A sound project management plan is the foundation for successful business outcomes.
For years, the Project Management Institute (PMI) has found a strong correlation between effective planning and project success. Having a carefully conceived yet flexible plan keeps collaboration flowing and ensures important deadlines are met.
A properly executed project management plan promotes organizational harmony and fiscal stability. It provides constant feedback on progress and serves as a barometer when a project starts to veer off-course, allowing you to swiftly notify stakeholders, achieve consensus, and make adjustments before cost overruns and finger-pointing set in.
These are important advantages, considering that the average organization wastes 9% of investment capital on missed deadlines, overshot budgets, scope creep, and other problems resulting from poor project management, according to PMI's 2021 Pulse of the Profession survey.
So what exactly is a project management plan, and how do you create a good one?
Also known as a project plan or a functional project plan, a project management plan is a comprehensive document that outlines a project's overall goals, budget, participants, timelines, and major deliverables. It considers how these variables will interact, anticipates risks, and sets metrics for measuring success along the way and at completion.
Though it may sound complex, constructing a good project plan is easy, especially with modern tools, which can take over much of the heavy lifting. It's just a matter of knowing what to do and following best practices to ensure an optimal outcome at every stage. In this step-by-step guide, you'll learn exactly how to do that.
A project management plan should start with an executive summary explaining the rationale for its existence and its desired outcomes. You need to clearly state at least one overarching goal that aligns with the organization's business strategy and several more specific objectives.
Write a brief description of what success will look like, how you will measure it, and how it will make a difference to the company. Include high-level goals and objectives within the plan to ensure teams stay aware of the big picture as they focus on their specific tasks.
Identifying and agreeing on the scope is essential to keeping your project on track. Every year, 50–60% of software projects end up in partial or total failure, and scope creep is one of the most common causes, according to a study published in the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Access journal.
That's not to say a project's dimensions can't ever change — they can, and increasingly, they do (more on that in Step 5). But unexpected changes don't have to extend project deadlines. In Step 3, we'll go over how to build in controls to discourage scope creep and other problems.
To outline the scope, break down the project into implementation phases, describing what needs to be done for each one. Make sure your teams understand that any potential deviation must be shared with the project manager and other stakeholders before the work begins.
Before you finalize the scope, consult with team leaders to ensure everyone is on board with the basic order of work and that no major steps are left out.
You'll also need to document your stakeholders. This may include the executives, teams, and individuals who will take part in the project or have a say in its outcome. List everyone who will be participating and state their roles.
One way of doing this is to fill out a RACI matrix, which will help you and others visualize who is responsible and accountable, and who needs to be consulted or informed at every step.
Talk to team leaders to ensure you don't leave out participants from other teams and people who aren't directly involved but will need to approve processes.
Every project has a budget that includes cost estimates and allocations. One of the essential responsibilities of the project manager is to carefully track these estimates and expenses as the project proceeds, ensuring they don't exceed the planned limits and alerting stakeholders if they do.
Spreadsheets or specialized budgeting tools are often used to put together project budgets. Tools like Spreadsheet.com can help you. You can plan your budget (or import your original) into a project budget template. This will allow you to monitor ongoing spending, spot developing problems, and trigger automated actions with the Automations feature.
Even with careful tracking, project expenses can exceed original budgets. The cost of supplies or labor may increase, tasks may get bogged down, teams may get sidetracked, experienced staff may leave — any number of things can go awry, and Murphy's law dictates that sometime during your career, they will.
For that reason, Gartner recommends that you build a cushion by planning your use of resources at less than 80% of the capacity you've determined you'll actually need.
In Spreadsheet.com, you can also use automations to set up alerts. For example, if your budget is near its limit, an automated trigger can notify appropriate team members so there are no surprises.
Every project requires a detailed timeline with a list of tasks, start and end dates, task dependencies, task owners, and other critical information. Talk with your teams to establish the resources needed for each task and determine reasonable deadlines for deliverables.
One of the most commonly used tools for timeline visualization is a Gantt chart. It displays a horizontal bar graph with tasks on the Y axis and time on the X axis. A Gantt chart allows you to see schedules, dependencies, deliverables, and project progress at a glance.
Spreadsheet.com's Gantt chart template allows you to incorporate multiple layers of information about tasks, resources, and timelines. Whichever level of detail you choose, a Gantt chart provides a convenient way to view and share important information about the status of your project.
You can use multiple project management templates, including one for the project management plan itself.
Another popular framework, especially for agile software development teams, is a product roadmap with Kanban board, which displays each task and its status as a separate card.
Cards are arranged in columns from left to right in the order of workflows. Teams can deliberately limit the number of cards they can place on the board at any one time to provide a clear view of work progress.
Other templates can be used to highlight project risks, and focus on a specific department or industry function, such as job applicant tracking or retail industry management.
Every project is unique. In Spreadsheet.com, you can visualize the same project in multiple template layouts to determine which feels most suitable for your organization and your teams.
To manage changes that will inevitably occur along the way, it helps to use a comprehensive template such as this product launch plan. It contains all tasks related to all phases of product development, including research, marketing, sales, and a timeline of activities.
Assign tasks and filter them by status or due date to ensure the deadlines are not missed. To keep team members on track without overwhelming them, create a separate view within the template showing only the information related to their specific deliverables.
Spreadsheet.com offers advanced project management tools a modern organization needs, whether they are for managing multiple complex projects, designing a one-off, or creating workbooks and forms for teams to share.
You can import spreadsheets from Excel, Google Sheets, and CSV files. Also, Spreadsheet.com templates integrate with many popular workplace applications, including Slack, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Salesforce, and QuickBooks. Learn more and get started with this extensive library of free templates.
