Planning Stage
Planning is crucial in project management. It is the what, when, how, who and where of the project.
What is the difference between the project scope and the project plan?
Whilst the scope provides the high level details, the plan provides full details including history and background information as well as clearly defining all risks, inclusions, deliverables and exclusions of the project. It can also contain a 'business case' if required for the project.
Note: for small projects or projects that you already have approval and budget to proceed with, it may be that you write only a project plan and skip the scope stage.
Communication
It is essential to have a Communications Plan (Excel, 45Kb) prepared before commencing your project. For small projects with little impact upon external units, the communications strategy may be quite straight forward and simply cover a management report at the completion. However, major projects that will have a substantial impact upon business units, should be communicated from the outset and part of the communications strategy might be to hold focus groups or stakeholders impact discussions at the outset (this would facilitate stakeholder buy in).
There are a number of facets to communicating your project:
- Progress reporting to project team/steering committee
- Management reporting
- Project announcements
- Meetings
- Informal information
- Creation of a website (for major projects)
- When preparing your communication strategy you should be mindful of the fact that UWS has an Internal Communications Manager, who is available to assist you with developing communication strategies for major UWS wide projects. You should contact the Internal Communications Manager at the embryonic stage of any major project.
Agenda, Minutes and Action Templates
Of prime importance to the management of your project, is the need for accurate record keeping. A concise description of agreed actions, the date for completion and the responsible person should be kept by the Project Manager or Project Assistant.
To ensure a consistent approach to record keeping across UWS, the Minutes and Action Template (MS Word, 65Kb) should be used for taking minutes.
Note that the template facilitates the ability to record action items against each agenda item of business.
An Agenda Template (MS Word, 44Kb) has also been provided for your use.
Work Breakdown Structure
The work breakdown structure (WBS) allows each action item to be captured, attached to a timeframe and assigned to a project team member for completion. An up-to-date record of WBS gives a snapshot of where the project is at, at a given time. MS Project is the recognised tool to electronically manage projects.
