Morclean''s Project Journey - Phase 2: Project Planning

Week 2 / Phase 2: Project Planning

Project Planning is often described as being at the heart of the project life cycle, requiring complete diligence in order to lay out a solid roadmap. It tells everyone involved where we’re going and how we’re going to get there. This where our project plans are documented, deliverables and requirements defined, and the project schedule is created.

The purpose of the project planning phase is to:

• Establish business requirements
• Establish cost
• Establish resources plans
• Obtain management approval and proceed to the next phase...

While the basic processes of project planning are:

• Scope planning
• Preparation of the work breakdown structure 
• Resource planning
• Budget planning 
• Procurement planning 
• Risk management 
• Quality planning 
• Communication planning 

We begin creating a solid plan to guide the team and keep them on time and budget. This plan gives the team direction for producing quality outputs, communicating to stakeholders, managing suppliers, and handling risks,

The project plan also prepares our team for any obstacles they might encounter throughout the course of the project, which also helps them understand the cost, scope, and timeframes allocated.

During the planning stage, the scope of the project is defined with the possibility of changing the scope if the project demands it, but only with the approval of the project manager.

Another critical aspect of the planning stage is risk mitigation, where the project manager is responsible for drawing on past data to identify potential risks and develop a strategy to minimize them.

Every factor mentioned above is essential to the success of our projects, which then leads on to the next stage of our Project Journey = Phase 3: Project Execution - which we will cover in week #3.

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