What is Project Planning?

Project Planning is a carefully thought through and organized effort to accomplish a specific (and usually) one-time effort, for example, construct a building or implement a new computer system. Project planning includes developing a project plan, which includes defining project goals and objectives, specifying tasks or how goals will be achieved, what resources are needed, and associating budgets and timelines for completion. It also includes implementing the project plan, along with careful controls to stay on the "critical path", that is, to ensure the plan is being managed according to plan. Project planning usually follows major phases (with various titles for these phases), including feasibility study, planning, implementation, evaluation and support/maintenance. 

Why use Project Planning?

The task of project planning is to prevent projects failing and to ensure that they are completed on-time and on-budget. There are many reasons for project failure, but in using a recognised project planning method, these problems can be circumvented by guiding the project through a controlled, well-managed set of visible activities to achieve the desired results.

Whether your organisation is small or large, public or private, old or new, it uses projects to get results in new endeavours. You may be using projects on a daily basis to deliver customized products or services to your customers. Or you may be using them once in a while, such as to design and install a new computerized accounting system or to write and implement some new procedures.

We all use projects to get new things done. Some organizations do projects well, whilst others go from one disaster to the next, never seeming to learn the lessons of the past. Where does your organization fit?

• Do you find the solution delivered is not what was asked for?
• Are your projects continually over budget and running very late?
• Are team members frustrated by the constant demands to change the project parameters?
• Are team members and contractors stressed out by the mad panic to get things finished towards the end of a project?
• Is the end product or service riddled with errors and defects?
• Are you not sure why the project was started in the first place?
• Are project team members constantly arguing amongst themselves and with other employees?
• Do executives and senior managers show little interest in the project, even though it will benefit them?
• By the end of a project, is everyone burned out, vowing never to go on another?

If you answered “Yes” to some or all of these questions, you may need to consider introducing some discipline into the running of your projects. The discipline of Project Planning is now relatively mature and can be applied successfully to any kind of project, small or large to give project control.

Applying the principles and practice of good project planning will help you:

• get your project done on time and within budget
• deliver a quality product or service that will delight your client and end users
• make sure that project team members will come away from the project with a sense of personal achievement and satisfaction.

Project Planning Software

Project planning software is no substitute for good project planning; however, it is a useful support tool when there is a good fit between the selected tool, the project characteristics, and the management culture. Today, there are many software products on the market within the project planning branch. Unlike the mainframe-based software of the past, today's software for project control is simpler to use and less cumbersome to implement. Thus, it is more broadly available for use by smaller companies/organisations on less complex projects. Software tools can vary between inexpensive single user desktop applications to large scale enterprise implementations which demand a large investment. The key items to consider when selecting project planning software are: functionality, technical configuration, cost, necessary support and service, and the success of implementation within selected branch projects.

Gain Project Control using QBIS!

QBIS Project is a web based project planning service which helps your organisation (large or small) collaborate easily through a single point-of-access. QBIS Project provides the functionality of a larger software application yet we have been able to offer this at a very low price. Because we provide the hardware necessary and host the system for you, your organisation can focus on project planning and not have to spend time and energy that would otherwise be necessary on the implementation of other applications of a similar nature. Find out more on what QBIS Project can offer you >>