolio status reports if you’re managing more than one project.
ProjectManager is award-winning software that manages projects, teams and tasks. Plan, schedule, monitor and report on your project to keep it on track. Used by organizations as diverse as the US Postal Service, NASA and Ralph Lauren to manage their benefits. Join the tens of thousands of teams who are working more efficiently by taking this free 30-day trial today.
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- January 4, 2022
Benefits Of Project Planning
Failing to plan is planning to fail. Everything begins with a notion, a process, or a product! Building a car, for example, began with a concept, followed by discussion, assembly procedures, designer work, and so on. It’s a minor example, but it nicely encapsulates the situation: every endeavour begins with a bang!
There is no such thing as an exceptional instance in project management! Because it is a jumbled chain of actions and commitments, it has a starting point where everything begins.
“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.” ― Alan Lakein
The most important part of any project is planning. It instructs organizations, partners, and project managers on how to proceed with the remaining phases of the project. It promotes goal differentiation, the avoidance of missed deadlines, the reduction of risks, the prioritizing of fundamental exercises, and the delivery of desired outcomes.
However, in today’s fast-paced digital world, it’s difficult to create and execute a plan flawlessly; things are bound to go wrong, resulting in disastrous repercussions! In this article, we will look at the following topics:
- Why project planning is important
- The benefits of project planning,
- Why is planning important in project management, and
- Why is it important to have a project plan
Why Project Planning Is Important
Project planning is important since it serves as a guide for all facets of the business process. It includes, among other things, the following:
- clarifies the methods that should be used
- Describes a few modes of communication.
- Recognizes who is in charge of each action.
- Describes a risk response mechanism for every imaginable event and risk.
- It has a system for tracking and monitoring progress.
- The pledge of partners is kept.
The Benefits Of Project Planning
- It improves efficiency and success rates.
Our first benefit of project planning is improvement in efficiency and success rates. Unfortunately, most businesses have a 70% failure rate. Achieving the goals of a project is not always as simple as it appears.
Business processes fail for a myriad of purposes. For example, 38 percent of businesses believe that team members are unclear about their specific roles and duties. Thirty-seven per cent of plans fail because the directors fail to properly outline the objectives and milestones. When team leaders fail to manage requirements successfully, 47 per cent of plans fail to meet their objectives.
- It’s cost-effective.
Unsuccessful plans are expensive. In any case, when a company is successful in completing a strategy, they might spend a lot of money that isn’t necessary. An ill-conceived plan will almost always result in delays, unexpected blunders, and related tasks that run wild. This largely demonstrates how important it is to have proper planning in project management.
Project planning provides design and foresight to the execution stage, resulting in the elimination of wasteful actions and instances. As a result, corporations that adhere to strong project management practices squander far fewer resources than those that do not – a staggering multiple times less, in fact.
- It enhances team collaboration
Great communication is essential for seamless job execution, and this holds true for projects of all sizes and types. Even two coworkers should be able to communicate effectively in order to finish errands on time.
When a job involves a large number of representatives or groups, re-appropriated suppliers, and sometimes even staff members in other locations or time zones, planning how venture leads and colleagues will manage correspondences becomes critical.
A work plan considers the team’s communication needs and identifies the best methods for keeping members connected, such as email, visits, virtual gatherings, shared reports, and that’s only the beginning.
- It guarantees that resources are used efficiently
Asset planning is an important aspect of project planning. Staffing, hardware, a financial plan, office space, and time are all assets that must be used for each activity. It’s nearly impossible to ensure that an organization distributes and uses assets wisely and appropriately without proper planning.
Diverse project endeavours usually go for restricted assets, thus the organizers should make decisions on how to effectively divide those assets ahead of time. This entails a cost-cutting advantage analysis for each project activity, so organizers don’t just spend money haphazardly, but do so with reason, based on calculated numbers, and with the project’s objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) at the top of the priority list.
- It makes keeping track of project goals simpler
Characterizing the company’s goals and objectives is another important part of the project planning process. It is easier for team prompts to turn well defined and unambiguous activity objectives into measurable proportions of progress.
Understanding the difference between objectives and goals, as well as creating them, is one thing; monitoring your progress toward them is another.
- It boosts staff retention
Planning improves task presentation and outcome while also influencing worker retention. Employees are usually required to remain with their employer if they think their superiors are supporting them with obligations. This makes people feel more connected to their jobs, and when people feel connected, they are 87 per cent less likely to leave their jobs.
Involving workers in project planning enables them to contribute their ideas and knowledge rather than merely telling them what they must do. This enables better execution and helps employees feel like valued members of the organization.
The reason why project planning is important extends well beyond the scope of the project itself. It has a direct influence on how people feel about their employment – and whether they decide to resign or stay.
Wrapping Up!
By any stretch of the imagination, having a project plan is important because it puts you in a better position than not having one. Working more efficiently is the focus of savvy project leaders. By recognizing the need for planning from the start, you may make it easier (for both yourself and your team) to meet your objectives while avoiding tension and excessive increase of work later on.
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What is Project Planning and it’s Process
Guide to Project Planning
Project planning is made to systematize the work, administer the time frame of respective work to allow the process to move swiftly and hassle-free. It consists of a documented possibility and agenda of work with relations to objective, risk, deliverable, and preset targets. It is required to plan irrespective of the size of the project.
Before we move to actual details, you must know about project planning tools/software that come in all different sizes and shapes depending on the company's need. Simple software can be limited to just scheduling tasks and assigning resources.
More advanced software can help create estimates, track resource time, act as a document repository, and in-depth reports that can be used to communicate with stakeholders. It can be web-based, client-server based as well as desktop software.
We need to have a plan in hand to execute it and bring it to success. Complete PMP certification and that will not just add a feather in your cap but will make you a hands-on project manager.
This software is specialty software designed to provide the right way to plan, organize, and manage various project aspects. Previously project planning was done using excel .
6 Steps to Write a Good Project Plan - Project Planning Process
Good project planning is crucial when it comes to handling management issues such as missed deadlines, cost overruns, etc. Although a laborious process, it is quite efficient when handling any project, big or small.
Step 1 : Define the project schedule and scope.
Project scope is the part of project planning that involves determining and documenting a list of specific project goals, deliverables, features, functions, tasks, deadlines, and ultimately costs.
Step 2 : Identify risk assessment
By Identifying the hazards and risks involved with the particular project. Assessment and identifying control measures. Also recording the findings and implementing them.
Step 3 : Team Organizing
Proper project team organization is one of the key constraints to project success. If the project has no productive and well-organized team, there’s an increased probability that this project will fail at the very beginning because initially, the team is unable to do the project in the right manner.
A team can be responsible for a variety of duties and responsibilities, depending on the project they’re involved in. Good project team organization entails the proper setting of team responsibilities and duties while considering specific goals and objectives of the project.
Step 4 : Project resource listing
Project resources are the people, capital, and/or material goods required for the successful execution and completion of a project.
A project manager that fails to allocate project resources is like a painter without a brush. That’s why estimating task resources is an integral step in project planning.
Step 5 : Work set up
Work process mapping is an important step to freeing up upper management's time to deal with more important issues such as how to grow and scale the business in the long term. When project managers can intrust work responsibilities to team members, whether they are new or seasoned, it is a sign that the members should know their work and role with utmost clarity.
Step 6 : Budget creation
To achieve the goals in a business’s strategic plan, one needs a detailed descriptive roadmap of the business plan that sets measures and indicators of performance.
Get used to righting a foolproof project plan by attending a PMP course.
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6 Key Benefits of Using Software for Project Planning
Regardless of the type of services a business offers, having the best software can make a significant impact.
The Key benefits of using online project Planning Software are:
- Generation of customized reports as per user's requirement from anywhere.
- Sharing project plans with team members and stakeholders from office premises or remotely with equal ease.
- Easier integration and collaboration with other team members instantly.
- Enhancement of delegating and monitoring progress, cost, and resource.
- Creation and scheduling modules and assigning tasks effortlessly.
- Organizing and prioritizing tasks efficiently.
Know about different project planning software from a PMP certification online course.
Overview of Project Planning
- Project Charter : This provides a set of a general work scope overview. Mainly consists of objectives, stakeholders, constraints, and goals.
- Work Statement: Assigning the project’s deliverables, scope, milestones, etc.
- Work breakdown structure: This process involves breaking down the execution plan into various "modules" interlinked with other processes.
- Project Plan: To document various process plans in consideration of the scope, risk, quality, deadlines, and change of any events.
Project Phases while Project Planning
While creating modules, we break down complex tasks into various small tasks to make them more manageable. The PMI in its PMBOK, have identified the following 5 phases of a project:
Phase 1 : Initiation
The project initiation phase is the first phase within the project management life cycle. A goal and objective are created to define the problem or opportunity in detail and identify a preferred solution for implementation.
Phase 2 : Planning
Project planning is the process of establishing the scope and defining the objectives and steps to attain them. The output of the project planning process is a project management plan.
In this second phase, work process modules along with work methodologies are created. It is purely based on output-oriented.
Phase 3 : Execution
The project execution phase is often the longest and most complex stage in the project life cycle. It generally starts with numerous meetings, status reports, and ends with a productivity assessment.
Phase 4 : Monitoring & Controlling
With the help of various monitoring tools and progress reports, this phase works side by side with the execution phase to achieve set deadlines.
Phase 5 : Closure
We consider the closure of a project when handover is done formally. There will be a review of all contracts and documentation with relation to the project execution and the aftermath.
Final Takeaway
A project manager has a larger role and planning is the first step to make deliverables possible. After getting an idea about what is project planning? Now it’s time to jump into action. A PMP certification training will mold you to become an efficient PM. Enroll today for a bright future.
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- The Importance of Project Planning in Industrial Settings
- Key Factors That Shape Effective Goal Setting
Project management refers to planning and overseeing the tasks necessary to achieve a goal. These goals can include implementing a new software system, merging two departments or analyzing the purchase of a subsidiary. The project manager gathers employees to create a project team. Together, the team creates a plan for completing the project.
The Planning Process Provides Direction
One of the challenges faced by project team members is the lack of knowing how to proceed. During the planning process, the project team determines what tasks need to be completed. The planning process provides direction for the team and its members.
