| Articles » Ten Things to Look For When Reviewing a Project Plan |
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Ten Things to Look For When Reviewing a Project Plan |
| by Dave Paradi |
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| When you are given a project plan to review, here are ten things
you should look for to determine the quality level of the plan. |
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| Calendar Setup |
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| If you are looking at a plan, check to see when the next statutory
holiday will be and see if any of the tasks are scheduled to be done
on that date. Also, check that the project calendar has the proper
number of working hours per day. If these two aspects of the project
calendar are not set properly, the project schedule will be incorrect
and lead to problems managing the project. Make sure that the project
calendar is set to include statutory holidays and that the number
of working hours per day is set to the number of hours per day used
when estimating. |
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| Resource Setup |
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| Check the task list to see if tasks have a cost associated with
them. Task cost will reflect the resource cost of materials and sometimes
people as well. |
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| Material Resources: Ask to see a resource list and check to see
that each material resource has a cost assigned to it. If cost is
not assigned to each material resource or material resources are missing,
there needs to be some other way to track project costs - ask to see
that method. |
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| People Resources: For people resources, it is also important to
check that the group that the resource is part of (ie. the department)
is identified. If a people resource is not part of a group, it will
not be possible to report tasks by department in order to secure resource
commitments from functional managers. Add these two aspects to each
resource if they are missing. |
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| Task Length Too Long |
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| Tasks need to be broken down to a size where an accurate estimate
of task duration is possible. For example, for a project longer than
three months, a five day task duration maximum allows tracking to
be done each week. Issues can then be caught earlier. Check to see
if there are tasks that have a duration longer than five days. A task
with a duration longer than five days will be hard to track accurately
and may lead to a significant issue when the task goes off track and
it is not realized until the end of the original estimate. For projects
less than three months long, you should be looking for shorter maximum
durations (three days for 2-3 month projects, 2 days for 1-2 month
projects and 8 hours for projects less than one month long). If you
see tasks that are longer, ask to have them broken into sub-tasks
that have durations of five days or less. |
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| Linkages Missing or at Incorrect Level |
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| One of the greatest advantages of project management software is
the ability to link tasks to show predecessor and successor dependencies.
This allows the project schedule to reflect that certain tasks can
start only after other tasks have been completed. Check to see that
tasks have been linked and that the linkages appear only at the lowest
level tasks, not the summary level tasks. You will be able to identify
a summary level task because it will have sub-tasks that are listed
below it and the sub-tasks are usually indented in the project plan.
Without task linkages, you cannot determine the dependencies and that
will make it very hard to see what effect an issue early in the project
will have on the final project end date. Linkages at upper level tasks
do not give enough detail for project team members to properly see
task sequence and can cause problems in software if there are linkages
also at lowest level tasks. Ensure that linkages between tasks exist
at the lowest level tasks only. |
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| Resources Assigned to Tasks |
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| Check that each lowest level task has a resource assigned to it
and that resources are not assigned to summary level tasks. If resources
are not assigned to tasks, it will be very difficult to track progress
because you will not know who to ask about each task. If resources
are assigned at summary level tasks, project management software will
calculate a double cost - once for each task and then again for the
summary task resource cost. Make sure that resources are assigned
only to lowest level tasks in the project plan. |
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| Hard Date Constraints Used |
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| Check to see if the plan has set start or end dates on tasks. By
typing in the start or end date, the task has a hard date constraint
set. A hard date constraint will cause significant problems when trying
to calculate the critical path. The way you can tell if hard date
constraints exist is to check if all the tasks have different start
and finish dates, but there are few, if any tasks that have dependencies.
Dates should be calculated by software using the task dependencies
and task duration. Using hard date constraints greatly diminishes
the usefulness of project management software because the flow through
to subsequent tasks of previous actual task data will stop when it
hits a hard date constraint. Remove hard date constraints and replace
them with proper linkages between tasks. |
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| Resources are Overallocated |
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| Ask for a resource allocation report and look for resources who
are scheduled to work more hours in a day than the standard number
of hours in the regular work day. By overallocating a resource, there
is less likelihood that the tasks assigned to that resource will be
done on time and the productivity of that person will suffer as a
result. However, sometimes a resource appears overallocated because
they have been assigned to a task where in actual fact, they will
only be overseeing a task which will be done by other resources. Make
changes to the project plan to ensure that resources are working a
reasonable number of hours per day. |
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| Milestones are Missing or Not Linked in the Plan |
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| To see a milestone in a task list, check for tasks that have a zero
duration. This is the correct way to denote a milestone. In a Gantt
chart view, you should see milestones as diamonds in the graphical
part of the chart. Milestone tasks having a duration greater than
zero have been incorrectly defined. Milestones add interim goals for
a project team and without these the project team risks missing the
project end date. Milestones are guideposts that allow for celebration
and rededication to the project. If the milestones are not linked
in the project plan, the team will not know how to reach the milestones
or what tasks start once a milestone is reached. As well, it will
be impossible to identify the critical path. Make sure milestones
are properly identified and linked into the project plan. |
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| Lag Times are Missing |
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| Check to see that lag times in the project have been identified
and accounted for in the project schedule. A lag or waiting time usually
occurs when the team needs approval or is waiting for a piece of information.
There are two ways that lag times would be shown in a plan. One way
is to see tasks that say "Waiting for ..." and there is a duration to
the task but no resource assigned. The other way to identify a lag
is in the predecessor field. It will give the predecessor task number
and then "+ x days" to show the lag time. If these lags are not in
the plan, the schedule will be unrealistically optimistic and the
team will deal with more schedule change than is necessary. Lags also
allow the project team to follow up on items that they are waiting
for and keep the project on track. Make sure that you identify the
lag times and link them in the project plan. |
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| Tracking Does Not Predict the Future |
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| When a project has already been started, check to see if the tracking
of actual data is predicting how the future of the project will look.
If the percentage completion method of tracking is being used, it
assumes that all original task duration estimates are still correct,
which is usually not true. You can tell if the percentage completion
method is being used if you see all predicted finish dates equal the
baseline dates even though the project is not perfectly on track.
The project team should, on a weekly basis, capture the actual work/cost
for each task, compare this with their baseline work/cost and calculate
the remaining work/cost for each task. The project plan should include
a column for Baseline Start and Finish dates and Actual Start and
Finish Dates. This gives the project team the best prediction of when
each task will actually be complete. The project management software
then uses these predicted task completion dates to calculate the impact
on future tasks, updating the predicted start and finish dates of
subsequent tasks. Check the tracking method to ensure that it is predicting
the future state of the project. |
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| By checking for these ten items, you can ensure that the project
plans you use will be more likely to result in successful projects. |
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| For more information about this article, please contact bia™ at info@bia.ca. |
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| © Business Improvement Architects |
