How To Prepare Project Planning

How To Prepare an Effective Daily Project Execution Plan - PM Hut

By Atul Gaur

Importance of planning: A Project Manager needs to plan all the activities required to achieve project deliverables. The latest project planning software are a handy tool and can accommodate a never-ending list of activities. At times a Project Manager is required to have better skills in handling information generated by these software rather than demonstrate his core project management skills. These project management tools if used to generate just the required data in order to plan activities for the next day or two can make project execution more effective. A short duration plan with limited amount of data can make life simpler for any Project Manager. This article intends to guide Project Managers in preparing a daily plan that can help them take control of activities and channelize their efforts in meeting the milestones or project deliverables.

What is a Daily Plan? A daily plan is a consolidated list of activities and should be prepared at least a day in advance for the next day. It should include activities that are planned for the day, and are part of the baseline project plan; it should also include the list of activities that are a result of changes in project scope or backlogs. At this stage, the activities should be further broken down into smaller (measurable and quantifiable) tasks to have a better degree of control on the activities. Breaking the activity to smaller set of tasks will also help in better allocation of resources. Always start with the next most important milestone and work towards its accomplishment.

What should the daily plan include? The daily plan should include the following set of activities:

Review the plan: The daily plan should be prepared a day in advance and reviewed before implementing it. The review process should include the project team members, contractors, and supervisors who would be actually implementing the task. It is a good practice to consider the availability schedule and the resource calendar in order to stream line the plan. If an activity requires a linked coordinating activity and if it has not been carried out, it is advisable to include the coordinating task and not the actual task. For example if a weld setup has to be inspected by a third party quality inspector and he has not been informed, it is likely that he may not turn up and carry out the activity as per the plan. Such coordination tasks are generally not captured during the activity list development process and the daily planning is a good platform to incorporate such activities.

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