The Planning Process Provides Accountability
During the planning process, the project manager and the project team assign the responsibility for completing each task to specific employees. The team benefits because one employee holds responsibility for each task and can be held accountable. When an employee realizes he reaps the rewards and the consequences of not completing his task, he places a higher priority on fulfilling his requirement.
Planning Means Adequate Resources are Considered
Many projects run out of resources before completion. Resources include both labor and finances. Planning requires the team to consider what resources it needs to finish the project and eliminate the potential of discontinuing the project for lack of resources.
Anticipation and Proactive Addressing of Problems
Many projects experience problems at different times before the project completes. These include losing employees, missing deadlines or running out of funds. By planning the project, the team can proactively address problems, reducing their impact on the project.
Shared Resources and a Fair Division
Many employees work on multiple projects simultaneously. These employees divide their time between the two projects and run the risk of having too much or not enough work. Planning allows the project leader to work out a schedule which maximizes the employee’s available time.
Employee Expertise and a Growing Knowledge Base
After employees plan their assignments, they can invest time developing the skills to complete their assignments. Some employees have the skills needed and increase those skills during the project. Other employees learn new skills. The company benefits from the growing knowledge base of its employees.
Reliable Predictions of Timelines and Budgets
Companies base decisions on the assumption that a specific project will be completed on time or within its financial budget. Project teams who spend time planning can reliably predict what it will cost in time or money to complete.
Employee Skill Discovery
When project team employees plan together, they learn which employees have skills necessary to complete various tasks. These skills may not appear on the employee’s work history but still contain value for the company. Without planning each task, the company may never realize these skills.
The Planning Process Provides Project Completion
Some projects get started and never finish. Without planning, project team members pursue their own ideas and forget about the project. Planning ensures that the team members know their role and that the project will be completed.
Review of Lessons Learned
While planning, the project team reviews the results of past projects. The team evaluates its successes and failures from past projects. This allows the team to keep the successful processes and eliminate the failures.
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5 Benefits of Project Planning and Management
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- What is strategic planning? 5 steps and ...
What is strategic planning? 5 steps and processes
A strategic plan helps you define and share the direction your company will take in the next three to five years. It includes your company’s vision and mission statements, goals, and the actions you’ll take to achieve those goals. In this article we describe how a strategic plan compares to other project and business tools, plus four steps to create a successful strategic plan for your company.
Strategic planning is when business leaders map out their vision for the organization’s growth and how they’re going to get there. Strategic plans inform your organization’s decisions, growth, and goals. So if you work for a small company or startup, you could likely benefit from creating a strategic plan. When you have a clear sense of where your organization is going, you’re able to ensure your teams are working on projects that make the most impact.
The strategic planning process doesn’t just help you identify where you need to go—during the process, you’ll also create a document you can share with employees and stakeholders so they stay informed. In this article, we’ll walk you through how to get started developing a strategic plan.
What is a strategic plan?
A strategic plan is a tool to define your organization’s goals and what actions you will take to achieve them. Typically, a strategic plan will include your company’s vision and mission statements, your long-term goals (as well as short-term, yearly objectives), and an action plan of the steps you’re going to take to move in the right direction.
![[inline illustration] Strategic plan elements (infographic)](https://assets.asana.biz/transform/7d1f14e4-b008-4ea6-9579-5af6236ce367/inline-business-strategy-strategic-planning-1-2x?io=transform:fill,width:1680&format=webp "project planning benefits")
Your strategic plan document should include:
Your company’s mission statement
Your company’s goals
A plan of action to achieve those goals
Your approach to achieving your goals
The tactics you’ll use to meet your goals
An effective strategic plan can give your organization clarity and focus. This level of clarity isn’t always a given—according to our research, only 16% of knowledge workers say their company is effective at setting and communicating company goals. By investing time into strategy formulation, you can build out a three- to five-year vision for the future of your company. This strategy will then inform your yearly and quarterly company goals.
Do I need a strategic plan?
A strategic plan is one of many tools you can use to plan and hit your goals. It helps map out strategic objectives and growth metrics. Here’s how a strategic plan compares to other project management and business tools.
Strategic plan vs. business plan
A business plan can help you document your strategy as you’re getting started so every team member is on the same page about your core business priorities and goals. This tool can help you document and share your strategy with key investors or stakeholders as you get your business up and running.
You should create a business plan when you’re:
Just starting your business
Significantly restructuring your business
If your business is already established, consider creating a strategic plan instead of a business plan. Even if you’re working at a relatively young company, your strategic plan can build on your business plan to help you move in the right direction. During the strategic planning process, you’ll draw from a lot of the fundamental business elements you built early on to establish your strategy for the next three to five years.
Key takeaway: A business plan works for new businesses or large organizational overhauls. Strategic plans are better for established businesses.
Strategic plan vs. mission and vision statements
Your strategic plan, mission statement, and vision statements are all closely connected. In fact, during the strategic planning process, you will take inspiration from your mission and vision statements in order to build out your strategic plan.
As a result, you should already have your mission and vision statements drafted before you create a strategic plan. Ideally, this is something you created during the business planning phase or shortly after your company started. If you don’t have a mission or vision statement, take some time to create those now. A mission statement states your company’s purpose and it addresses what problem your organization is trying to solve. A vision statement states, in very broad strokes, how you’re going to get there.
Simply put:
A mission statement summarizes your company’s purpose
A vision statement broadly explains how you’ll reach your company’s purpose
A strategic plan should include your mission and vision statements, but it should also be more specific than that. Your mission and vision statements could, theoretically, remain the same throughout your company’s entire lifespan. A strategic plan pulls in inspiration from your mission and vision statements and outlines what actions you’re going to take to move in the right direction.
For example, if your company produces pet safety equipment, here’s how your mission statement, vision statement, and strategic plan might shake out:
Mission statement: “To ensure the safety of the world’s animals.”
Vision statement: “To create pet safety and tracking products that are effortless to use.”
Your strategic plan would outline the steps you’re going to take in the next few years to bring your company closer to your mission and vision. For example, you develop a new pet tracking smart collar or improve the microchipping experience for pet owners.
Key takeaway: A strategic plan draws inspiration from your mission and vision statements.
Strategic plan vs. company objectives
Company objectives are broad goals. You should set these on a yearly or quarterly basis (if your organization moves quickly). These objectives give your team a clear sense of what you intend to accomplish for a set period of time.
Your strategic plan is more forward-thinking than your company goals, and it should cover more than one year of work. Think of it this way: your company objectives will move the needle towards your overall strategy—but your strategic plan should be bigger than company objectives because it spans multiple years.
Key takeaway: Company objectives are broad, evergreen goals, while a strategic plan is a specific plan of action.
Strategic plan vs. business case
A business case is a document to help you pitch a significant investment or initiative for your company. When you create a business case, you’re outlining why this investment is a good idea, and how this large-scale project will positively impact the business.
You might end up building business cases for things on your strategic plan’s roadmap—but your strategic plan should be bigger than that. This tool should encompass multiple years of your roadmap, across your entire company—not just one initiative.
Key takeaway: A business case tackles one initiative or investment, while a strategic plan maps out years of overall growth for your company.
Strategic plan vs. project plan
A strategic plan is a company-wide, multi-year plan of what you want to accomplish in the next three to five years and how you plan to accomplish that. A project plan, on the other hand, outlines how you’re going to accomplish a specific project. This project could be one of many initiatives that contribute to a specific company objective which, in turn, is one of many objectives that contribute to your strategic plan.
A project plan has seven parts:
Success metrics
Stakeholders and roles
Scope and budget
Milestones and deliverables
Timeline and schedule
Communication plan
Key takeaway: You may build project plans to map out parts of your strategic plan.
When should I create a strategic plan?
You should aim to create a strategic plan every three to five years, depending on your organization’s growth speed. That being said, if your organization moves quickly, consider creating one every two to three years instead. Small businesses may need to create strategic plans more often, as their needs change.
Since the point of a strategic plan is to map out your long-term goals and how you’ll get there, you should create a strategic plan when you’ve met most or all of them. You should also create a strategic plan any time you’re going to make a large pivot in your organization’s mission or enter new markets.
What are the 5 steps in strategic planning?
The strategic planning process should be run by a small team of key stakeholders who will be in charge of building your strategic plan.
Your group of strategic planners, sometimes called the management committee, should be a small team of five to 10 key stakeholders and decision-makers for the company. They won’t be the only people involved—but they will be the people driving the work.
Once you’ve established your management committee, you can get to work on the strategic planning process.
![[inline illustration] The road to strategic planning (infographic)](https://assets.asana.biz/transform/db464524-dd96-486f-8fb5-40117715ad57/inline-business-strategy-strategic-planning-2-2x?io=transform:fill,width:1680&format=webp "project planning benefits")
Step 1: Determine where you are
Before you can get started with strategy development and define where you’re going, you first need to define where you are. To do this, your management committee should collect a variety of information from additional stakeholders—like employees and customers. In particular, plan to gather:
Relevant industry and market data to inform any market opportunities, as well as any potential upcoming threats in the near future
Customer insights to understand what your customers want from your company—like product improvements or additional services
Employee feedback that needs to be addressed—whether in the product, business practices, or company culture
A SWOT analysis to help you assess both current and future potential for the business (you’ll return to this analysis periodically during the strategic planning process).
To fill out each letter in the SWOT acronym, your management committee will answer a series of questions:
What does your organization currently do well?
What separates you from your competitors?
What are your most valuable internal resources?
What tangible assets do you have?
What is your biggest strength?
Weaknesses:
What does your organization do poorly?
What do you currently lack (whether that’s a product, resource, or process)?
What do your competitors do better than you?
What, if any, limitations are holding your organization back?
What processes or products need improvement?
Opportunities:
What opportunities does your organization have?
How can you leverage your unique company strengths?
Are there any trends that you can take advantage of?
How can you capitalize on marketing or press opportunities?
Is there an emerging need for your product or service?
What emerging competitors should you keep an eye on?
Are there any weaknesses that expose your organization to risk?
Have you or could you experience negative press that could reduce market share?
Is there a chance of changing customer attitudes towards your company?
Step 2: Identify your goals and objectives
This is where the magic happens. To develop your strategy, take into account your current position, which is where you are now. Then, draw inspiration from your original business documents—these are your final destination.
To develop your strategy, you’re essentially pulling out your compass and asking, “Where are we going next?” This can help you figure out exactly which path you need to take.
