Project planning and project management can be useful for many things besides digital projects, however they are particularly useful for digital projects because digital projects tend to have many different components. You have to worry about people, funding, schedules, and technology. Any one of those things by themselves would be difficult to manage without a plan of attack. Dealing with all of them at once requires a lot of attention and planning.
Project planning and project management can be summed up in 5 steps. These should be done in order. This is a brief overview of the project process, and by no means does it cover the whole topic. If you are interested in reading more about project management, I highly suggest The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Project Management Course by Helen S. Cooke and Karen Tate (ISBN 0-07-143897-1).
1) Context
Once you have been assigned a digital project, develop your context. Why is the project important? Who wants it done? Who is involved and why? Write down the context of the project (Who, what, where, when, how and why).
2) Estimate work
Once you have your goals for the project, and your affected parties, you then need to estimate your work. This consists of developing tasks that need to be done, defining who will do the task, and getting that person to define how long it will take them to do that task. You may be able to say a project will take you a year, but you won’t know for sure until you know how long each individual task will take you. Write out the tasks, their durations, and make sure to note what tasks are dependent on other tasks.
3) Get it approved
Take your context document and your work estimate document to the person who assigned the project to you. Make sure they understand how much the project is going to take (time and money). They may decide that it’s not worth it. However, if they decide it’s worth it, then it’s time for project implementation.
4) Manage scope, schedule, and resources
During project implementation, your job is to make sure everything is in scope, in schedule, and under budget. You manage your scope (what the project entails), by keeping a close eye on your schedule and resources. If you suddenly need more or less time or resources, that’s an indication that your scope has changed. To manage schedule, you just have to make sure that tasks are starting and finishing on time. If one task is late, it may push other tasks back. To manage resources, keep an eye on your budget and your schedule. If your schedule is getting pushed back, you may need more people (which may mean you need more money).
5) Closeout
Before a project is done, you must close out the project. Go to all the people who wanted the project to happen and verify that they are happy with the product. Think of it like a business asking their customer if they were happy with the experience. Then, you can collect any project documentation, make note of any lessons learned, and archive the documentation somewhere that future project managers can access it.
Project planning and project management can be summed up in 5 steps. These should be done in order. This is a brief overview of the project process, and by no means does it cover the whole topic. If you are interested in reading more about project management, I highly suggest The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Project Management Course by Helen S. Cooke and Karen Tate (ISBN 0-07-143897-1).
1) Context
Once you have been assigned a digital project, develop your context. Why is the project important? Who wants it done? Who is involved and why? Write down the context of the project (Who, what, where, when, how and why).
2) Estimate work
Once you have your goals for the project, and your affected parties, you then need to estimate your work. This consists of developing tasks that need to be done, defining who will do the task, and getting that person to define how long it will take them to do that task. You may be able to say a project will take you a year, but you won’t know for sure until you know how long each individual task will take you. Write out the tasks, their durations, and make sure to note what tasks are dependent on other tasks.
3) Get it approved
Take your context document and your work estimate document to the person who assigned the project to you. Make sure they understand how much the project is going to take (time and money). They may decide that it’s not worth it. However, if they decide it’s worth it, then it’s time for project implementation.
4) Manage scope, schedule, and resources
During project implementation, your job is to make sure everything is in scope, in schedule, and under budget. You manage your scope (what the project entails), by keeping a close eye on your schedule and resources. If you suddenly need more or less time or resources, that’s an indication that your scope has changed. To manage schedule, you just have to make sure that tasks are starting and finishing on time. If one task is late, it may push other tasks back. To manage resources, keep an eye on your budget and your schedule. If your schedule is getting pushed back, you may need more people (which may mean you need more money).
5) Closeout
Before a project is done, you must close out the project. Go to all the people who wanted the project to happen and verify that they are happy with the product. Think of it like a business asking their customer if they were happy with the experience. Then, you can collect any project documentation, make note of any lessons learned, and archive the documentation somewhere that future project managers can access it.
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