How to PLAN your Project's Map and Timing for the Best Execution and Schedule
The purpose of this blog post is to cover PLAN from the MPM model, which is about defining how the project is going to be completed and the schedule for its completion. The PLAN part is one of the three parts in the MPM model that is performed on a daily and weekly basis as the project proceeds.
PLAN is performed on a daily and weekly basis
The Project Manager Plans the Map and Timing
Imagine you have to buy a vehicle and it’s like a small project. And you followed the steps to INITIATE your project, so you have your best start to the greatest probability of project success.
Now weekly you are following the steps to LEAD the Motive and People and CONTROL the Things and Money.
Just imagine in a couple of months, you are celebrating with your vehicle expert friend who helped you and you find yourself saying, “that was actually a fun little project and very successful, I must say.”
How do you get to that successful end-state, where you had the best execution and a realistic, achievable, and enjoyable schedule? And all while using the least amount of your time?
PLAN for your best execution and most realistic and achievable schedule
Success is small daily and weekly habits
As with LEAD and CONTROL, PLAN is also about doing specific PM habits each week. They don’t have to take a lot of time, but you need to do them.
Remember one of our goals at Simple PM Strategies is to show you the way to do Project Management using the least amount of your time?
Project Management PLAN is the Map and Timing
The way to use the least amount of your time is to do some small habits each week to keep on top of things, to avoid creating major issues that then take more of your time to resolve because they have gotten to a certain point. Make sense?
If you followed the weekly steps at the end of each section for LEAD and followed the weekly steps at the end of each section for CONTROL, you found it didn’t take too long, and you helped you feel on top of both of those parts now. All good.
Your next set of weekly PM tasks is around the work to PLAN the Map and Timing for your project, the purpose of this article. So, let’s get started.
If you want a refresher on the components of the charter, or why do it in the first place, check out these other articles.
The next section is a quick one-page review of the MPM model to refresh the context of where we are and then we’ll dive into the details of PLAN.
MPM Model Quick Review
In our project management MPM model, there are 5 parts:
- INITIATE, which involves creating an overview of your project before you get started,
- LEAD, which looks at why you are doing the project and the people that are going to help and be affected by it,
- CONTROL, which is where you shape and manage the outcomes of the project,
- PLAN, which looks at how everything fits together and timing, and
- TRANSITION, which covers how your project outcomes continue to work after the project is done.
The project management MPM model has 5 main parts
Each part of the model always involves all of the other parts as well, but the label for the part tells us our intent and focus at this point in time, indicating what aspect we are emphasizing, and the lens through which we are looking at our project.
This article then is about the PLAN part, which is planning the approach and schedule for how the pieces are accomplished to ensure the project completes when it is expected and within the budget expected, allowing us to lead most effectively.
Project Management PLAN is the Map and Timing
What is in PLAN?
PLAN answers the general questions of “Where?” and “When” which for managing projects is the “Map” and “Timing”.
“Map” is covered in two sections: 1. Methodology, and 2. Approach.
“Timing” is covered in two sections: 1. Schedule, and 2. Milestones.
Each section first explains the project item, then brings in the example of the personal vehicle purchase project to help illustrate the concept of the project item and finishes with suggested daily and weekly habits.
A vehicle purchase is a personal example of a project.
Map
The “map” is the route your project is taking to complete the deliverables. Basically, it is creating a path that connects how all of the deliverables are completed, from the beginning to the end of the project.
The “map” is how your project executes.
“Map” is the methodology and approach for the project
1. Methodology
The methodology is template for how your kind of project is typically done. You may not be able to find a methodology that you can follow that matches your project, but if you can find one, this is where it comes in.
Methodologies can cover the gamut, from very minimal and high-level to very detailed and extensive.
Methodology for Your Vehicle Purchase Project
For the vehicle purchase project example, here are some examples of different methodologies:
- Example of car buying methodology from Edmunds:
- Research vehicles and features
- Get preapproved for a loan
- Plan your trade-in
- Locate and test-drive the car
- Check sale price and warranties
- Review the deal and dealer financing
- Close the deal
- Take delivery
- Example of car-buying methodology from Carfax:
- Decide what type of vehicle you want
- Start searching
- Find out what the vehicle is worth
- Take a test drive
- Get a pre-purchase inspection
- Get a VIN Check
- Get the history
- Questions you should ask
- Negotiate the price
- Get car insurance
- Finalize the sale
A methodology is a sequence of steps, not tips
Notice these two lists are steps, not tips. Tips are not necessarily in an order or sequence, because they are suggestions or helpful things to think about.
A methodology is a sequence of dependent steps to get from the beginning of a process to the end.
Your project is a process of steps, with partial or full dependencies between the steps.
Some of the steps can be done in parallel. Some steps are sequential or linear, meaning that a step cannot be started until one or more steps before it are completed. Some steps can be started when the steps before it are partially completed, or one aspect of the prior steps are completed.
Methodologies are developed after someone has been through a process a number of times.
Simple PM Strategies is taking you through a methodology for how to create and manage your project.