During this phase of the planning process, take inspiration from important company documents to ensure your strategic plan is moving your company in the right direction like:
Your mission statement, to understand how you can continue moving towards your organization’s core purpose
Your vision statement, to clarify how your strategic plan fits into your long-term vision
Your company values, to guide you towards what matters most towards your company
Your competitive advantages, to understand what unique benefit you offer to the market
Your long-term goals, to track where you want to be in five or 10 years
Your financial forecast and projection, to understand where you expect your financials to be in the next three years, what your expected cash flow is, and what new opportunities you will likely be able to invest in
Step 3: Develop your plan
Now that you understand where you are and where you want to go, it’s time to put pen to paper. Your plan will take your position and strategy into account to define your organization-wide plan for the next three to five years. Keep in mind that even though you’re creating a long-term plan, parts of your strategic plan should be created as the quarters and years go on.
As you build your strategic plan, you should define:
Your company priorities for the next three to five years, based on your SWOT analysis and strategy.
Yearly objectives for the first year. You don’t need to define your objectives for every year of the strategic plan. As the years go on, create new yearly objectives that connect back to your overall strategic goals .
Related key results and KPIs for that first year. Some of these should be set by the management committee, and some should be set by specific teams that are closer to the work. Make sure your key results and KPIs are measurable and actionable.
Budget for the next year or few years. This should be based on your financial forecast as well as your direction. Do you need to spend aggressively to develop your product? Build your team? Make a dent with marketing? Clarify your most important initiatives and how you’ll budget for those.
A high-level project roadmap . A project roadmap is a tool in project management that helps you visualize the timeline of a complex initiative, but you can also create a very high-level project roadmap for your strategic plan. Outline what you expect to be working on in certain quarters or years to make the plan more actionable and understandable.
Step 4: Execute your plan
After all that buildup, it’s time to put your plan into action. New strategy execution involves clear communication across your entire organization to make sure everyone knows their responsibilities and how to measure the plan’s success.
Map your processes with key performance indicators, which will gauge the success of your plan. KPIs will establish which parts of your plan you want achieved in what time frame.
A few tips to make sure your plan will be executed without a hitch:
Align tasks with job descriptions to make sure people are equipped to get their jobs done
Communicate clearly to your entire organization throughout the implementation process
Fully commit to your plan
Step 5: Revise and restructure as needed
At this point, you should have created and implemented your new strategic framework. The final step of the planning process is to monitor and manage your plan.
Share your strategic plan —this isn’t a document to hide away. Make sure your team (especially senior leadership) has access to it so they can understand how their work contributes to company priorities and your overall strategic plan. We recommend sharing your plan in the same tool you use to manage and track work, so you can more easily connect high-level objectives to daily work. If you don’t already, consider using a work management tool .
Update your plan regularly (quarterly and annually). Make sure you’re using your strategic plan to inform your shorter-term goals. Your strategic plan also isn’t set in stone. You’ll likely need to update the plan if your company decides to change directions or make new investments. As new market opportunities and threats come up, you’ll likely want to tweak your strategic plan to ensure you’re building your organization in the best direction possible for the next few years.
Keep in mind that your plan won’t last forever—even if you do update it frequently. A successful strategic plan evolves with your company’s long-term goals. When you’ve achieved most of your strategic goals, or if your strategy has evolved significantly since you first made your plan, it might be time to create a new one.
The benefits of strategic planning
Strategic planning can help with goal-setting by allowing you to explain how your company will move towards your mission and vision statements in the next three to five years. If you think of your company trajectory as a line on a map, a strategic plan can help you better quantify how you’ll get from point A (where you are now) to point B (where you want to be in a few years).
When you create and share a clear strategic plan with your team, you can:
Align everyone around a shared purpose
Proactively set objectives to help you get where you want to go
Define long-term goals, and then set shorter-term goals to support them
Assess your current situation and any opportunities—or threats
Help your business be more durable because you’re thinking long-term
Increase motivation and engagement
Sticking to the strategic plan
To turn your company strategy into a plan—and ultimately, impact—make sure you’re proactively connecting company objectives to daily work. When you can clarify this connection, you’re giving your team members the context they need to get their best work done.
With clear priorities, team members can focus on the initiatives that are making the biggest impact for the company—and they’ll likely be more engaged while doing so.
Related resources
How to pitch project management software: A complete guide
How to create a CRM strategy: 6 steps (with examples)
Level up your marketing with a perceptual map (with template)
Business process analysis (BPA) explained
Twproject: project management software,resource management, time tracking, planning, Gantt, kanban
Twproject is a full featured web based project management software that gives you full visibility and control over your projects.Twproject is also a time tracking software, a bug tracking software, a project planning software.
Project benefits: what are they and how to manage them
Project benefits are referred to as “the measurable improvement deriving from a result perceived as an advantage by one or more stakeholders , which contributes to the achievement of one or more organizational objectives”.
Types of benefits in a project
Benefit management process, benefit definition, benefit structuring, implementation and monitoring of benefits, benefit assessment, 7 reasons why projects fail to deliver benefits.
Basically it means that the benefits should represent an improvement resulting from the project .
The purpose of launching any project is, in fact, to provide some kind of benefit as a result of the delivery of the output.
It is obvious that not all projects bring the same benefits to the organization. Let’s look at some types of benefits that can be achieved.
The types of benefits are, as stated earlier, variable. Here are some concrete examples:
- Quality improvement,
- Production cost reduction,
- Error rate reduction,
- A higher level of customer service,
- Increased customer retention rate.
Benefits can be classed as tangible and intangible benefits .
A tangible benefit is quantitative, i.e. something that can be measured, such as a reduction in operating costs .
An intangible benefit is something that cannot be measured accurately, although its effects can be seen, such as increasing brand awareness .
The performance management plan describes what the benefits of the project will be and how they will be classified and measured.
In order to measure the delivery of some benefits, such as cost reduction, a study of current costs within the organization is needed so that a comparison can be made after the delivery of the project.
The benefit management plan will therefore include the following key elements:
- A description of the benefit that should be provided.
- The “owner” of the benefits.
- How the benefit will be determined.
- Assumptions and risks considered in determining the benefit.
This plan will be reviewed regularly throughout the project lifecycle to ensure that the stated benefits remain on the project’s delivery path.
Some benefits, in particular, may be awarded even after the project has been delivered, which is why monitoring and measuring benefits may expand beyond the completion of the project.
The project benefit management process can be divided into four distinct phases. In each phase there are a number of associated key objectives, activities and results. These are:
The project must clearly outline what benefits will be provided and how they will be quantified before the start of the project.
The audience for this communication consists of all stakeholders who share an interest in the project.
When defining the benefits, it is important to take into account that most of them occur after the distribution of the output.
Therefore, the measurement and communication of benefits should also – and above all – continue after implementation.
It can be tricky to know when and how to assess the benefits of a project , but it is important to make sure to specify:
- What is measured and what is expected.
- What measures will be used and how these measures comply with the general measures of the organization.
- When and how the benefits will be assessed.
- What is the threshold of success for the realization of the benefits.
- What will be the impact on the project if the measured benefits do not match the expected benefits?
Once the project starts, it is also important to measure and report on the actual outcomes against the expected results throughout the entire life cycle and not just at the end of it.
These reports can be used during periodic reviews to assess whether a project is still on track in terms of benefits.
Often it may seem that a project is on track, but if there are no formal reports it may be impossible to know that for sure.
Regular reporting will clearly show whether a project can achieve its objectives.
Clearly, in many cases the final benefits cannot be determined during the project, however it is possible to measure progress towards the benefits and then determine whether action is needed before it is too late.
Often the achievement of benefits can be influenced by factors external to the organization, such as government, competitors, and customers.
These factors must then be included in the measurement and taken into account to determine whether the project is still valid.
Monitoring the benefit measures and comparing them with the expected benefits identified at the start of the project will provide a good indication of a project’s performance.
This performance evaluation can be a useful guide in determining what course of action should be taken in relation to the project.
It is a fact that projects do not always achieve the expected benefits and that there are several levels of success.
Having hard data and comparing it to a predetermined threshold will help the organization maximize the potential of a project and know when there is no benefit to it.
The benefit management process certainly offers a structured approach to managing the benefits of a project, but this does not mean that this is a mechanistic activity; it is proactive and takes into account changes.
Sometimes it can happen that a project cannot deliver benefits. How come?
The reasons are different, but mainly this is due to:
- The initial work on identifying strategic benefits has not been expanded or developed.
- Poor definition of the corporate objectives of the projects.
- No mechanism or strategy in place to manage the achievement of the benefits.
- Lack of commitment from key stakeholders to delivering the benefits.
- Lack of unambiguous ownership of the benefits.
- Lack of robust processes to monitor benefits.
- Lack of updating in case of changes during the project lifecycle.
That is why it is important to have a clear and structured benefit management process.
To be successful, this must become standard practice for the organization, especially every time a new project is started.
During the life cycle of a project it may be necessary to change objectives, change priorities or redefine desired outcomes in light of changing circumstances.
It is critical that this process continues throughout and beyond the life of the project to ensure that the benefits are achieved.
Manage your projects at your best.
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- Project Planning Guide
Why is project planning important?
When a company decides to embark on a project, one of the first things team leaders must do is create a project plan. Sounds simple, right?
Actually, developing a strong project plan can be quick and easy, but it can also be a complex and drawn-out process. It really depends on the nature of the project. Either way, you can’t overstate the importance of project planning.
Project planning isn’t just another stage of project management. It’s one of the most critical stages of the whole process. Let’s see exactly why project planning is so important — not just for the project, but for the entire company and its staff, too.
1. It boosts project performance and success rates
Unfortunately, the project failure rate for most companies is 70 percent . Achieving a project’s objectives is often not as easy as it seems.
There are a number of reasons why projects fail. For example, 38 percent of companies say the main reason for failure is that team members are confused about their individual roles and responsibilities. Thirty-seven percent of projects fail because leaders don’t define project objectives and milestones clearly. When team leads don’t effectively manage requirements, 47 percent of projects fail to hit their targets .
Project planning involves comprehensive mapping and organizing of project goals, tasks, schedules, and resources before anyone assigns roles for the project and the team begins to execute the plan. You can avoid almost all of the problems that lead to project failure with proper project planning.
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2. It saves money
Failed projects are expensive. Even when a company is successful in completing a project, they can still use up a lot of unnecessary, extra budget.
