The Science and Voodoo of Successful Project Plans
It is not too awfully uncommon to be expected to create a detailed project plan without having all of the details. Weird, right?
Not really. It’s completely understandable why this may expected.
If you aren’t a project manager or practioner, then it would be challenging to understand what is actually required to develop a detailed project plan. For instance, using our SD3 methodology, our project plans go through a transition from less detail to more significant detail. When we respond to RFPs or have high level meetings and are asked to put together project plan estimates, we generally develop the first stage of a project plan which is the high level project plan. This is based upon RFP information, and it contains major milestones and dates and key activities within each of our phases of methodology. It cannot get much more detailed than this because we simply don’t have the answers.
So how do we know how long it will take you ask? Good question.
It comes down to the information we have which drives us to some level of complexity analysis, availability of client resources and most importantly our experience. The analogy I often give is that my family and I drive to Orlando, Florida from Michigan each spring break. I know it will take about 21 hours to get there. I also know that it takes 2.5 hours to get out of Michigan, 3.5 hours to get through Ohio, 3 hours to get through Kentucky etc. But I don’t know how long it will take to get from mile marker 100 to 200 in Ohio. There could be construction? We could need to stop for gas? We could blow a tire?
Those are the details that will contribute to the overall timeline. So we can equate the 21 hours to the overall duration and the 2.5 hours, 3.5 hours etc. for each state to the time it takes to get through each phase of the methodology. However, it’s not until we understand the construction before us that we can have the details that allow us to create a detailed project plan.
Below is a quick chart which demonstrates the progression of detail with our project plans. The more time we spend on the project, the more detail we have and the more detailed our project plans become. After we execute our BluePrint Workshop, we have sufficient detail to create a draft project plan which is detailed through fit/gap and high level thereafter. Once we get through fit/gap, we have all the detail we require. Once we execute fit/gap we know all of the design requirements, conversions, interfaces, reports etc. and we can put them in a project plan, estimate effort and resource load them.
Questions or comments about this? Don’t be afraid to reach out. I’m happy to talk.
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More links:
MIPRO Consulting main website.
