A project management plan is a formal, approved document that defines how the project is planned, executed, monitored, controlled and closed.
In this article, we will understand why do we need a project management plan, what is the purpose of the project management plan and what are the various components of the project management plan.
Table of Contents
Project management plan is a document that answers all your “HOW to” questions in the project.
The main purpose of the project management plan is to address the questions, including the following, but not limited to:
and many more such questions …
If you can think of any question that starts with “How”, most likely it is addressed within the project management plan.
Project management plan can be thought of as a manual for the project.
It lets you plan ahead for problems.
It can help to remove ambiguities in the thought process of the project team. The primary purpose of the Project Management Plan is to ensure that the project participants have clear direction. As such, the project management plan should be easily accessible to all the relevant project participants.
It is the key to communication within the project.
A well-developed project management plan can immensely help in managing the project effectively on a day to day basis.
It can be a useful tool for new team members to understand the details and road map of the project.
You can consider project management plan as a compilation of various management plans like scope management plan, schedule management plan, cost management plan, etc.
There is a management plan for each knowledge area. These individual focused plans are known as Subsidiary Plans. The project management plan is a comprehensive document that integrates all the subsidiary plans.
The project management plan also contains the baselines. A baseline is an agreed version of a document, that will be used as the basis for measurement of the performance in the project.
Once the baseline is approved and signed off, it can only be changed through proper change control process.
As the project progresses, you may have to change/ update the subsidiary plans and the project management plan. These changes should be documented, evaluated and approved. Upon approval, the project management plan should be updated to reflect the approved changes.
The project management plan includes the following:
The needs of the project determine which components of the project management plan are needed.
The three baselines, scope baseline, schedule baseline and the cost baselines together form the performance measurement baseline.
The project execution is compared against the performance measurement baseline to measure and manage performance.
The project management plan can be small or big.
It can be formal or informal.
It may be either summary level or detailed. It is up to the project manager to decide how detailed the project management plan should be.
The decision on how the project management plan should be depends a lot on the complexity of the project and the capabilities of the project team. If your team is very experienced and has handled similar projects in the past, then a high-level plan should be adequate. On the other hand, if your team is fairly new, then you might want to have a detailed project management plan.
The planning process group creates the project management plan to achieve the project objectives.
The executing process group carries out work as planned in the project management plan.
Work performance data is analyzed during monitoring and controlling process group to determine whether the project is progressing in line with the project management plan. If the project is found to be deviating from the project management plan, then corrective measures need to be implemented to realign the performance of the project work with the project management plan.
The project is closed in accordance with the project management plan.
The project management plan is a significant document necessary to manage the project.
However, it is important to note that a project uses several other project documents. These are not part of the project management plan. But they are absolutely necessary to manage the project effectively.
Some of the project documents are listed below:
and many more documents …
For a complete list of project management plan components and project documents, I suggest you to take a look at the PMBOK Guide, Table 4-1. Project Management Plan and Project Documents.
Once Project Management Plan is developed in 4.2 Develop Project Management Plan process, it becomes an input to all the remaining 47 processes.
Only two processes do not take the Project Management Plan as an input; they are
I hope you understand the importance of the project management plan. You should not be executing a project without developing a comprehensive set of subsidiary plans and an integrated project management plan.
What is your personal experience? Do you use project management plan in your projects? How detailed it is? What do you include as part of the plan?
Share your thoughts.
I got this lessons learned feedback from a candidate, who wants to remain anonymous. So,…
Project management primarily involves planning, executing and monitoring/ controlling activities. While a project could be…
While you might find extensive content online for the Project Management Professional (PMP) examination, it…
If you do an online search for PMP training programme, you'll find hundreds of options…
On 19 Mar 2019, I received a phone call from Venkataraghavan. Venkat attended my PMP…
Haitham Al-Kahlani feels the PMP examination is "Scary". I met Haitham at PM Master Prep's…