A poorly planned project can easily run into delays, unexpected glitches, and scope creep. Scope creep is when a project gradually grows in size (and cost) due to unforeseen circumstances or changes.
Project planning provides structure and foresight for the execution stage, helping to eliminate wasteful activities and patterns. This is why companies that stick to solid project management practices waste a lot less money than companies that don’t — an impressive 28 times less , in fact.
3. It improves team communication
Good communication is essential for smooth project execution, and this applies to projects of every size and type. Even two collaborators must communicate well to make sure they complete project tasks on time.
When a project involves multiple employees or teams, outsourced suppliers, and perhaps even staff members in other locations or time zones, then planning how project leads and team members will manage communications becomes vital.
A project plan takes into consideration the team’s communication needs and pinpoints the most effective channels to keep collaborators connected — such as email, chat, virtual meetings, shared documents, and more.
4. It ensures the best use of resources
One of the key components of project planning is resource planning. Every project is based on resource use, including staffing, equipment, budget, office space, and time. Without proper planning, it’s nearly impossible to make sure an organization allocates and uses resources in the most cost-effective and appropriate way.
Different project tasks often compete for limited resources, so project planners must make decisions in advance about how best to assign those resources. This entails a cost-benefit analysis for each project task so that planners don’t simply allocate resources haphazardly but do it with purpose, based on smart forecasts and with the project’s goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) in mind.
5. It makes it easy to track project goals and outcomes
Another key part of the project planning process is defining the project’s goals and objectives. Clearly defined and specific project goals are easier for team leads to translate into quantitative measures of success.
For example, a company is planning the launch of a new product. One of the project objectives is to generate 1,000 sales in the first two months. Team leads monitor this specific, measurable goal over the course of the project, and they can adapt project execution according to the tracking results. So, if sales by the end of the first month are weak, the team can reallocate resources to boost marketing activities during the next month.
When the project planning stage includes detailed mapping of KPIs, it’s much easier to gauge the project’s true performance over time — and decide how to adjust the execution to reach those goals.
6. It helps keep all collaborators aligned
Teamwork is a critical factor in any group activity — especially in project management.
Good teamwork exists only when all collaborators know their roles and responsibilities, how their part fits in with the whole, what impact their actions have on other team members’ productivity, and what expectations project leads have for them as individuals and as a team.
A solid project plan provides an official reference point for all collaborators. That way, everyone is in alignment and up to date about tasks, timelines, expectations, and workflow. When you use project management software to create a project plan, it’s even easier for all collaborators to access and view the entire plan at any time — and even contribute their opinions and expertise to the planning phase.
7. It improves employee retention
Project planning not only benefits the project’s performance and outcome but also plays a role in employee retention. Employees are eight times more likely to remain with their employer if they believe their managers are assisting them with workload management. That helps them feel more connected to their work, and when they feel connected, they are 87 percent less likely to leave their position.
Involving employees in project planning encourages them to contribute their perspective and skill, rather than simply telling them what they need to do. This ensures more effective execution and makes team members feel like a valued part of the company.
The importance of project planning goes way beyond the project itself. It has a direct impact on how employees feel about their workplace — and whether or not they leave or stay.
Planning drives performance
Projects aren’t separate from the daily operations of your company. They have a big impact on the organization as a whole. When done properly, project management saves resources, reduces costs, improves company culture, and improves employee morale. And good project management always starts with project planning. If your project planning phase is focused and precise, you’ll reap the rewards with project success.
- Project Management
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Send Comment :
13 comments:.
Thanks for article it's so wonderful summarization of project planning
Planning the project, scheduling it properly is very important for any construction project. Thanks for telling us about the importance of project planning. This will surely help a lot of people. Construction scheduling consultant
The content is easy to understand and well summarised
I thank you, keep me in touch
The knowledge have come up with about project planning can help me somewhere,it's so interesting
this is really in project planning. thanks
This is really nice and very informative. thanks a lot for sharing this valuable article. Project Management Engineering Services
Well.. I know very well that the failure of a project is not fun. Especially when money is involved. That is why I do believe in planning. For daily routine activities, I tend to use kanbantool.com great tool that helps me to organize all the tasks. Professional and non professional ones :) Not everything can be planned in life, of course, but some of the things yes :)
Am thankful
Actually is now that I understand everything about project planning and it importance
Thank you very much Franks.
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The Top Ten Benefits of Planning in Project Management
While Tony Stark in Iron Man wants to claim that running can come before walking, in project management it is best to crawl before walking, running, or flying with your project. Here’s a list of the top ten reasons why it is best to take time to plan before getting a project off to a start.
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10. Clear Objective
9. risk assessment, 8. milestones, 7. resource allocation, 6. task dependencies, 5. communication.
Planning facilitates communication. Your team cannot know what needs to be done if it’s not written down. Moreover, important tasks and milestones will be missed and expectations will not be clear. Make things easy for your team. Take a look at our series of Best Practices in Project Management to see one project manager’s take on the importance of communication.
4. Avoid Scope Creep
3. the bottom line, 2. client appreciation, and the number one reason to plan your project.
Your team will know what’s going on and what is expected of them. With clear objectives,scheduled milestones and a detailed task list , there should be no confusion about who is to do what. For a good overview of project planning elements, see creating a project plan .
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15+ benefits of project management in 2023
Are you thinking about hiring your company’s or team’s first project manager? Are you exploring the idea of training your team in project management principles?
Because it’s such a large and confusing discipline, it can be easy to talk yourself out of getting involved. But don’t let that intimidate you. The rewards far outweigh the risks.
If you’re still on the fence, we’ll give you the push you need to act.
In this post, we’ll cover the tangible, research-backed benefits of project management. We’ll also explore its impact in specific departments and industries.
Get started with monday.com
What are the benefits of project management?
The main benefit of devoting yourself to project management is that you’ll finish more projects on time, stay within budget, and fail less often.
The latest research from PMI proves this by comparing the project results from mature and inexperienced companies alike. The companies new to project management perform significantly worse.
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With more successful projects and fewer failures in less time, who could say no? There’s a reason most large companies invest in project management — even if they don’t always handle it the right way.
If you’re thinking, “but we don’t have any large projects, does that mean we don’t need it?” Don’t worry. The survey only shows a general overview of potential benefits at a high level.
It can also transform your staff’s collaboration and how they handle an extra challenging task.
Let’s see how good project management can help specific teams and departments in your company.
Benefits for sales and marketing teams
Sales and marketing are the perfect examples of departments that always handle some kind of project. They’re always targeting a new region, working on launching a new product, or just trying to figure out how to meet their sales targets.
But in most organizations, there’s a disconnect. One of the most significant issues for both sales and marketing teams is a lack of collaboration between them.
According to LinkedIn , most executives think that better alignment is the best opportunity for boosting business performance.
But it isn’t enough to tell your employees, “work together more, guys!” That won’t start a movie montage where everyone huddles together and gets things done.
Your staff will probably nod in approval, then get back to how they’ve always worked. Changing the dynamics within a department isn’t easy.
Hiring a project manager is only the first step. You then gradually need to change how everyone works.
Luckily, there are frameworks and tools that can help.
With monday.com, you can use our cross-departmental project template to get a better overview of these projects.
5 concrete benefits
A new project management methodology offers a lot of high-level benefits for your company.
These include:
- Get better alignment on KPIs and overall goals.
- Gain a better understanding of customers in marketing teams.
- Adapt more consistent messaging throughout the company.
- Increase sales revenue. Marketing and sales teams that collaborate on an ABM approach are 6% more likely to exceed revenue goals.
- Get better customer retention and satisfaction as marketing focuses on existing accounts.
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Benefits for HR (human resources) teams
Like sales, HR teams also tend to work on multiple crucial issues at any given time. Even hiring a single new staff member is a project.
Trying to improve employee retention and utilization is a project with potentially life-changing implications.
By developing project management skills, an HR team can help boost productivity throughout the organization.
For example, a European bank trained its HR team in Agile project delivery techniques. The result — they distributed the limited talent pool more efficiently and boosted productivity by almost 25% .
With monday.com, HR personnel can easily oversee resource allocation for projects across functional lines.
But the benefits don’t just come from managing other teams more effectively. By working as a project team, you can also improve your recruiting and onboarding efforts.
Some examples include:
- Get more applicants using project management principles — one company got 25x more applicants when using an Agile sprint to find solutions to a lackluster recruitment program.
- Gain better utilization of talent throughout the organization.
- Reach a clearer overview of where everyone fits in.
- Get directly involved in realizing crucial money-generating results.
- Earn more buy-in from upper management as HR demonstrates direct benefits to the bottom line.
Benefits for product development teams
45% of product launches are delayed by at least one month. Every day your product is delayed, chances increase that something similar, or better, will hit the market first.
The first-mover advantage can make or break your company. If you get it out first, you earn free press and a lot of goodwill from first-time customers.
Wondering how you can consistently do that? With the right project management solution, you can take back control over your launch schedule.
With monday.com, you can, for example, create a project roadmap to guide your team in the right direction.
It makes it easy to collaborate with your project stakeholders . By focusing on their must-haves and your objectives, you can avoid the fluff and deliver a product that resonates with your target customers.
Faster launch speed isn’t the only benefit. You can also improve how you position your product within the marketplace.
Some benefits include:
- Avoid unnecessary delays by predicting and avoiding bottlenecks and roadblocks.
- Get your products to market faster.
- Improve your position in the marketplace and outmaneuver your competition.
- Control scope changes and keep the focus on long-term goals.
- Improve stakeholder relationships by delivering a product closer to what they want.
The benefits of project management software
Adopting the proper framework or methodology is only the first step. Without the right project management tool, sticking to a project plan is hard.
A 2020 study by Wellingtone found that most companies don’t have adequate software tools for managing projects.
They struggle to collaborate, and the average project manager spends days collating project status information. The right software can automate this process, giving managers more time to focus on what matters.
In a PMI (Project Management Institute) study, executives shared their main motivations for adopting new technologies.
The right project management software can help companies improve in all these areas.
After all, we’ve shown you how it can benefit product development, sales, marketing, and even HR teams.
It’s not just about project success or reaching your project goal. It can transform how your employees work every day. You can smoothly handle multiple projects and ensure that the strategic goal is always your north star.
