The Project Plan

THE PROJECT PLAN

Planning, scheduling, and controlling is often referred to as the project management cycle. Each of these phases of the management cycle are closely linked together. One objective of this chapter is to illustrate approaches for developing schedules and budgets, and for monitoring and controlling a project.

One of the first of many challenges faced by a project manager is the development of a project plan. A project plan is not a single document. It consists of a Work Breakdown Structure, a responsibility chart; a schedule in the form of a bar chart and a network diagram, and supporting documentation, describing costs and budgets.

The manager and the members of the project team prepare project plan as a road map to provide them with direction and guidance from project kickoff to the day of delivery. The length and complexity of the project plan depend entirely on the type of project and the level of investment being made in it. For example a real estate developer might only prepare a Work Breakdown Structure and a schedule of sub controller due dates when building a single house. However, when the same contractor is building a 300-unit condominium complex, the work is broken down to a level of detail that will assist in developing detailed schedules and responsibility matrices.

After you complete the study of this chapter, you should know how to do the following:

• Participate in the preparation of written specifications.

Subdivide a project into a hierarchy of tasks and work packages.

Write clear task descriptions.

• Prepare a Work Breakdown Structure and the associated documentation.

• Create a responsibility• matrix.

• Develop a Gantt chart for timing the project.

• Draw a network diagram for analyzing the project.

• Apply the Critical Path Method of analysis to develop a schedule for the project.

• Adjust a project schedule to match customer, needs.

• Understand the budgeting process.

• Realize the complexities associated with the interaction of tasks, schedules, and budgets.

• Use a software package to organize data.

SECTION 7.1 THE WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is often the first document developed as the project manager and project team formulates a project management plan and schedule. The schedule defines the sequence and duration of tasks that must be done to complete the project on time and within the cost guidelines established. Developing a Work Breakdown Structure is usually an iterative process. At each iteration new personnel get involved and more, detail is developed about the activities actions processes and operations that need to be performed to satisfy the customer’s requirements

Sometimes a company performs almost identical types of projects for every customer Therefore, the project manager has an excellent grasp of the tasks required and the personnel who can perform these tasks.’ In these cases the Work Breakdown Structure may be nothing more than a standard form completed by the project a situation is very

rare. .lost projects are one-time occurrences, each with a unique set of characteristics that ultimately leads to a well defined. but very individualized, set of results.

The purpose of the Work Breakdown Structure is to demonstrate clearly to all parties involved how each task s related to the whole project in terms of budgets. schedule, performance. and responsibility for the physical assets belonging to the project. Some project managers include enough detail so that the Work Breakdown Structure can be used as an instrument for scheduling Personnel assignments resource allocations, monitoring project progress. and controi1in how and when tasks are accomplished.

The objective of the Work Breakdown Structure is to partition the project into distinct work packages, each of which contains detailed work elements. The Work Breakdown Structure starts as a project task list, usually an indented list or a node tree that shows the relationship of the tasks to each other. The indented list in figure 7.1 is a hierarchical list of tasks that must be performed to complete the project. The indented position of a task in the list indicates its position in the hierarchy of tasks. The more a task’s