Project Planning and Management

Project planning is a procedural step in project management, where required documentation

is created to ensure successful project completion. Documentation includes all actions
required to define, prepare, integrate and coordinate additional plans. The project plan clearly
defines how the project is executed, monitored, controlled and closed.

Project planning requires an in-depth analysis and structuring of the following activities:
 Setting project goals
 Identifying project deliverables
 Creating project schedules
 Creating supporting plans
Project planning begins by setting the scope of a project and eventually working through each
level of dependent actions, tasks, checkpoints and deadlines.

https//wwwtechopediacom/definition/14005/projectplanning

Project planning is at the heart of the project life cycle, and tells everyone involved where
you’re going and how you’re going to get there. The planning phase is when the project plans
are documented, the project deliverables and requirements are defined, and the project
schedule is created. It involves creating a set of plans to help guide your team through the
implementation and closure phases of the project. The plans created during this phase will
help you manage time, cost, quality, changes, risk, and related issues. They will also help you
control staff and external suppliers to ensure that you deliver the project on time, within
budget, and within schedule.
The project planning phase is often the most challenging phase for a project manager, as you
need to make an educated guess about the staff, resources, and equipment needed to complete
your project. You may also need to plan your communications and procurement activities, as
well as contract any third-party suppliers.

Project management is the application of processes, methods, skills, knowledge and

experience to achieve specific project objectives according to the project acceptance criteria
within agreed parameters. Project management has final deliverables that are constrained to
a finite timescale and budget.
A key factor that distinguishes project management from just 'management' is that it has this
final deliverable and a finite timespan, unlike management which is an ongoing process.

https://www.apm.org.uk/resources/what-is-project-management/

A. Project management life cycle

The number of phases in a project will vary according to the project's type and the manager's
techniques, and may range from four to six steps. These steps can be grouped into four phases
which consist of initiation and planning, execution, monitoring and control, and closing.
Initiation and Planning
This phase is often broken into two: one for initiation and one for planning. The former
entails budget outlines, the timeline needed for project delivery, as well as the overall goal of
the project. The phase is essentially about laying out the project's mission. In sum, it is a
formalization of the project's core idea. The planning phase delves into a little more detail.
Managers will consider what specific steps and tasks needed for project delivery. Each step
and task will have its own estimated costs and timeline. Although these estimations don't
need to be entirely accurate, it gives project managers a general idea about the project's
feasibility and delivery time.
Execution
The execution phase is the real start of the project's implementation. Strict budget
management comes into play here, as the project has left the planning phase and is now in
full swing. Managers will want to be consistently updated on the project's progress as they
must have full knowledge of how the project is coming off the ground. For this reason,
project managers will constantly communicate with their employees, receiving not only
updates but also problems that the project encounters. Project managers are also constantly in
touch with their clients at this stage, as during the execution phase investors are most
concerned about the project's development.

Project Monitoring and Control

This third stage often overlaps with the second stage. Specifically, project monitoring and
control involves managers making sure that task deadlines are met and costs are within the
allocated budgets. Most projects will encounter problems along the way, and such problems
are rectified at this stage. The manager will also ensure that the project's original plan is
adhered to.
Project Closing
No matter how many phases there are in a project, the closing stage is always the last. The
phase involves two elements. The first of these is making a report that details how the project
ran over the previous three phases. The report will analyze the project's initial goals
compared to its current state and identify any problems encountered along the way and what
steps were taken to address these problems. The second element of this phase is the project
review, which is the project team meeting where team members can put in their own input
regarding the project's implementation.
https//smallbusinesschroncom/fourphasesmakeupproject3154html

B. Reasons why project management is important

1. Strategic Alignment
Project management is important because it ensures what is being delivered, is right, and will
deliver real value against the business opportunity. Good project management ensures that
the goals of projects closely align with the strategic goals of the business.
2. Leadership
Project management is important because it brings leadership and direction to projects.
Without project management, a team can be like a ship without a rudder; moving but without
direction, control or purpose. Leadership allows and enables a team to do their best work.
Project management provides leadership and vision, motivation, removing roadblocks,
coaching and inspiring the team to do their best work.
3. Clear Focus & Objectives
Project management is important because it ensures there’s a proper plan for executing on
strategic goals.
Where project management is left to the team to work out by themselves, you’ll find teams
work without proper briefs, projects lack focus, can have vague or nebulous objectives, and
leave the team not quite sure what they’re supposed to be doing, or why.
4. Realistic Project Planning
Project management is important because it ensures proper expectations are set around what
can be delivered, by when, and for how much.
Without proper project management, budgetestimates and project delivery timelines can be
set that are over-ambitious or lacking in analogous estimating insight from similar projects.
Ultimately this means without good project management, projects get delivered late, and over
budget