How monday.com helps you maximize the benefits of PM
monday.com isn’t some basic app where you can only create and share a task list. It’s a full-featured Work OS that lets you build a digital workspace for your team from the ground up.
Use integrations, customizable templates, smart automations, and more to create the ideal platform for your team to work online.
One congruent platform where all teams can coexist and collaborate
From senior management and stakeholder vision planning to onboarding a new intern, monday.com is everyone’s digital home.
How? With access controls, you can make sure each employee only sees the boards and information relevant to them at any time.
You can also share guest access with external stakeholders or business partners when necessary.
Visualization features that give you a better overview
Data doesn’t help you unless you can grasp and internalize it. And the best way to do that is to visualize the status of your projects and team members.
monday.com gives you a lot of options here. For example, you can use our color-coded Gantt chart view to gauge progress in an instant.
You can also set up custom dashboards to monitor multiple projects with one report.
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Engineering Management Institute
10 Great Benefits of Using a Project Plan in Your Engineering Career
March 21, 2018 By EMI
10 Great Benefits of Using a Project Plan in Your Engineering Career is a blog post by Chris Richardson
In today’s post, we’re discussing 10 great benefits that will result from proper project planning. Every engineer should acknowledge that a project plans’ quality will always be directly proportional to the quality of the results.
1. In-Depth Planning , Thinking, and Visualizing
Project planning is important for every product developer, especially for engineers. More than often, engineering projects require maps, plans, and concrete directions. Working alone or with a team doesn’t change these requirements, so a project plan will be helpful for both you and your fellow engineering colleagues in every situation. Besides better planning and thinking, you’ll be able to visualize your end product and produce changes before it’s too late.
2. Allows for Better Communication
Considering that you’re not working alone, developing a project plan will force you to interact with your team of project members, with the end users, with stakeholders, and with key decision makers from your company. In the majority of cases, improved communication leads to better results due to a more collective effort.
3. Builds Subconscious Desire
When you state your goals and plans for the future, your subconscious mind is instantly processing and storing that information. Well, project planning includes your goals statement, along with the specific steps that you’ll have to take in order to achieve those goals.
Here’s what John Michaels, HR Manager and professional psychologist at EssayGeeks.co.uk , notes:
“Every time you’ll stumble upon issues, challenges, and setbacks, your subconscious desire will step in and help you move on. Why? Well, simply because you’ve become emotionally attached to your future, end results. Develop this type of momentum by clearly stating your purpose and goals in your project plan and your work will become better!”
4. Improves Motivation
As you advance with your project, you’ll soon forget where you’ve first started. This can influence you negatively, as you won’t be able to notice the improvements that you’ve made. A well-made project plan will always remind you how far you’ve gone, improving your motivation and allowing you to move further. This applies to both you and your team!
5. It Decreases Your Costs and Time Spent Working
Brian Tracy once said that “one minute spent in planning equals ten minutes in action”. I believe that this statement is very precise and true for every engineer that enrolls in any project development activity. When you plan everything ahead, you’ll spend less time figuring out what to do next. Moreover, you’ll be able to focus on just one thing at once, as the next steps are already decided and marked accordingly. Time is money, so do your own math.
6. Helps You Identify Future Problems
Our human brain capacities are amazing, and we should all use them to improve the quality of our results. In the engineering industry, developing a final product comes after hundreds if not thousands of problems. Your ability to work through these problems will often decide the success level of your product. When you plan ahead, you get the chance to detect any upcoming problems. When you are already expecting problems, you’ll be able to find solutions faster and with less hustle.
7. You’re Controlling Instead of Being Controlled
Let me ask you something. Are you the one in charge? Do you control the project? Or does the project control you? Because engineering projects are always complex, you (and your team) might become overwhelmed and get carried away. If you’ve properly planned and documented your project, you’ll find it less struggling to be in charge of both your and your team’s actions.
8. A Better Allocation of Resources
Every project will have an established budget, as money is often a limited resource. By developing a professional project plan, it’ll be easier to make smart decisions regarding the allocation of resources. You’ll be able to understand your biggest needs and act according to them instead of spending money on the things that are less important or even unnecessary.
9. It’s Easier to Create Rules, Expectations, and Responsibilities
A project plan scheme is the best place to develop rules, expectations, and responsibilities for you and your team members. Let every member of your project understand what they’re involved in and have them acknowledge their responsibilities.
10. It Helps You Get Back On Track
A project plan will prove to be handy whenever you feel lost or overwhelmed by the actions you have to take. It is basically the roadmap that you always consult when you’ve taken the wrong turn. So, because project planning helps you get back on track whenever your project heads in the wrong direction, it should never be absent!
Takeaways
Build your project plans properly and you’ll witness satisfying results on most of your projects. Your projects will be more stable and easier to measure. Let’s not forget about your improved motivation, about the decreased costs, and about the control of your project and team.Lastly, great planning will upgrade your engineering skills, making you a more specialized and important player of any company.
About the writer, Chris Richardson
Chris Richardson is a content writer who studies engineering. He loves to write, learn new things, and meet new outgoing people. You can follow him on Twitter here .
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To your success,
Anthony Fasano, PE, LEED AP Engineering Management Institute Author of Engineer Your Own Success
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What is project planning, and how will it benefit your next project?
February 4, 2020 by MindManager Blog
By: Leanne Armstrong
Eager to get to work on that new project you’ve just been handed? Before you put together a hasty to-do list and start firing off tasks to team members, step back and consider this: creating a project plan up-front will not only save you time over the long run, it virtually guarantees a more solid outcome.
[Free eBook] The Ultimate Guide to Visual Project Planning
What is project planning?
In basic terms, project planning refers to any and all steps taken to set a project up for success. More specifically, it includes clarifying the scope of work, defining your objectives, and creating an actionable task list.
As part of a much bigger process, project planning is only one of five key stages in project management – but it’s arguably the most crucial. Project planning is one of the basics of project management typically happens after the feasibility of a project has been determined, and well before it gets launched.
While many people think of planning their project in terms of laying out specific duties and deadlines, scheduling is only part of facilitating a new idea. It also includes summarizing and documenting how your project will be structured, executed, and monitored.
So project planning is really about outlining exactly what you and your team are going to need to accomplish and how you’ll achieve it, to ensure everyone is on the same page.
Why is project planning important?
Taking any great idea from concept to closure requires an organized approach to achieving goals. Once everyone is clear on the objectives involved, project planning makes it easy to break them out into step-by-step, measurable milestones.
Planning your project in advance means not having to worry about whether the right resources (people, information, and money) will be available when you need them. It also means being able to minimize or outright avoid potential delays caused by:
- disagreements over best practices,
- misunderstandings around timelines and deadlines, and
- discrepancies in terms of what constitutes a successful result
Project planning refers to any and all steps that set up a project up for success, including:
- clarifying the scope of work;
- defining your objectives; and
- creating an actionable task list.
Project planning is about outlining exactly what you and your team need to achieve, and how you’re going to achieve it.[/vc_cta][/vc_column][/vc_row]Articulating where you and your team need to get to by laying it out visually is the best way to create a foundation for your navigational plan. So while you can choose to develop your project plan manually, many business professionals rely on the convenience of multipurpose project mapping software .
How to invest in success with project planning
The more time and effort you invest in planning your project, the better aligned your team’s actions will be with their aims.
Project planning makes it easy to monitor each team member’s progress. And when you understand in advance what’s meant to be accomplished, when, and by whom, you can compare results to date with where you should be – allowing you to course-correct and keep your project on track.
One of the best reasons to use project planning is that it paves the way for project execution. The strategies you’ll put together during the planning phase of your project will help you:
- map out and refine your deliverables,
- manage your time, costs, and risks,
- exert greater control over internal personnel and outside suppliers, and
- provide practical guidance to your team – from implementation through to project closure
By providing a view of both your overall mission and the individual tasks and routings involved, cooperative planning lies at the heart of every project life cycle.
To get an even better idea of the important role it plays, let’s take a look at how project planning fits into the wider practice of project management.
A brief look at project planning in project management
Successful project management hinges on working through the five stages involved – initiation, planning, execution, control, and closing – on time, on point, and on budget.
Establishing the benefits of a new project during the initiation stage, for example, leads directly to setting relevant goals – and the tasks, checkpoints, and deadlines required to achieve them – during the planning stage. And how well you plan your project ultimately sets the stage for how well subsequent phases are carried out.
Let’s say you’ve been made responsible for creating a better employee onboarding experience.
Your company or department has determined that streamlining this process will save money and increase productivity, while creating a competitive advantage through retaining top talent.
When your team comes together to examine those benefits more closely, the project planning process that follows will inevitably make it easier to:
- clarify the overall purpose and scope of the project,
- transform that purpose into actionable goals, and
- develop concrete steps around shared objectives
Taking this time to thoroughly explore the deliverables for your initiative will also help you identify potential obstacles – in this case, hurdles in the hiring process – so workarounds can be incorporated into your project plan.
Benefits of visualizing the project planning stage
There’s no question that goal achievement is a critical component of successful project management. Many project leads, however, find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data, metrics, and variables involved in project planning.
It’s true that the more information you have to work with, the more options you’ll have to sift through and the harder it can be to:
- make key decisions,
- feel confident about your conclusions, and
- maintain your project’s momentum
One of the best ways to cut through information overload is with an efficient planning process that utilizes dynamic visualization to boost collaboration and improve communication with project stakeholders.
Regardless of individual knowledge or technical language expertise, visualizing project management improves understanding at the team level. And that’s an important consideration in a process like project planning where collaboratively inputting ideas, task assignments, knowledge assets, and success metrics is vital.
It can be tough to optimize productivity if your team is focused on the wrong things. And that’s why so many project managers take advantage of dedicated software to share tasks, timelines, and other project resources.
By organizing and incorporating data into Gantt charts, process diagrams, team calendars, and other work breakdown structures , for example, you can use visualization to provide everyone involved with a detailed, real-time view of your project.
Visual mapping software is a highly effective way for you and your team to:
- immediately see what’s relevant, what should be prioritized, and what can be let go of,
- discover connections between ideas, activities, and data that might not be self-evident, and
- do away with duplicate information
Below, you’ll find an example of a work breakdown structure template created using MindManager.
The main thing to keep in mind is that planning your project is likely to remain a work in progress right through the closing stage of your venture. You and your team will probably revisit and revise your plan multiple times, in fact, before achieving the outcome you’re after.
