Project Planning

The integrated project plan that includes scope, schedule, and resource information for all aspects of the project is the project baseline plan.

Project requirements are often vague, incomplete or contradictory at the time of project initiation.  Normally, additional effort is required to collect and verify the true project requirements.

Learn how to identify project tasks and activities using the deliverables deployment technique.

Learn how to quickly identify project boundaries using the W questions.

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is the most commonly used technique for organizing the project scope. The WBS decomposes the scope into tasks and organizes the tasks into logical groupings.

The WBS Dictionary is a table or spreadsheet that is organized by project task and contains all project planning details.

Task Descriptions are the statements of scope for each of the project activities.  They are written in the format of “action – completion point.”

Story Cards - also known as Product Backlog Items (PBIs) - are the technique used for documenting project scope, quality requirements, estimates, and priority of the deliverables in an Agile/Scrum project.

There is an art to creating effective story cards. In this lesson, an Agile project team member will learn the best practices for writing story cards.

Understand when and how to use a milestone schedule on a project.  Learn how to create a milestone schedule.

Understand when and how to use a Gantt chart on a project. Learn how to create a Gantt chart.

A network diagram is a project scheduling technique that shows the relationship between tasks by depicting project activities as a flowchart.

A Task List Schedule is a schedule format used to communicate tasks with dates to extended team members or those who do not have a major role in the project.

A Kanban Schedule is a project scheduling tool for managing a batch of similar items that must be processed through the same project steps.

Float (slack or buffer) is extra time that a task could consume beyond its duration estimate without impacting other aspects of the project. Total float is extra time without impacting the end date of the project and free float is extra time without impacting another project task.

Critical Path is a project scheduling technique that determines the shortest time that the current project plan can be completed.

The project Resource List is a list of all individuals working on the project with their contact information and all special equipment and facilities required to accomplish project tasks.

The Responsibility Matrix is a project management tool for correlating project work assignments with project team members.

Contractors, vendors, and suppliers are used on projects to reduce risks.  These external resources have capacity and capability that allows them to complete project tasks better than internal resources would be able to complete them.

Understand what is normally shown in a project budget.  Learn how to create a time-phased project budget.

Project resource demands are often inconsistent throughout the life of the project leading to times when resources are over-allocated.

The most commonly used techniques for creating project estimates are analogous estimates, bottom-up estimates, three-point estimates, and using a parametric model.

Time Boxes are an estimating technique that sets a finite time for a task or task group. The amount of scope that is completed is variable. Whatever scope is done when the time box ends is the amount of scope for that activity on the project.

Project estimates of effort, duration, and money are interrelated. Based upon the cost and availability of the resources involved, once you have one of the estimates, you can derive the other two.

Project plans are built with an accumulation of estimates, each of which has a level of uncertainty associated with it.  The level of uncertainty is a major contributor to the accuracy of the plan and the amount of project risk.