Hi.
This is Jason with TeamGantt.
So you've asked enough questions and feel
like you've gathered all the possible information
about the project that you'll need to craft a plan.
It's time to get serious.
Chances are you're feeling fully prepared and ready
to dig into the hows and whens of the project.
So it's easy to jump right into your project planning tool
and start creating what looks like a well thought out plan.
But is it?
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If that's your process, that's fine.
Just be sure to think through every possible scenario
before you put the time and effort
into a formalized document.
If you don't, you'll have to go back through your work
and make adjustments.
And we all know that can end up taking far more time than you
bargained for.
Why not start with a simple sketch
to map out and communicate your ideas on process, deliverables,
dependencies, and timing?
It can take you as little as 20 minutes.
And it'll help you sell your ideas to your team
before delivering something that feels written in stone.
So grab a pen and a notebook or stand in front of a white board
and sketch out your ideas.
If you're feeling overwhelmed or don't know where to start,
take a look at your scope document.
Does it outline specific deliverables or timing?
Refer back to your meeting notes when you asked your clients
all of those questions.
Did any specific process tweaks come up?
Are there dates or events that you need to keep in mind?
If this is new to you, it's easy to feel slightly lost.
But it's so important to remember
that the tool you put the plan into
won't do the thinking for you.
You control the process, and you can craft a plan
without any tool at all.
Just keep these questions in mind.
What's the overall approach to the project?
What's the first deliverable?
What comes after that?
How do those deliverables help you get to the end goal?
Does your team prefer to work within the framework
of a methodology like Agile?
What are the frameworks that you can apply to this project given
the variables you discovered in your pre-project client Q&A?
What tasks will need to be completed?
Don't think about your project in phases.
Think about deliverables.
For instance, if you're delivering a design concept,
what work needs to be done before that can begin?
And what work can happen when it's approved or concurrently?
Knowing about each task and planning their dependencies
will help you string everything together.
What roles or people will work on the project?
Who's on your project team, and what do they do?
How can you leverage their expertise and collaboration
to get things done more efficiently?
If you have an idea of how your team could
work together and present your ideas to them,
they're going to be more open to discussing process and coming
up with ideas on how to approach the project together.
If you harness the power of team collaboration
before your work starts, you'll find
that the work product will be stronger
and the team will be happier.
You'll also want to keep resourcing in mind.
If your organization allows people
to be on more than one project at a time,
that could potentially cause conflicts on your project.
That's a headache you'll want to avoid.
Be sure to review resourcing plans,
and make sure that your team is available to conduct
the work on your project over the course of time
you're estimating.
Did you know TeamGantt offers some
of the most robust resourcing options
of any web-based project management tool?
See for yourself with a 30 day trial.
Visit TeamGantt.com/signup to start your free trial today.
How much time do you and your team need to execute the work?
Be honest about the time your team
will need to get their work done.
Don't forget to look back at your project estimate
if you have one to see how many hours were scoped for tasks.
This can be a huge help in determining timelines.
Are you having a hard time sorting out
how long it will take you to get a task done?
Try a work breakdown structure, a fixture
in classic project management methodology and systems
engineering that helps you to break a project
task into smaller components.
Creating a work breakdown structure
for any plan or set of tasks helps
you get granular about the work that
needs to be done on a project.
Benefits of the work breakdown structure
include you get granular quickly and can create a simple time
estimate.
You can confirm steps with your team
in an easily digestible way.
You can use these steps as a to-do list related to the task.
You can use these details to educate your client
on the effort involved with any task.
And you can identify where others
might be able to step in and help based on the tasks that
roll up to the main task.
Once you've created one WBS for a task,
you'll be able to use it on other projects
and easily tweak it based on project variables.
What other project work will you have going at the same time?
If you're working with a team of people
who are working on multiple projects,
you're going to want to be sure you have a complete picture
of each person's availability.
If they're responsible for other projects,
you'll want to discuss key dates to avoid
so you don't make the mistake of double booking
and stressing out or upsetting your team.
What important dates do you need to block out?
Your plan will crumble as soon as you
hit a day that doesn't work for your team or your clients.
Check schedules on both sides of the fence,
and be sure to account for holidays, closings, vacations,
meetings, and any other possible date that could cause outages.
If you get ahead of that kind of information
before you commit to a plan, you won't
have to freak out about delays and risks due to a missed
meeting or deadline.
As soon as you're comfortable with your plan,
take some time to review it and all of those assumptions
with your team.
It can be a short, relaxed meeting
to work out the overall process, deliverables, responsibilities,
timing, and anything else under the sun that could impact
the success of the project.
As a team, you should be able to agree on what's going to work.
And when you have everyone's buy in on the overall approach,
you'll be one step closer to having
a plan that not only looks great but feels
appropriate and workable.
This was just a brief excerpt from TeamGantt's Guide
to Project Planning written by digital project management
consultant, writer, and speaker Brett Harned.
Brett focuses on solving issues that
are important to organizations who
want to produce quality digital projects in harmony.
Click the link in the description
to download the full guide for free
so you can plan your projects more efficiently than ever
before.
And if you like this video and want to see more,
don't forget to click the Like button
and subscribe to our channel.
Thanks.
I'll see you next time.
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