And that’s a good thing.
Because not only can the project planning process help you uncover hidden opportunities and identify potential red flags, it can improve the quality of decisions made by revealing the impact of any actions before you take them.
Related articles
- 6 steps to a successful project planning process
- Creating a project plan? Use these tools to get started
Download this free eBook to get a primer on the concept of visual project planning, an exclusive Project Planning Visualization Toolkit, and 13 downloadable visual project planning templates to get you started right away!
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- Project Plan Development
15 Benefits of a Project Management Plan
by PMHut Team · June 8, 2013
15 Benefits of a Project Management Plan By Atul Gaur
Project Management Plan
A project management plan is the collection of outputs of the project planning processes. It defines how the project is executed, monitored and controlled and closed. The project management plan needs to be updated and revised through out the Integrated Change Control Process. The Project Management Plan consists of:
- Project Scope Management Plan
Project Schedule Management Plan
Project Cost Management Plan
Quality Management Plan
Human Resource Management Plan
Communication Management Plan
Risk Management Plan
Procurement Management Plan
Other components of the project management plan include:
- Milestone list
Resource Calendar
Schedule, Cost and Quality Baseline
Attributes of a Project Management Plan
The project team has to select a set of processes that would be implemented in order to complete the project. There are a total of 44 project management processes that are organized in 9 knowledge areas. Some important project management processes are
- Develop Project Charter (ii) Develop Preliminary Project Scope Statement (iii) Develop Project Management Plan (iv) Scope Planning (v) Risk Analysis etc.
Once the project management processes are selected the level of implementation of each process should also be indicated in the project management plan
The tools and techniques that would be used to accomplish the selected project management process
The project management plan should indicate the dependencies and the interactions among the selected processes and their inputs and outputs
How the work will be executed to accomplish the project objectives
How changes will be monitored and controlled
How configuration management will be performed
How integrity of the performance measurement baselines will be maintained and used
The need and techniques for communication among stakeholders
The project life cycle and the project phases
Inputs required for Project Management Plan
The preliminary project scope statement documents the characteristics and boundaries of the project, and its associated products and services, as well as methods of acceptance and scope control.
Project Management Processes
Enterprise Factors
Government and Industry standards, Quality Standards, existing facilities, existing human resource, stakeholder risk tolerances, costing estimates, industry risk databases, existing information system etc
Organizational Processes
Benefits of Project Management Plan
- An hour spent in planning can save three during execution, It saves crucial execution time
Defines the project in detail
Establishes the project boundaries, scope and deliverables
Identifies the project management team and the project stakeholders
Indicates the project schedule and major milestones
Establishes baseline plan for schedule, scope and cost
Provides a tracking mechanism against a established baseline
Helps in project performance reporting
Identifies and establishes communication needs and methods
Identifies risks to the project and indicates a response mechanism
Establishes a process for implementing changes to project scope, schedule cost, quality and risk.
Lists various criteria that the product or service should qualify in order to meet the project objectives
Improves monitoring and control of project activities
Identifies existing resources and indicates additional requirements to complete the project
Atul Gaur has aggregated over twelve years of professional experience and devoted more than ten years in the field of Project Management. He’s a Mechanical Engineering graduate from Manipal Institute of Technology (Manipal) and has Operations Management qualification from Management development Institute in Gurgaon. You can read more from Atul on his blog .
PMHut.com is a website dedicated to providing PM articles, detailed project management software reviews, and the latest news for the most popular web-based collaboration tools.
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What is benefits management and project success ?
Benefits management is the identification, definition, planning, tracking and realisation of benefits. Benefits realisation is the practice of ensuring that benefits are derived from outputs and outcomes.
Project success is the satisfaction of stakeholder needs and is measured by the success criteria agreed at the start of a project.
Definition from APM Body of Knowledge 7 th edition
In order to facilitate benefits realisation during the extended project duration, benefits management is needed as an additional activity required to translate requirements that have been expressed in terms of benefits.
Benefits typically have a tangible value, ideally expressed in monetary terms to justify the investment. They are often realised sometime after transition into use, hence accountability for benefits realisation resting with the sponsor.
Benefits Management Process Source: APM Body of Knowledge 6 th edition
Watch: What is benefits management?
Benefits management lifecycle
A practitioner’s guide to benefits management written by the APM Benefits Management SIG features a diagram that provides a framework which organisations can adopt to optimise the realisation of business value from their investment in change .
Benefits Management Lifecycle Source: A practitioner’s guide to benefits management
Conditions for project success
All projects are designed to bring benefits to the investing organisation, but the success criteria for many projects excludes benefit realisation as this is handled by another part of the organisation. Benefits therefore are different to su ccess criteria.
Success criteria is the satisfaction of s takeholder needs for the deployment of a project. This is a different performance measure to benefits which are focused on the strategic intent and delivering beneficial change. Success criteria are agreed with stakeholders as early as possible but can be changed at any time in the project life cycle , subject to approval through change control.
Achievement of project management success criteria is known at project handover and accountability for achieving the project success criteria rests with the project manager. Project professionals ensure that here is a clear linkage between benefits, project success criteria, project objectives and project requirements.
24 Mar - 🕑 42 mins
Project Innovators: Bent Flyvbjerg on how to make your project a success
In this final episode of the Project Innovators season, Project journal editor Emma De Vita speaks to Bent Flyvbjerg, the first BT professor and inaugural chair of major programme management at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School.
Bent is one of the big names from the world of project management. He works for the better management of megaprojects and this is the subject which we delve into here, from optimism bias when it comes to cost and benefits estimation to strategic misrepresentation by project champions (otherwise known as bending the truth to secure the go-ahead on a megaproject). The solution? In part, a technique called reference class forecasting.
8 Jun - 🕑 41 mins
The evolving definition of project ‘success’
In this episode, hosted by Project journal online editor Mike Hine, our topic is project success, and how the definition of success is evolving to fit the challenges of the 2020s and beyond. At a time when the country is looking to build back better post-pandemic, projects will play a major role in determining the UK’s economic future. They are truly vital to the UK’s success on many fronts. But with so much riding on these projects, we need to ensure they succeed.
Historically, projects have notoriously struggled to hit their targets. So perhaps it’s time to revisit the very notion of project success. What constitutes a successful project? What are some of the most fundamental factors that underpin success? And has the project profession moved beyond the age-old metrics of time, cost and quality?
Related reading
APM Benefits and Value (SIG)
The Benefits and Value SIG (BV) is here to help members, the project management profession and the public to enjoy successful projects.
APM Body of Knowledge 7th edition
The APM Body of Knowledge 7th edition is a foundational resource providing the concepts, functions and activities that make up professional project management. It reflects the developing profession, recognising project-based working at all levels, and across all sectors for influencers, decision makers, project professionals and their teams.
You may also be interested in
12 Key Benefits of Using Project Management Software
Managing a project is by nature no easy task. Project managers often face having to handle multiple projects at once. With so many moving parts involved in managing multiple projects, it is easy to miss out on crucial elements and for the projects to seem chaotic and unorderly.
To manage multiple projects successfully , you need to use project management software. Without using a project management tool, you will spend more time than necessary on tasks and overall record lower productivity levels.
The absence of project management tools when managing projects makes it difficult to track your project team’s progress and activities. Collaboration and communication among team members and project stakeholders are ineffective without project management tools. You can easily miss out on deadlines and produce deliverables that leave your clients unsatisfied.
An efficient project management system helps you manage your projects throughout their life cycles. In this article, you will learn 12 key benefits of using project management software.
Let’s get started.
Essential Project Management Functions
Project management is the process involved in achieving the goals and objectives of a project. It involves the process of planning, managing, and executing the project.
1. Planning
One of the essential functions of project management is planning and working towards realizing the goals and objectives of the project. This includes drawing up a project charter that describes all that the project is about to give a clear understanding to all parties.
Planning acts as a guideline for the project and also serves as a reminder to the team on how to carry out the project. In the process of planning, the project undergoes a thorough evaluation which will assess the strengths and weaknesses of the project and the team.
The planning stage involves the project plan, project schedule, and project estimates. This entails all information about the project to plan every sector or department that will be responsible for delivering the project. Project managers through these plans map out how best to achieve the purpose of the project.
2. Organizing
Project management organizes the process of the project as well as the team that will be carrying out the objectives of the product.
The work breakdown structure (WBS) helps organize the team’s work into manageable sections. Through a hierarchical outline of tasks, project managers can easily assign tasks and organize each department to meet their deadlines or targets.
Through a well-organized system, project managers can easily process or adjust scope creep into the scheme of work without interrupting the project.
A good and detailed project management plan will include a risk breakdown structure, a work breakdown structure, and project management software.
In addition to using online project management software like Monday.com and ClickUp organizing roles and tasks for effective communication of task schedules, use online collaboration tools like Slack to communicate tasks to teams.
3. Monitoring
This involves procedures to ensure a well effective team and high-quality project. Project management monitors the project timelines to ensure the project does not exceed the time frame and it does not come out too early as well.
Monitoring of the project involves managing the project team to ensure they work towards the attainment of the project goals. It also includes managing the cost and budget of the project so it stays within budget and brings the possible best result.
Project management ensures a strong and effective communication channel between the team and the management.
4. Managing
Management is a key component of project management. This component is so important that a job was created from it to help organize, coordinate and execute projects.
A project manager is the one responsible for managing all aspects of the project. He or she oversees all departments and gets reports from heads of these departments and reviews the progress of the project.
The project manager performs the following responsibilities:
- Leads the project team to achieve all project goals
- Allocate all necessary inputs and apply them to meet the pre-defined objectives
- Produce a complete project that meets the client’s objective
Benefits of Project Management Software
1. effortless project planning.
A plan is a guideline or a first step towards delivering a project. Project management software helps to easily plan schedules, tasks, and objectives of a project. This includes laying out key project deliverables.
Through web-based project management software like Monday.com, ClickUp, and Wrike, you can create a plan to provide an overview of the entire project. This is where you create a project charter. The project charter describes and explains the purpose of the project including the end goal.
Project management software creates effortless planning that makes the job of the project manager less cumbersome and easy to focus on other important aspects of the job. This helps to assign tasks easily in a well-organized manner.
With a detailed view of the project, the project team gets an idea of what they are working towards. When every aspect Is planned to the letter using project management software, it makes changes easier and planning faster.
