Guide to Making a Project Management Plan [ 10+ Best Examples ]

Want to know what’s behind a successful business, a garage full of sports cars as far as the eye could see, and a wonderful pool-side villa? All that success stems from one simple, underestimated, little trick —planning. Planning sets a direction to follow, and in the business world full of crucial projects and cruel deadlines, you and your team will need a guide to follow in the heat of the pressure. Having a project management plan enables you to set goals and practical expectations while facilitating the entire process to give you an advantage — something this guide looks to provide you.

What Is a Project Management Plan?

Before everything else, we first need to establish what a project management plan is. A project management plan allows you to set the flow of a project, assess the resources and funding necessary for the project’s development, and monitoring progress. The usual components of a successful project management plan are usually the following:

Essential Details — knowledge like what the project is, how it will function, and an outline of the entire plan. Knowing these little details can help you assess the number of people needed on a team, the specialists you require, the dependencies of your project, and the funding you need. Establish this as your first need-to-know matter, and everything else will follow.

Schedule of Activities & Duration — How long will the project last? What are the necessary tasks that need to be finished? Knowing the duration of the work, as well as having an understanding of the chronological order of activities (i.e. the schedule) allows you to prepare the team for the long-haul, assess what assignments can’t be done without the previous being completed, so you know in what arrangement you have to finish the tasks, and, most importantly, what the possible hurdles are that you need to be ready for.

Assembling The Team — once you have an idea of the resources you need and the assignments you’ll be giving out, you can now draft a team that you know will benefit the project the most. When you’re looking for team members, look for competent individuals that bring what you need to the table — don’t expect the creation of a quality company logo when you have a team of “experts” that have no concept of editing software and just want to talk about makeup all day.

Assignments — these are the individual tasks that make up the entirety of the project. Breaking the plan down into specified assignments and distributing them to — hopefully — competent staff is how big corporations handle big projects. After all, as Rantan Tata once said; ” If you want to walk fast, walk alone. If you want to walk far, walk together.”

Dependencies — dependencies are the assignments that cannot be started unless its predecessor has been completed. For example, if you’re baking a cake can you put the frosting on the cake before it’s been baked? Can’t you, right? Assess your dependencies, so you don’t waste time by waiting for them to be ready to go. Knowing what can’t be done yet can give you time to do other important tasks of the project.

Budget & Resources — You have an outline of the project? Good. Got your teams assigned? Excellent. Planned out how you’re going to handle this entire thing? Alright. You have a budget ready? Don’t you know how much you’ll need? How about any resources, what do you need? You don’t know either… As lighthearted as that introduction may appear, this is a real dilemma. If you have no idea how much funding you’ll need or the number of resources that you’ll utilize to fuel your project, one of two things could happen; either you overspend, and the project fails because the cost was too high and the returns weren’t keeping up with the expenditure, or your plan is starved of the necessary budget and equipment you need to keep it alive. Don’t let this happen to you.

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Track Your Progression — your project management plan isn’t just a one-point wonder. Not only do you use it as a reference for deadlines and schedules, who is assigned to what, and the amount of funding you can work with, but you can use it as a way of tracking progress for all the aforementioned — who is productive, what assignment is delayed or early, and how the project is doing as a whole.

Steps to Creating a Project Management Plan

Now that you have an idea of what needs to be in a good project management plan, here are these easy-to-follow tips you can follow to help you in your drafting:

1. Determine the Project’s Scope

Set up the boundaries of the project and the responsibilities of each team member. Do this by determining and documenting specific project goals, deliverables, features, functions, tasks, deadlines, and costs.

2. Identify Task Checkpoints

Assignments are the more edible pieces of the whole project, while checkpoints in the project signal the end of a phase. These checkpoints indicated how much of something you’ll need and the estimated resources to be consumed. Knowledge of these things are required when you’re making a plan to come up with a feasible budget.

3. Make a Schedule & List Dependencies

Take your knowledge of the essential details and use it in laying out all the tasks that mark the different phases of the project; link tasks that rely on one another, take into account task dependencies identified and be constantly updated on their status during the project — whether they are early, on time, late, or if the person you assigned to the task has been working on it at all.

4.  Allocate Resources & Keep it Flexible

Afterward, organize the broken down “pieces” of the plan into an established project. The project management plan’s purpose, after all, is to let you work on the project in multiple aspects, and allowing you to bring them back together later on. It isn’t a document you stare at for 5 minutes and never look at again; you refer to your project management plan throughout the assignment’s duration. Keep in mind that the best plans are the ones that are detailed and adaptable.

5. Document Everything

Always keep a detailed Report of anything and everything. You want to make sure you have all the paperwork for each step of the project plan, including schedules, assigned deadlines, times delayed, etc. You’re going to need this should something come up and in making sure no anomalies are found.

 

Project Management Plan Examples

Of course, this could never be examples.com if we cannot provide you with helpful templates and examples you can use in your project management plan making.

1. Project Plan Template

A simple, yet effective template, this 100% customizable project plan can be yours by simply clicking the download button.

2. Minutes of Meeting Master Template

No project can go without constant updates and meeting with your team is a neccesity to get the job done the right way. However, what’s the point of all that discussion and brainstorming if no one is jotting them down for future reference? Never let that happen to you by downloading this meeting minutes template today.

3. Start-Up Checklist Template

Successful project management always starts with preparation. Downloading this start-up checklist template allows to do prepare everything you need before the project even begins — like taking inventory, proper staff assignment, or making sure that snacks are provided so no one complains about it.

4. Business Plan Guidelines Template

Every business needs a guide. Wheter that be for project management, cost effeciency, or general team leadership, having some referene always helps. Hence, downloading this business plan guidelines will give you an edge agaisnt your competition by providing you useful information and a reference in the thick of it all during a major project.

5. Human Resources Management Strategies

HR is a very important part of any business — in fact, the success of a business is defined by how well human resources can find competent employees. Give your HR team a rundown of strategies they can use to — in the future — improve the quality of staff on your project by clicking the download button for this human resources management templates.

6. One Minute Goal Setting Template

Taking a bit of time to set your goals and expectations for a project will give you and your team a sense of direction for your work. Download this one minute goal setting template now and set your course for success.

7. Information System Strategies Checklist

Information strategies isn’t something you get the hang of after the first try alone, it takes time to find the right one for you. With that said, being able to track the strategies you utilize and how effective they are is great for self and project improvement —something this information strategies checklist template can help you with.

8. Strategy Research & Development Template

Research and development for any business, project, or company should not be taken for granted. As Francis Bacon stated in his immortalized quote, “Knowledge is power,” and downloading this strategy research and development template will give you an effective means of gaining reliable knowledge to give you the power to make it rain green paper.

9. Budget Plan

Speaking of green paper, make good use of your budget. Many projects have failed not because they lacked funding, but because the money was carelessly wasted on pricey and ineffective expenditures. This budget plan can help you organize your funding allocations on certain aspects of the plan.

10. Financial Plan

Having a financial plan let’s you calculate the amount of possible income you will for a project’s successful implimentation, the cost and benefit of the plan, and money tracking. Download this template now to aid you on all things money-related.

11. Sample Project Management Plan

This sample project management plan will give you a great idea on what you need to work on as a whole. It is easy to understand and comes from a reliable source so do take a read.

Hopefully, you learned a thing or two about project management or at least found the templates and sample useful. For more articles like this one, browse our website and see if you find something that catches your attention.