• Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.
  • Common excuses for not planning:
    • “Planning takes too much time.”
    • “Customers don’t know what they want.”
    • “We will be held accountable for what we commit to in the plan.”
    • …

Defining the Project Phases

Project phases

Example: The 2004 Olympic Games

2004 Olympic Games example
2004 Olympic Games example

The Project Planning Process

  • Project budget
  • Project schedule
  • Defining and authorizing project status reports
    • What
    • When
    • To whom
  • Project closure plan
    • What will happen to staff, equipment and facilities

Project planning process

Action Plan

  • An action plan is usually a high-level project plan that lists the project activities (tasks) and, for each major task, includes:
    • Who is responsible for completing the task
    • The estimated time for the task
    • Who reports to whom
    • Required resources
    • Completion dates

Action plan

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

  • Shows how each part of the project contributes in terms of performance, responsibility, budget and schedule.
  • What needs to be done?
  • What should the hierarchical structure of the work look like?

Building the Work Breakdown Structure

  • Using the information in the action plans, each task is broken down into successively finer levels of detail until all meaningful work packages have been defined.

Work breakdown structure
Work breakdown structure example

  • Festival
    • Promotional activities
      • Advertising
        • Ad copy
        • Press relations
        • Payment terms
        • Control
      • Ticketing
      • Posters

Festival WBS example

Linear Responsibility Chart

  • Shows the staff and organizations responsible for carrying out each work package.
  • Who is responsible for which task?

Linear responsibility chart
Linear responsibility chart example

planlamaplanningprojeproject