2. Easy Task Management
A well-planned project makes assigning tasks easier. The project objectives will define the tasks that will be given to the team.
Simple project management software makes assigning these tasks easier as well as tracking the progress of these tasks. This helps to reduce the workload of the project manager as his or her presence will not be required in all sectors.
The project manager can manage and supervise the whole team by using project management tools that enable steady communication and monitoring of tasks. These software tools help to track milestones of the team and also make accountability easier.
Reviewing project tasks helps you know team members who are meeting their targets and those who are slacking behind. You can use these tools to calculate the percentage of work effort of each department. With these project management applications, you can organize and create a task schedule for the team.
3. Balanced Resource Management
Balanced resource management is when you manage all tasks, human resources, budget, or funding properly. This includes allocating, scheduling, and planning the project’s resources.
To start a project, resources are very important as they are the core elements needed to achieve a goal. However, you have to manage these resources well to reach the goal of the task.
Resources include the funding, the time, and the staff involved in the project. Without these resources, you cannot run a successful project.
Project management software helps to strategize and prioritize these resources across the portfolio to maximize their value. This simply means project management tools are essential for organizations to ensure they allocate resources to the right initiatives.
The best project management applications provide resource planning, resource utilization, and resource allocation features for users.
4. Higher Project Visibility
One of the key benefits of using project management software is that it creates a clear view of the project status and its overall plan. Higher project visibility can improve communication, help manage resources, and result in better decision-making.
5. Improved Team Collaboration
Although over-reliance on project management tools can bring about less human activity, its importance in creating a channel or link through which team members can collaborate and work together cannot be overemphasized. Project management tools help teams to communicate effortlessly and work on delivering the project.
6. Real-Time Project Budget Management
Budget management is one of the key elements needed to finish a project successfully. Cost tracking helps project managers to examine every phase of the project and their necessary resources.
Project budget management includes the process of overseeing the finances related to the project. This ensures the project delivers the quality Intended, makes it easier for the project team to stay on track, and gives accurate budget analysis for a company’s long-term prospect.
7. Real-Time Project Reporting
Project reporting software analyzes data, filters specific errors, and shares findings or progress with the project team. You can use this tool to communicate the progress of the project to stakeholders. This enables improvement and allows for adjustments where needed.
Real-time project reporting provides real-time project data, allows easy tracking of current progress and milestones, and provides background detail and a final summary to the entire project.
8. Effective Internal & External Communication
Communication is key in any organization. This project management skill gives room for improvement and growth not only for the project but for the organization of the team.
Internal communication will provide higher visibility about what the project entails with the project team. Easy transfer of information from the project manager down to the least member of the project team enhances productivity.
External communication with the stakeholders and customers provides transparency. This will create a link between the project management and the stakeholders.
Effective internal and external communication enables the exchange of information and ideas, facilitates the achievement of goals and objectives, and faster decision making and conducting stress-free meetings.
9. Enhanced Customer Satisfaction
The end goal of every project is to meet the requirements of the customer. Project management software plays a huge part in helping you manage projects successfully and deliver deliverables that satisfy your customers.
Thanks to planning, tracking, task management, and communication features, you can communicate effectively and seamlessly with your client or customer throughout the project’s life cycle.
Enhanced customer satisfaction will increase your customer lifetime value (CLV) as satisfied customers are very likely to become repeat customers.
10. Increased Team Productivity
You can increase team productivity and enhance customer satisfaction by avoiding holding unnecessary team meetings that eat up time and produce little results for the project.
You can use the web and video conferencing software tools such as RingCentral, Zoom, and UberConference to hold work meetings with your project team and stakeholders from any location.
The ability to hold work meetings conveniently makes decisions faster. You do not have to wait for physical meetings to make decisions.
11. Better Project Risk Management
Project management software helps to calculate the risk level in a project and analyze the weak spot so you can easily address it. A risk breakdown structure analyses all levels of risk. Project management software organizes these risks according to their level of seriousness and urgency.
This helps to identify and evaluate potential risks, prevent loss and falling short of the desired outcome, and prevent unplanned scheduling of events and scope creep.
12. Enables 24/7 Remote Project Management Capabilities
Unlike humans, project management applications do not need rest or develop fatigue. They can operate 24/7 without time out. Although they may experience some technical issues, it can go all day and serve an unlimited number of people.
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Martin luenendonk.
Martin loves entrepreneurship and has helped dozens of entrepreneurs by validating the business idea, finding scalable customer acquisition channels, and building a data-driven organization. During his time working in investment banking, tech startups, and industry-leading companies he gained extensive knowledge in using different software tools to optimize business processes.
This insights and his love for researching SaaS products enables him to provide in-depth, fact-based software reviews to enable software buyers make better decisions.
How to create a project management plan that actually works (Template included)
Your project management plan is the map that’s going to guide you through your project from beginning to end. Here’s how to make a great one that keeps you on track (even when things get weird).
You’ve been honing your project management skills . You’ve been reading up on the various PM methodologies . Maybe you’ve even gotten a project management certification somewhere along the way.
And now that you’ve successfully written a project charter and identified your key stakeholders, you’re ready to turn it all into a full-blown project management plan that’s going to knock your project’s socks off.
This is where all of your research and preparation pays off in the form of a definitive project plan document that you’ll use to guide your project from beginning to end.
But what is a project management plan used for? Why is it so important? And what are the core project management plan components you need to include for it to be a success?
Here’s how to make a project plan that actually works.
What is a project management plan used for?
Your project plan document is where you go deep on the ins, outs, overs, and unders of your project.
Whereas the project charter is the high-level vision for your project, your project management plan is where you break this vision down into the actual day-to-day execution of your project, covering everything you need to do to reach your project goals.
A detailed project plan will plot out everything from timelines to budget, resourcing to deliverables, and more, giving you a blueprint of what needs to be done (and when) that you can use to guide — and assess — your project.
The importance of project management planning
Behind every great project, there’s a heck of a lot of preparation.
As a project manager , you’ll have tons of things to keep track of at any given stage. Your project plan helps you to take out the guesswork by showing you exactly what you need to be focusing on each step of the way; where your resources and attention should be going; and what you need to be looking out for to ensure things don’t become overdue or over budget.
The work you do upfront in creating a project plan will stand to you throughout the lifecycle of the project , allowing you to direct your efforts 100% on delivering results, not scrambling to figure out what you should be doing next.
Here are 5 benefits that highlight the importance of project management planning.
It gives your project a baseline to work with
Working from the approved project charter, your project plan will map out the agreed-upon scope , timeline, and budget for your project in more detail.
Once you have these baselines decided, defined, and approved by the project sponsor, you’ll be able to measure the actual execution of your project against the projected progress.
This is super helpful because it means that no matter which stage of your project you’re at, you can quickly gauge whether you’re delivering the way you planned — and what you need to do to course-correct if you’re not.
It creates project alignment (and removes confusion)
No alarms and no surprises: with your project laid out in a detailed project plan, everyone knows what to expect and when.
While your project charter brings you, your stakeholders, and the project team into general alignment, your detailed project plan will ensure there’s no room for error or uncertainty by mapping out the exact due dates and deliverables, so everyone can prepare accordingly.
It fully outlines the scope of the project
That alignment has another related benefit, too: avoiding scope creep .
When your stakeholders’ expectations and all agreed deliverables are clearly laid out in the project plan document, it’s easier to spot when things are out of scope.
And just as importantly, it makes it easier to address them, too. That’s because you have a written document or project planning sheet that you can refer back to in discussions, so everyone can be reminded of what they originally agreed to and there’s no ambiguity about what’s in (or out of) the purview of the project.
It allows for better resourced project management
Once you start to break down the project’s work into manageable chunks like deliverables, milestones, and tasks, it becomes much easier to see what kind of resources you’ll actually need in order to get it done.
Again, while you may have started to outline this in your project charter at a very high level, your project plan is where you get really granular about how you’re planning to use the resources at your disposal.
(Pro tip: for a really great project plan, you’ll also want to factor in some wiggle room for when things inevitably change and you have to re-optimize your resources on the fly.)
It builds confidence in your project
Having a detailed project plan helps to reassure your project sponsor, your stakeholders, and your project team (and let’s be honest, maybe yourself if you’re having a particularly bad day) of where you’re going and why.
Your project plan document builds confidence in your leadership as a project manager, because it allows everyone to see how all of the work comes together to advance the project’s — and by extension, the organization’s — goals .
5 things you need to know before writing a project plan
Sound good? Ready to get down to business? Before you dive in to writing a project plan, here are the 5 things you need to ensure you’ve identified.
1. Identify the baselines for your project
Before you begin writing a project plan, you need to make sure you have the basics down. Start by identifying the baselines for the project’s scope, schedule and cost, as the rest of your project planning will need to fit in around those constraints.
As mentioned above, these baselines should already be roughly outlined in your project charter — but here’s where you really start to map them out and create accurate estimates. And the more detailed, the better, because these are what you’ll be using for comparison to measure how your project performs.
2. Identify your project dependencies
Or in other words, ask yourself: what needs to happen before this other thing can happen? Identifying your project dependencies at the outset of your project means you can plan your timelines more efficiently, spot potential blockers, and ensure that you avoid unnecessary delays.
3. Identify project stakeholders
You’ll already have done the groundwork for this in your stakeholder analysis, but as you flesh out your project management plan and think through the phases of your project in more detail, you’ll likely start to find more project stakeholders at each phase.
Now is also a good time to go deeper on which stakeholders need to be informed and involved at which stages, for a more comprehensive stakeholder management plan you can use at each phase of your project.
4. Identify project milestones
What are the key markers of your project’s progress? It can be a concrete deliverable, the end of a phase in a stage-gate process — whatever milestones make sense to you, breaking your project down into manageable chunks, each with a defined goal, helps to keep the team motivated, allows you to celebrate each achievement, and signposts how the overall progress is coming along. Learn more about using Milestones here .
5. Identify who’s responsible for what
Once you start to get a big-picture understanding of the work that’s needed and the resources you have to complete it, you can start deciding who should do what. Giving each item an owner is essential to getting things done. No more “oh, was I supposed to do that?” — once you identify who’s responsible for what, you can ensure accountability and transparency.
