Plans

• Purpose
• Defined
  • What is a plan?
  • What is planning?
  • Levels of plan
  • The Project Plan
  • Stage Plans
  • Team Plans
  • Exception Plans
• The PRINCE2 approach
  • Philosophy
  • Prerequisites for planning -
    design the plan
  • Define and analyse the products
• Prerequisites for planning
  • Write the Project Product Description
  • Create the product breakdown structure
  • Write the Product Descriptions
  • Create the product flow diagram
• Identify activities and dependencies
  • Activities
  • Dependencies
• Prepare estimates
• Prepare the schedule
  • Overview
  • Define activity sequence
  • Assess resource availability
  • Assign resources
  • Level resource usage
  • Agree control points
  • Define milestones
  • Calculate total resource requirements and costs
• Analyse the risks
• Document the plan
• Responsibilities

Key sections

• Introduction
• Business case
• Organization
• Quality
• Plans
• Risk
• Change
• Progress
• Introduction to processes
• Starting up a projectDirecting a project
• Initiating a project
• Controlling a stage
• Managing Product Delivery
• Managing a Stage Boundary
• Closing a Project
• Tailoring PRINCE2 to the project environment
• Directing Projects with PRINCE2

The PRINCE2® approach

Prepare the schedule

Assign resources

Using the resource availability and the information from the activity sequence allows the Project Manager to assign resources to activities.
The result will be a schedule that shows the loading of work on each person, and the use of non-human resources.

A useful approach is to allocate resources to those activities with zero slack first (by definition they are on the critical path).
Those activities with the greatest slack are the lowest priority for resource allocation.

It is important that task owners be defined.
If a group needs to complete a task, ask one person from the group to be accountable to the group for that task.

If any of the task owners do not participate in creating the schedule, make sure you check with them first on their availability and willingness to own the task.
Do not assume that putting their names on a plan or schedule will automatically get the work done.
Collaborate, communicate and follow up with each task owner to make sure that they understand what it means to complete the task.

When assigning resources, it is important to re-check the critical path as actual resources assigned may be more or less productive than the assumption made when calculating activity effort and duration.

PRINCE2® is a Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom and other countries.