What are the planning stages of a project?

Although planning may seem tedious and restrictive, it remains an indispensable pillar of success for every project. Discover in this article the key steps to successful planning, as well as tips on how to become a seasoned planner and simplify the process.

Steps to successful project planning

Generally speaking, project planning consists of :

Define project objectives,
plan the tasks to be accomplished,
allocate the necessary resources,
identify risks,
consider the monitoring indicators and communication tools to be put in place.

To ensure the success of your projects, we recommend that you take the following steps:

Define objectives and understand project scope and deliverables:

Determine the project's goal : What is the project's purpose and what problem or need does it aim to solve?
Define expected results: What are the deliverables or end products expected at the end of the project?
Establish project scope : What are the project's limits and boundaries in terms of functionalities, features, processes or stakeholders involved?
Identify the various deliverables : What are the intermediate products or specific results to be delivered over the course of the project?

Define and list project activities :

Identify the main tasks required to achieve the project objectives.
Break tasks down into sub-tasks (smaller, more manageable activities).

Define activity scheduling and milestones:

Identify dependencies between activities, i.e. activities that must be completed before others can begin.
Create a Gantt chart to represent the order and sequence of activities.
Identify important project milestones, such as key milestones or major deliveries, in order to measure progress and assess the achievement of objectives.

Define the resources needed to complete all tasks:

Identify the human resources needed, including the skills and roles required.
Determine the material resources required, such as equipment, tools or infrastructure.
Assess the financial resources required, including the budgets allocated to the project.

Estimate the duration of all activities:

Estimate the time needed to complete each project activity.
Consider dependencies between activities and resource constraints when estimating duration.
Use appropriate estimation techniques, such as team members' expertise or your organization's historical data.

schedule :

Create a detailed calendar that defines the chronological order of activities.
Include estimated durations, milestones and dependencies in schedule.
Identify the resources assigned to each activity and allocate the time needed to complete them.

Allocate resources :

Ensure that the necessary human, material and financial resources are available at the right times during the project.
Establish a load plan to ensure their availability and efficient use.

Estimating costs and budgeting :

Estimate the costs associated with each project activity, including human resources, materials, equipment, overheads, etc.
Consolidate cost estimates to establish an overall budget for the project.
Monitor actual costs against budget and make adjustments if necessary.

💡Goodto know

The Project Breakdown Structure, also known as the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), is a technique commonly used in project management. It enables a project to be broken down into manageable tasks and sub-tasks. By assigning roles and responsibilities to each task, and organizing project deliverables, the WBS facilitates project management. It thus helps project managers transform a complex project into smaller, more manageable work items.

To break down complex projects into manageable tasks and sub-tasks, methods such as the critical path method and tools such as GANTT and PERT diagrams can be used. The critical path method consists in identifying the sequence of activities whose delay affects the whole project. This helps to understand the flexibility of the project and to identify the activities to be prioritized.

Why use Project Monitor as a project planning tool?

Given the crucial but sometimes tedious importance of project planning, we strongly encourage you to take advantage of software to simplify this complex task. We recommend our Project Monitor software for efficient project management.

Project MonitorProject Portfolio Management (PPM) software will help you :

Save time planning your projects with project templates.
Ensure that project goals are aligned with your organization's overall objectives.
Optimal planning of all resources.
Improve communication and collaboration by centralizing all project information in one place.

As Heppner's Project Manager explains, our solution will give you an overview of all your projects, and provide you with a better view of resource planning, for example:

| "We had a tool to see past workloads, but we had no vision of the workload to be planned.

We were unable to factualize and anticipate the workload in relation to the projects to be carried out.

We had a tendency to accept all projects, despite our teams' warnings: we're not sure, but it's going to happen!

Now we have a better view of resource planning."

Clément Lalanne, Group Projects Manager, Heppner

If, like Heppner's Project Manager, you're having trouble gaining an overview of your resource planning, contact our experts or ask for a personalized demo.

Project Monitorproject portfolio management software

All the tools you need to plan and manage project portfolios. All in one software package.

Discover the features of Project Monitor, PPM software tailored to the needs of PMOs, CIOstructures with more than 50 employees or managing complex projects.

Easily manage over 100 active projects and pilot your action plans. Get a complete overview of what's going on in your project portfolios: resources, schedulebudget, dashboards.

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