The 5 Stages of Team Development
All teams develop according to some natural patterns and using that knowledge, you can offer some guidance to build the kind of team that communicates well and finds better ways to collaborate and achieve the goals you’ve established. Here’s what you need to know.
How to make a project plan
1. start with a high level project plan template.
What does a project plan look like in your organization? When you’re creating a project plan, start by drawing on any existing materials you can use to guide you, like project plan samples or project plan templates.
Whether your organization provides you with a high level project plan template, a project planning form, project plan samples, or a project planning calendar, leverage any organizational process assets you can.
Don’t have a project plan template available? Make your own , and use it for all future projects to save time and replicate your successes.
Project management template
Save time on setup without sacrificing attention to detail. With our project management template, you can quickly create project management plans that help you complete your project on time and on budget.
2. Then tailor it to match your project type
A project plan template or sample project is a great way to get started with your planning, but don’t forget to choose the right project plan type for your specific project.
Your project plan should be tailored to your particular project type, team type, and needs. For example, an IT project plan for a rollout of new equipment will probably look different from a sample agile project plan , both of which will probably look different from more overarching strategic project planning.
Use all the features at your disposal, from task lists to Gantt charts, to make sure that your project plan works for you.
3. Get input from clients, project stakeholders and team members
Writing your project plan in a vacuum will make it harder to get buy-in when it matters.
Involving your stakeholders when you’re creating a project plan helps them to feel more represented in the process, and sets the tone for a collaborative working environment that will stand to you throughout the project.
So whether it’s a planning meeting, brainstorming session, or one-to-one interviews, make sure you get input from the project’s key players when you’re developing a project plan.
And as an added bonus? This is also a great opportunity for you as the project manager to continue growing the relationships you started building back in the project charter and stakeholder analysis phases.
4. Incorporate any other project management planning you’ve done
Your project management plan should be informed by all the other project planning you’ve done so far: not only the outcomes of the project planning steps 1-5 above, but all the research you’ve done before reaching this stage.
According to the Project Management Institute’s Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide and Standards, some other plans to include as part of your project management plan are:
Scope management plan
Requirements management plan
Schedule management plan
Cost management plan
Quality management plan
Resource management plan
Communications management plan
Risk management plan
Procurement management plan
Stakeholder engagement plan
While the PMBOK recommends having these 10 plans as standard, you might find that different projects require different approaches.
Nonetheless, even if you don’t have a comprehensive document for each one, it’s good to cover each of these bases at some stage of your PM planning so you’re prepared.
You might also want to include some or all of the following:
Change management plan
Configuration management plan
Performance measurement baseline
Project life cycle
Development approach (e.g. predictive, iterative, agile, hybrid)
Management reviews
If you have these documents already, use them to guide your planning. You can also include them in an appendix to your project management plan so they’re always close to hand.
5. Put your project management plan somewhere central
Just like your project charter, your project management plan should live somewhere central where everyone — stakeholders, the project team, management, clients — can access it.
Teamwork Spaces is great for storing all of your important project planning documents in a way that makes them intuitive and enjoyable to read. Mark essential SOPs or processes as Required Reading to ensure that essential info actually gets read.
And if someone has a question that they can’t find the answer to? Readers can leave comments on individual spaces to ask for clarification or leave an update.
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Start working together beautifully. See how Teamwork Spaces can help your team with our 30-day free trial.
Use a project management tool to turn your project management plan into a plan of action
Once you’ve documented your project management plan, bring it to life with a project management tool that will help you to stay on track, keep your team accountable, and promote transparency.
Here are 3 ways you can use Teamwork to supercharge your project management plan.
Add your supporting documentation to Teamwork Spaces
Use the Teamwork and Teamwork Spaces integration to link a project in Teamwork with a space in Teamwork Spaces, so your important project documents are only ever a click away.
Some documents you might want to add in addition to your project charter and project management plan include:
Scoping documents
Risk assessments
Change management plans
SOPs for important project processes
List of stakeholders and their roles
Outline of approval processes
Any other best practices documentation or supporting info as necessary
You can even embed task lists into your pages and mark tasks as complete right from Teamwork Spaces, so you can keep work flowing without even needing to switch tabs.
Start adding your Milestones
Break down your work into Milestones and task lists that are going to help you reach them. With Teamwork, you can assign an owner to each Milestone, map out your Milestone due dates and see them represented in the project calendar, and even get a full change history for milestones so you can track any edits.
Visualize your task dependencies with a Gantt chart
Gantt chart-style views are a useful way to get a visual representation of your tasks and their dependencies, allowing for better scheduling and resourcing. In Teamwork, you can drag and drop to quickly rearrange your project schedule , without throwing everything out of order or straying off-plan.
Remember: software should support the way you work, not dictate it. So regardless of methodology or team type, create a project plan that works for you and your team — and find a tool that helps you put it into action.
Use our project plan template
Now that you know how to create a project management plan that actually works, you’re ready to implement using our team management software . To help you get up and running quickly, we’ve created a ready to use project plan template . Our project template will help you quickly create project plans that ensure all of your projects are completed on time and on budget
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Project management helps teams organize, track, and execute work within a project. Think of a project as a collection of tasks to accomplish a specific goal. Project management can help your team plan, manage, and execute your work in order to meet your project's requirements on time.
Benefits of project planning templates Ramp up fast See and share information Stay on task and on track Keep track of resources Adapt as needed Ready to get started? Benefits of project planning templates Learn more 1/5 Ramp up fast Skip building and formatting plans for entire projects from the ground up. Just download project planning templates.
Some of the time-saving benefits of project planning software include the following. Organize, prioritize and assign tasks Plan and schedule milestones and task dependencies Monitor progress, costs and resources Collaborate with team Share project plans with team and stakeholders Generate reports on plans
The benefits of planning have been confirmed through the practice of project management. It has thus become an expected part of all projects. It has, as Turner and Müller (2003) state, become a hygiene factor for successful projects. Table 2 - Summary of Reviewed Literature on Relationship between Planning and Success
The benefits of planning a project Clear objectives Knowing what you plan to achieve greatly increases the likelihood that you will actually do it. But without a clear objective from the onset, the project will be plagued by scope creep. If the team isn't clear on what they are working on, how will they know when the project is completed?
A project is a vehicle to deliver benefits to its stakeholders. These benefits include improved quality, reduced cost of production, better customer service, increased customer retention and so on. Identifying, describing and measuring these benefits is called benefits management.
The Benefits Of Project Planning It improves efficiency and success rates. Our first benefit of project planning is improvement in efficiency and success rates. Unfortunately, most businesses have a 70% failure rate. Achieving the goals of a project is not always as simple as it appears. Business processes fail for a myriad of purposes.
6 Key Benefits of Using Software for Project Planning. Regardless of the type of services a business offers, having the best software can make a significant impact. The Key benefits of using online project Planning Software are: Generation of customized reports as per user's requirement from anywhere.
By planning the project, the team can proactively address problems, reducing their impact on the project. Shared Resources and a Fair Division Many employees work on multiple projects...
Project management keeps everyone on task and enables them to understand expectations. It also encourages communication so that teams collaborate better. 5. Helps with problem resolution Finally, project management makes it easier to resolve problems that occur during the completion of the project.
Strategic plan vs. project plan. A strategic plan is a company-wide, multi-year plan of what you want to accomplish in the next three to five years and how you plan to accomplish that. ... The benefits of strategic planning. Strategic planning can help with goal-setting by allowing you to explain how your company will move towards your mission ...
The types of benefits are, as stated earlier, variable. Here are some concrete examples: Quality improvement, Production cost reduction, Error rate reduction, A higher level of customer service, Increased customer retention rate. Benefits can be classed as tangible and intangible benefits.
Project planning not only benefits the project's performance and outcome but also plays a role in employee retention. Employees are eight times more likely to remain with their employer if they believe their managers are assisting them with workload management.
Benefits of resource planning. Resource planning is integral to project management because it often determines a project's success. The tools resource managers use may empower companies to complete projects more efficiently using reliable resources. Here are some benefits of resource planning:
The Top Ten Benefits of Planning in Project Management Project Management Methods & Ideologies Page content 10. Clear Objective 9. Risk Assessment 8. Milestones 7. Resource Allocation 6. Task Dependencies 5. Communication 4. Avoid Scope Creep 3. The Bottom Line 2. Client Appreciation And the Number One Reason to Plan your Project
5 concrete benefits. A new project management methodology offers a lot of high-level benefits for your company. These include: Get better alignment on KPIs and overall goals. Gain a better understanding of customers in marketing teams. Adapt more consistent messaging throughout the company. Increase sales revenue.
A project plan is useful not just for improving the quality of the end product, but also for developing better team dynamics and better results for the company you're working for. In today's post, we're discussing 10 great benefits that will result from proper project planning.
Benefits of visualizing the project planning stage There's no question that goal achievement is a critical component of successful project management. Many project leads, however, find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data, metrics, and variables involved in project planning.
Distill the need clearly. Elicit "benefits tracking" during project planning. Monitor progress during project delivery/execution. Check benefits focus during project reviews. Review the benefits plan at project close. Deliver benefits during operation. A glossary of terms is provided at the end of the paper.
Benefits of Project Management Plan An hour spent in planning can save three during execution, It saves crucial execution time Defines the project in detail Establishes the project boundaries, scope and deliverables Identifies the project management team and the project stakeholders Indicates the project schedule and major milestones
The Benefits of Earned Schedule. ... It allows them to use historical data to forecast the expected completion date of a project, which helps with resource planning and scheduling.
Planning, Scheduling, Monitoring and Control offers practical guidance on all planning aspects of preparing to undertake a project, executing a project, controlling its delivery to budget, time and quality, and delivering it safely. Buy from bookshop Introduction to Project Planning
Benefits management is the identification, definition, planning, tracking and realisation of benefits. Benefits realisation is the practice of ensuring that benefits are derived from outputs and outcomes. Project success is the satisfaction of stakeholder needs and is measured by the success criteria agreed at the start of a project.
4. Higher Project Visibility. One of the key benefits of using project management software is that it creates a clear view of the project status and its overall plan. Higher project visibility can improve communication, help manage resources, and result in better decision-making. 5. Improved Team Collaboration.
Project management template. Save time on setup without sacrificing attention to detail. With our project management template, you can quickly create project management plans that help you complete your project on time and on budget. Try our project plan template. 2. Then tailor it to match your project type.
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