How long of a read?	< 5 minutes
What level of expertise?	Intermediate
What is the article about?	How to set up a simple and realistic project plan

Introduction:

The Project Team Meeting should have a clear purpose (P), agenda (A), and a lead (L). Meetings s

A project plan is a document which serves as a roadmap to show a project’s goals, the timing, and the deliverables. When creating a project plan, it should contain the project scope and objective. Typically project plans can be represented in the form of a gantt chart.

A gantt chart is a timeline used primarily in project management showing tasks, durations and sequencing (including dependencies or prerequisites) and the expected completion date. Software tools such as MS Project, Smartsheet, JIRA, Trello, and many others can be used to create a project gantt chart. A simple example of a gantt chart is below:

How to start:

When defining your project, it needs to include goals of the project based on client expectations, project phases, tasks, interdependencies (if any), milestones, your team and what role they will take on for each deliverable, and your budget. 

Before a project starts, it is important to gather questions and discuss them with your client. There may be several rounds of discussions for clarification and also to manage risks and expectations. Based on your meetings with the client, an outline or a high level project plan can then be created. Use this outline to assign the who, what, when, and how of the project. You can then gather a high level of effort from your team leads to start a loose timeline and goal end date. Don’t forget to include in the timeline, your client’s approval process and give them time to provide feedback and for your team to address any requested revisions. 

Once your project plan outline is created, you should then sit down with your individual resources to input the details including duration of tasks, breakdown of tasks and milestones, and deliverables. Be sure to include any notes or details for anything that might cause confusion as well as call out any project dependencies. Communication within your team is key during this time. For example if there are any company holidays or any upcoming vacations for your resources, it’s important to make sure these are included as non work days in your project plan. Communication within your internal team also builds trust and helps people to feel included while working toward a common goal of the project delivery.  

Keep it up to date

Once you have published your project plan, be sure to share it with your project team and your client.  Oftentimes, your internal team will be more up to date on the daily project tasks. It might help to set up weekly syncs with your client who will need consistent and constant communication in order to establish a good client/vendor relationship and ensure that your client will understand the project progress and your team’s process.  

LEADERS THOUGHTS

Glenn – A project plan is an important communication tool to align the project team and all other stakeholders to help set expectations and to keep things on track. In the early planning phase it is important to think things through as best you can in your plan and assign people to critical tasks, being sure to get their buy-in/commitment. As the project progresses it is important to keep the plan up to date paying attention to the critical milestones and making sure to keep things on track for project success.

Lauren – Keeping your project plan up to date will be a great organizing tool and motivator to keep your team focused on the goals and milestones that you have set. Creating reminders to check-in with key team members on progress and using those check-ins as time to update the project plan can be a great dual purpose meeting. Checking off tasks will feel so rewarding as you go along in this process! 

Joy – It’s important to have a project plan – think of it as a map to your destination. Without a map, you may wander during the trip and waste a lot of time and money before you arrive at your destination.