A methodology is a framework for execution
A methodology is a framework you use to develop your own project approach which starts with that template set of steps and then you create a map from beginning to end using your specific project pieces.
How you use the methodology changes over time
You use the methodology as a starting point to develop your own customized approach for how your project map proceeds from beginning to end.
It is valuable to review over the template or methodology upon which your project approach is based at times throughout your project to ensure nothing new has come up.
In other words, your interpretation of the methodology to suit your project purposes is a point in time based on what you know at that time. You leave certain parts out or emphasize other aspects based on what you know then.
As your project proceeds your knowledge about what you are accomplishing and the steps that are needed can change and therefore items that you previously left out in your interpretation of the methodology may need to be brought back into the project approach.
Therefore, a review of the methodology at periodic points is advisable.
Weekly habits for Methodology
The methodology that your project approach is based on does not need a weekly review. It probably only needs a review every month, unless your project approach has recently gone through a major change.
If there are no dramatic changes to your project approach, then 30-minute review every one to two months is sufficient.
If your project has been through a major change in the approach or steps, then it is a good idea to go back to the methodology you are following to verify if there are any things to bring forward which were left out before.
2. Approach
The approach is the set of steps through your project from beginning to end using your project’s specific deliverables and is based on the methodology you are following.
The approach that is in the charter is based on what is known very early on in the project but as more knowledge is gained, adjustments may be necessary.
Start with the deliverable set from CONTROL
To create the first approach, start with the deliverable set that you created in CONTROL. Map out the project from beginning to end. When that deliver set is completed that satisfies the project objectives.
Each time you review the approach bring in the methodology and combine that with the deliverables to create the unique approach that your project plan follows.
The approach may need frequent, weekly adjustments based on the progress of the deliverables.
Approach for Your Vehicle Purchase Project
In your vehicle purchase project, an example of approach could be:
- Price range established
- Vehicle choices decided
- List of dealerships to visit created
- Final vehicle choices established
- Vehicle chosen and options decided
- Vehicle purchased
You can start with the initial set developed during INITIATE, and add in additional steps based on what you know now that are necessary for project completion.
Notice that the approach steps for the vehicle purchase example is different from the two methodologies for the vehicle purchase example shown in the Methodology section above.
Refer to the methodology and deliverables
It’s a good idea to refer to your methodology as you refine your approach to learn from those who have done what you are doing multiple times.
Refer to your methodology as you are getting started, and on a weekly basis as your project is proceeding and deliverables and steps are evolving and changing.
The value of a methodology is that is serves as a kind of checklist to ensure that your approach includes all of the required pieces and steps.
I received my professional engineering designation based on work in methodologies, specifically for IT projects. It was unusual because normally a P.Eng. is based on more tangible, quantifiable outcomes; but this is one of my areas of expertise.
I have been involved in creating many methodologies over the years in every organization I have worked for such as EDS and IBM, and smaller firms as well and one thing I have learned over the years working in defining methodologies is that they are a work in progress and never done. The knowledge and environment they are based on is always evolving and changing.
Your Approach and Methodology are a point in time
Your project approach is based on a methodology that is constantly evolving and therefore it is important to ensure that you are basing your approach on methodologies that are updated with the most recent knowledge and material including recent advances in technology.
Weekly habits for Approach
Reviewing and adjusting the approach is one area that absorbs a lot of your time during the week.
You have to guard against it consuming too much of your time because the danger is to spend too much time adjusting it to make it perfect past the point of diminishing returns. In other words, additional detail does not measurable help your project.
You have to guard against too much insignificant tweaking and adjusting. Your approach is never perfect. Get it to the point where you can meet the project end date and milestones, and the team is comfortable with the dates and deliverable work efforts and then call it good for that week.
Early each week, when you have at least 30 minutes of quiet time, review over the approach and how the deliverables are being created, their dependencies and sequence.
Look for areas where deliverables can be done coincidentally or simplified yet still meet the project objectives.
These ideas become your input or prompts for ideas in your weekly project team meeting. Use these as conversational seeds to inspire your project team to look for efficiencies or ways of completing your project sooner or gaining some contingency time. Contingency time is covered under the Schedule section.
Timing
The “timing” in your project includes both the schedule and the milestones.
Project Management “Timing” includes the schedule and milestones
1. Schedule
The schedule is where you impose dates and calendar events on your approach.
Developing the schedule, as you may expect, is iterative between the deliverables and approach.
In an ideal world, you firstly determine what deliverables you need, the effort and duration for each, and secondly, layout the approach based on the deliverable order and dependence for completion, and thirdly layer on dates and timeframes and magically you have a perfect schedule.
Well, like all things in business that move from the classroom to the real world, rarely does it happen like that.
Sometimes the schedule projects an end-date too far past the required end date, so deliverables need to be simplified, changed, or completed in parallel.
Sometimes key milestones end up conflicting with other events and the approach has to be moved around to accommodate the dates.
Developing a schedule involves give and take between the deliverables, approach, and schedule, special skill-set availability, financial constraints, and so on.
The schedule is one of those items that can consume a lot of time to optimize and so you have to be guarded about wanting to make things to perfect.
