Professional Documents
Culture Documents
PP Template-Advanced
PP Template-Advanced
Version: <document version number here> Project number: <unique project id.>
Issue date: <document issue date here>
(Note to the document author. Text in italics is commentary to help you use this template and
should be removed before publishing your plan. Fields to be filled in are in the form of <field>.)
This plan outline can be used for any type of project since the fundamentals are similar for all
projects. Aim for conciseness and brevity of information – but not a lack of information. Make
sure you bring out the key elements of the plan, and not hide them in amongst a large amount of
detail. However, you will need enough information to convince your stakeholders (including
yourself) that the project has a well-founded plan.)
Project Plan
<Title / Name>…………………………………..
It is often desirable to have the client authorize the Project Plan. This document
will include expectations of what the client is required to do in order to help make
the project a success.
Amendment History
Version Issue Date Changes
<Version #> <date> Initial version.
<Version #> <date> <brief summary of changes from previous version>
Table of Contents
1 INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 DOCUMENT PURPOSE......................................................................................................... 1
1.2 ASSOCIATED DOCUMENTS................................................................................................... 1
1.3 PROJECT PLAN MAINTENANCE............................................................................................ 1
2 PROJECT SCOPE.................................................................................................................. 2
2.1 OUTLINE OF CLIENT’S OBJECTIVES......................................................................................2
2.1.1 Objectives................................................................................................................. 2
2.1.2 Success Criteria........................................................................................................ 2
2.1.3 Risks......................................................................................................................... 2
2.2 OUTLINE OF <ORGANIZATION> OBJECTIVES.........................................................................2
2.2.1 Objectives................................................................................................................. 2
2.2.2 Success Criteria........................................................................................................ 2
2.2.3 Risks......................................................................................................................... 2
2.3 DEFINITIVE SCOPE STATEMENT............................................................................................ 2
3 DELIVERABLES..................................................................................................................... 3
3.1 TO CLIENT.......................................................................................................................... 3
3.2 FROM CLIENT..................................................................................................................... 3
4 PROJECT APPROACH.......................................................................................................... 4
4.1 PROJECT LIFECYCLE PROCESSES.......................................................................................4
4.2 PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROCESSES..................................................................................4
4.3 PROJECT SUPPORT PROCESSES......................................................................................... 4
4.4 ORGANIZATION................................................................................................................... 4
4.4.1 Project Team............................................................................................................. 4
4.4.2 Mapping Between <Organization> and Client...........................................................4
5 COMMUNICATIONS PLAN..................................................................................................... 5
6 WORK PLAN.......................................................................................................................... 6
6.1 WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE........................................................................................ 6
6.2 RESOURCES....................................................................................................................... 6
7 MILESTONES......................................................................................................................... 7
11 OTHER............................................................................................................................... 11
11.1 OPEN ISSUES................................................................................................................... 11
11.2 OTHER............................................................................................................................. 11
A. APPENDIX......................................................................................................................... 11-1
1 Introduction
2 Project Scope
This section provides an overview of the project’s objectives, both from the client’s perspective
and from <organization’s> perspective. The key success criteria and major risks are highlighted.
2.1.1 Objectives
Explain what this project means to the client –
what is the project about?
why are they undertaking it?
how does it fit into their larger work / business activities?
2.1.3 Risks
Brief statement of the major risks of the client’s project. If your project is helping them mitigate
against their risk then explain this.
2.2.1 Objectives
Explain what your organization’s objectives are, and what you are responsible for, mapped into
the larger picture of the client’s overall project / program as described above. Be careful not to
take on responsibilities that really belong to the client. For instance, you may be providing the
client with a capability to do something, but the client’s objective is to make use of that capability
to achieve some stated business objective. Your project is then to provide that capability, not to
achieve the client’s business objective. To give an example, the client may want to reduce hold
time in a call center by 50% over 6 months, and your project may be to provide the capability to
enable them to do that, which only gives them their benefit PROVIDED that they then use your
capability appropriately.
2.2.3 Risks
Very brief statement of the major risks of your project and how they are being minimized. This is
expanded on later in this document, so just give an overview of the key risks here.
3 Deliverables
3.1 To client
List all the formal deliverables to the client, and when they are due. Indicate if the due date is
estimated or contracted. This list is essentially what the client is buying. This can include things
other than a tangible material item, such as X people for Y weeks for support of a deliverable.
4 Project Approach
4.4 Organization
This section will benefit from the use of diagrams to explain the organizations and mapping.
5 Communications Plan
This describes who needs what information, when they will need it, and how they will get it. Bear
in mind that for project success the project team must not only be doing a good job but be seen
to be doing a good job by the other project stakeholders. So this section may include a matrix
such as the following, which shows what 2 stakeholders may receive.
6 Work Plan
In this section we identify the tasks to undertake the project, and how resources are mapped to
these tasks, together with other non-people resources that are needed.
6.2 Resources
Show how the project team is used to undertake the identified tasks. This may be in the form of
a Gantt chart from a project scheduling tool such as Microsoft Project, ABT Workbench, etc.
Include non-people resources, such as equipment, other materials, travel expenses, etc. Map
these onto a timeline. For some types of projects this may be a significant listing, and require
breaking this section down into sub-sections.
7 Milestones
Identify the key project milestones, and any project phasing. These milestones are typically
events that demonstrate significant project progress, events that have a major impact to the
client, and payment milestones. You do not want to have so many milestones identified here that
it makes it difficult for project tracking to show the big picture of the project’s progress.
Sometimes this list can seem to be a duplicate of the “deliverables” list in the earlier section. You
want to try and make this milestones list only the key events / deliverables. You may chose not to
put dates against the deliverables in the earlier section if in fact all the deliverables are also
project milestones identified here. Just use your common sense as to what seems most
appropriate.
You may want to list milestones on the client’s side as a separate list, in much the same way that
client deliverables were separately identified.
A typical type of milestone table that can be used if this is the manner in which you want to show
this information is as follows:
9.1 Risks
Identify the main project risks, their potential impact, and how they have been planned for. This
may be by reference to a separate project risk register, or such a risk register could be included
here, such as the following. Explain how this risk register will be maintained during the project.
This might already have been covered in the Project Approach section earlier.
Risk Risk Description Mitigation Plan Contingency Plan Impact (what Likelihood
Id. (what to do to avoid (what to do if the the impact will of
the risk occurring) risk occurs) be to the occurrence
project if the (e.g., %, or
risk occurs) high /
medium /
low)
9.2 Constraints
Explain any constraints that the project is operating under. These may be functional, technical, or
managerial. For instance, the client or <your organization> may mandate environmental
conditions such as a specific database. There may be a regulatory date by which a cutover has
to be completed. You will need to be careful in considering what is a constraint since it is easy to
fall into the trap of starting to describe the project scope, which is covered in a previous section.
9.3 Assumptions
List any assumptions you have made in the construction of this plan.
10 Financial Plan
Describe the project finances as appropriate. This may take various forms depending upon the
type of project, the audience for the plan, and the way in which projects in general are managed
in your organization.
For a project for external clients, this section typically includes the payment profile, and the
payment process. This may be all that is included.
How the budget is being monitored / controlled / reported on are described in this section as
appropriate. This may not be included in the version of the plan presented to the client. This
depends upon the circumstances.
11 Other
This section is for any miscellaneous information that you feel is necessary to record in the plan
document. Remember that we want this document to be as concise as possible.
11.2 Other
12 Appendix
This is optional, and is included to encourage the document author to use an Appendix for
detailed information, so that the plan document can remain as compact as possible for easy
reading. Appendices may contain more detailed financial information, more detailed scheduling
information, etc.