What is Project Management Plan? How to Create it?

The project management plan is a written document that displays project details with all the necessary elements. But it's different from a project report. Instead, a project management plan creates and documents all the details before starting the project, including project description, cost estimation, required resources, date or days of completion, scheduled delivery, etc. To become a product manager, a project management plan is essential knowledge one has to gain during the management study.

What is Project Management Plan?

Before starting a project, the manager creates the management plan after collecting the data from the project team and stakeholders. A project management plan is the baseline of any project as it expresses how it is executed, controlled, and delivered within the stipulated time frame. Project management, therefore, is the detailed documentation that includes a baseline, subsidiary management plan, and different planning inputs.

The project management plan is a partial copy of a project because the manager has to update the data as the project progresses and moves to completion. In this document, a manager has to enter the step-by-step project details and cost estimation, and if the budget exceeds, he needs to clarify the reasons. In contrast, even he has to enter the cause if the project gets delayed. To make a proper project management plan, a manager has to show his capability to understand the process, observe the progress, and enter all the entries during the process. Further, he needs to enter clarification if anything unexpected happens and delays the process. At last, the plan shows how successfully the project is completed and delivered on time.

What is the Importance of a Project Management Plan?

A project manager knows the depth of effort required to create a project management plan. It's not merely a document, but it has tremendous value in terms of the delivery of the project successfully. Hence, a project management plan needs a solid planning base, and the manager needs to focus on every aspect, including planning, execution, control, scope, risks, and delivery. Precisely, the document will deal with planning details, resource detail, cost details, resources details involved in the project, and the estimation of the completion of the project. So, the plan is essential because of its value. Here is the importance -

It provides clear documentation of planning

Project management planning is essential as the documents show you the detailed picture of the planning, the base, the resources, the budget, and the scheduled delivery. In a nutshell, it's the detailed documentation that considers a baseline paper that contains essential data regarding the project.

It provides the project scope in detail

A project management plan highlights many issues relevant to the project, and project scope is among them. This document clearly mentions the expectations of stakeholders so that in the growing stage, everything must be clear to everyone.

An organized approach

A project management plan contains all the details that help the project team to follow the instructions and gradually move to the several stages. In addition, it'll make an organized approach toward completing the project.

It defines several stages

An effective project management plan breaks into different parts, including deliverables, goals, executions, etc. Once the project manager understands the several stages, it'll help to follow the guidelines for the completion.

It creates a teamwork

An effective project management plan expresses various departments' roles and distributes the duty and responsibilities. Hence, it helps to create a team that runs under flexible supervision and follows orders accordingly.

These benefits are thus helpful for the entire project team to understand their goals and functions accordingly.

How to Develop Project Management Plan?

In any industry, manufacturing or corporate, an effective project management plan needs several steps. Here, we'll describe it in 12 steps to cover the essential aspects like quality deliverables within time and budget. Here we go -

Step 1: Gather required keynotes from stakeholders

The planning process starts with gathering the necessary data from stakeholders. To deliver the best quality product to your stakeholders, you need to collect their requirements first and gradually move with the data to carry out the project on time. Further, the planning section can be fruitful with effective communication with your project team.

Step 2: Display the scope in the project planning document

Here project scope defines the answer to a few essential questions, including what the team needs to deliver the project on time or what are problems the stakeholders trying to solve. These are baseline questions, and find the answer to develop the project description. In addition, the project manager should understand the limitations of the project before deciding on the goals.

Step 3: Breakdown the structure

It needs to break the project scope into smaller parts so that it'll be in a more manageable state. Further, the breakdown will help you to assign the resources and distribute the roles and responsibilities. Planning and coordination impact a lot in this step.

Step 4: Project activities display

In this step, the overall activities will be shown as per the progressive stage of the project.

Step 5: Alignment of the project activities

Once the activities are displayed, it's time to align the project with several stages. The purpose of the step is to reduce the cycle time and stay ahead in competitive advantage.

Step 6: Estimation of cost, resources, and duration

Apt estimation is crucial for any project. Further, it helps to calculate the project duration and fix the budget along with the resource availability

Step 7: Divide resources based on skill and package

The diverse workforce has different skill levels and has its own package. In this step, the manager will divide the job roles among the assigned resources based on their package and skill. Here manager needs to divide the department and the head of the department to run the function correctly.

Step 8: Back up plans to face industry challenges

There should always be a plan B to overcome sudden challenges. A backup plan can strengthen the existing plan and helps to fight back during any project stage. Further, plan B should create to support the project's objective and not allow stagnant in any phase during the project's development.

Step 9: Measures of performance baseline

After the division of work and responsibility, a manager must measure the performance level of an individual employee. It's necessary to execute the whole plan as staff should show their talent and work to develop the project. Thus, the performance baseline helps the manager evaluate the project's overall growth and determine the scheduled delivery without delay.

Step 10: Building the subsidiary plans

Every project management plan consists of a few subsidiary plans that help to grow during the execution. These are -

• Scope management plan

• Schedule management plan

• Cost management plan

• Quality management plan

• Resource management plan

• Communication management plan

• Risk management plan

• Procurement management plan

• Stakeholder management plan

• Requirements management plan

• Change management plan

• Configuration management plan

Step 11: Documented all data

It documents all the data necessary to cross-check during the project's development. Once it's in pen and paper, it's easy to follow and check when required.

Step 12: Create a knowledge baseline

A few organizations emphasize experienced managers because their experience makes them leaders. So, knowledge baseline is also a crucial part that the head of the organization will decide who can take the challenges and perform the best in any worst situation.

Conclusion

The above-noted 12 steps help create an effective project management plan. However, a manager can face different situations while drafting the procedure and must include some more points based on the current scenario around him. It’s the primary object of the project management plan that needs to be improved as per the project's progress, the situational demand, and other aspects that can influence the final draft.