As a manager wearing the hat of the project manager, one of the things you are looking for as you are optimizing your schedule is where you can gain some float or contingency time in your schedule.
This is extra reserve time, such as a few days or weeks, before key milestones are due, or before the expected project end date, that is available for you and the team to use, if some deliverables or tasks inadvertently take longer than expected. This allows for extra time to be used without impacting key milestones or the project end date.
The schedule imposes dates on the approach
Schedule for Your Vehicle Purchase Project
In the vehicle purchase project, durations for the test drives and researching financing options are two items that initially may result in an end date later than what your objectives state, conflicting with a required, earlier possession date.
One way to resolve this is to reduce the number of test drives or to schedule your critical resource, the automotive expert, to accompany you for additional test drives on one outing. Another way to shorten the time frame is to do a better job of planning a more effective schedule for dealership visits for the test drives.
Researching financing options can be sped up by outsourcing to someone else, such as a contracted resource, to research for you, or paying an online service to provide a number of alternatives that meet your specific criteria.
Adjusting the schedule by varying the approach, deliverables, and skill sets available, which are only three of the criteria that can be manipulated, involves an iteration through many alternatives to arrive at an optimum balance amongst the variables.
Weekly habits for the Schedule
On a weekly basis, early in the week, allocate 30 minutes to review the project schedule looking for risks, challenges, or opportunities to complete tasks or deliverables sooner.
You will find that a frequent review provides familiarity that helps during the project team meetings or in discussions with management regarding options available for reducing time in the schedule or moving around the completion of deliverables.
2. Milestones
Milestones are dates that are important to stakeholders, to the project completion or to integration with other initiatives external to the project.
I have always included a list of milestones in the charter and these become points of focus for stakeholders to measure whether or not the project is on progress.
A smaller project may only have a half-dozen milestones. Larger projects can have many more, especially for an incremental or agile based project.
To create the milestone table, start with the set of deliverables, narrow it down to an important subset that stakeholders can relate to and then add in the dates from the schedule for each milestone.
Milestones for Your Vehicle Purchase Project
For the vehicle purchase project, the following milestone table can be used:
Project milestone examples
In the milestone table above, I left out the deliverable “List of Dealerships to Visit Created” because while this is critical to the project manager, it may not be as relevant or important to stakeholders and may be considered an intermediate or unnecessary date to be aware of.
Use stakeholders as input to decide on milestones
Deciding which milestones to include does not have a lot of hard and fast rules.
I usually start with the set of deliverables and based on what my stakeholders might be concerned about and then reduce the set to just the essentials, getting feedback from some of the key stakeholders for a final verification.
Remember that if your schedule, approach or deliverables change, the milestone dates may need updating as well, so keep the set to a minimum because they usually have a lot of visibility to all of your stakeholders.
Some stakeholders or executive also like to see the projected milestone date versus the actual date as a measure of the project’s ability to meet its dates, so be wary of this as well, and that then creates an additional column in the table above. And there’s another reason not to include too many milestones.
Weekly habits for Milestones
Spend about 5 minutes reviewing over the milestone dates coincident with the weekly schedule review.
The milestones are usually visible project dates, and in some cases I have found, the only dates particular stakeholders care about.
Your review is to identify any that need communication in the upcoming week, and also to identify any that need to be raised with your sponsor or discussed with the project team regarding concerns about timeliness of completion.
Choose them carefully because if your schedule and the corresponding milestone dates are changing often, those date changes require communication to the stakeholders, and if dates are slipping, it is usually a communication that requires explanation, and elicits pointed questions, rather than one that receives accolades and applause.
Summary
The PLAN is where the lens of the calendar dates and approach constraints are applied to the deliverables.
Though the PLAN elements speak to the sequence and order of deliverables and the application of dates, iteration usually involves all other aspects of the project, including many items in LEAD such as risks, availability of skill sets and change management, as well as items in CONTROL such as objectives, requirements, deliverables and the availability of funds.
On a weekly basis this is a very important area for the manager to spend about an hour early in the week reviewing where things are at and listing some options for discussion with stakeholders or project team members.
Action Steps / Apply This Knowledge
- Review your project approach, without looking at the schedule, in other words without date constraints, just from a standpoint of how the deliverables are connected. Look for areas where deliverables may have dependencies related to skill set constraints that are causing the dependency. This provides an opportunity to get items done sooner by applying more hours of a particular skill set.
- Review the project through the lens of the schedule and ask yourself if there are milestones that can be delivered coincidentally or deliverables which can be started sooner, if date constraints are removed.
- Set aside an hour early in the week to review over the deliverables, approach, and schedule and make a goal to find at least two areas where the schedule can be improved. Bring these up with the team each week as a brainstorming idea to get them thinking about urgency and getting things done sooner.
Learn More
In an upcoming workshop, for which you can subscribe to be notified when it’s available, we cover project management examples in detail.
Also, in the workshop, we go into greater depth on many of the project management items in the Project Management MPM model. As well you can ask questions about any of your current projects during the Q&A.
PLAN - Main
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