5. Quality Control
Projects management is important because it ensures the quality of whatever is being
delivered, consistently hits the mark. Projects are also usually under enormous pressure to be
completed. Without a dedicated project manager, who has the support and buy-in of
executive management, tasks are underestimated, schedules tightened and processes rushed.
Without a dedicated project manager, who has the support and buy-in of executive
management, tasks are underestimated, schedules tightened and processes rushed. The result
is bad quality output. Dedicated project management ensures that not only does a project
have the time and resources to deliver, but also that the output is quality tested at every stage

6. Risk Management
Project management is important because it ensures risks are properly managed and mitigated
against to avoid becoming issues. Good project management practice requires project
managers to carefully analyze all potential risks to the project, quantify them, develop a
mitigation plan against them, and a contingency plan should any of them materialize

7. Orderly Process
Project management is important because it ensures
therightpeopledotherightthingsattherighttime – it ensures proper project process is followed
throughout the projectlifecycle. Project management matters here because without an orderly,
easily understood process, companies risk projectfailure, attrition of employee trust and
resource wastage.
8. Continuous Oversight
Project management is important because it ensures a project’s progress is tracked and
reported properly. When proper oversight and project reporting is in place it makes it easy to
see when a project is beginning to deviate from its intended course. The earlier you’re able to
spot project deviation, the easier it is to course correct.
9. Managing and Learning from Success and Failure
Project management is important because it learns from the successes and failures of the past.
Project management can break bad habits and when you’re delivering projects, it’s important
to not make the same mistakes twice. Project managers use retrospectives or post project
reviews to consider what went well, what didn’t go so well and what should be done
differently for the next project. Without this learning, teams will often keep making the same
mistakes, time and time again.

https://thedigitalprojectmanager.com/why-is-project-management-important/

1. Defines a plan and organises chaos – projects are naturally chaotic. The primary business
function of project management is organizing and planning projects to tame this chaos. A
clear path mapped out from start to finish ensures the outcome meets the goals of your
project.

2. Establishes a schedule and plan – Without a schedule, a project has a higher probability of
delays and cost overruns. A sound schedule is key to a successful project.

3. Enforces and encourages teamwork – A project brings people together to share ideas and
provide inspiration. Collaboration is the cornerstone to effective project planning and
management.

4. Maximises resources – Resources, whether financial or human, are expensive. By

enforcing project management disciplines such as project tracking and risk management, all
resources are used efficiently and economically.

5. Manages Integration – Projects don’t happen in a vacuum. They need to be integrated with
business processes, systems and organizations.
You can’t build a sales system that doesn’t integrate with your sales process and sales
organization. It wouldn’t add much value. Integration is often key to project value.
Project management identifies and manages integration.

6. Controls cost – some projects can cost a significant amount of money so on budget
performance is essential. Using project management strategies greatly reduces the risk of
budget overruns.

7. Manages change – projects always happen in an environment in which nothing is constant

except change. Managing change is a complex and daunting task. It is not optional. Project
management manages change.

8. Managing quality – Quality is the value of what you produce. Project management
identifies, manages and controls quality. This results in a high quality product or service and
a happy client.

9. Retain and use knowledge – projects generate knowledge or at least they should.
Knowledge represents a significant asset for most businesses. Left unmanaged knowledge
tends to quickly fade. Project management ensures that knowledge is captured and managed.

10. Learning from failure – projects do fail. When they do, it is important to learn from the
process. Project management ensures that lessons are learned from project success and
failure.

https//2020projectmanagementcom/resources/generalinterestandmiscellaneous/10reasonswhy
projectmanagementmatters

C. Use of Gantt Charts in scheduling project activities

A Gantt chart is a graphical depiction of a project schedule. It's is a type of bar chart that
shows the start and finish dates of several elements of a project that include resources,
milestones, tasks, and dependencies.

https//wwwinvestopediacom/terms/g/ganttchartasp

Advantages of Gantt Chart

 It is to represent the Project schedules and Activities
 Easy to represent Tasks, Sub-tasks, Milestones and Projects Visually on a Graph
  Clear visibility of Dates and Time Frames
 It helps to see the Plans by Day, Week, Month, Quarter and Year
 Helps to effectively mange the Team
 And it helps in efficient Time Management
 Easy to group all sub tasks under a main task
 Also, we can see the Team Members and their responsible tasks
 Easy to Check the Project Status
 We can See the Completed % of Tasks
 Tasks in Progress and Pending work is clearly visible on Stacked Bars
 Helps Managers to easily coordinate with the teams
 Gantt chart is good tool for presenting in Team Meetings
Disadvantages of Gantt Chart
 Require more efforts for Creating and Managing the Chart
 Updating a Chart is Very Time Consuming
 All Tasks are not visible in a single view of a Gantt
 Need to scroll and Click additional buttons to view remaining items
 Stacks represents only the time and not the hours of the work
 Not easy to re align the tasks from on section to another
 Not easy to calculate the aggregates
https://analysistabs.com/gantt-chart/advantages-disadvantages/