Expectations;
- Include the necessary elements (overview, objectives, general approach, contractual aspects, schedules, resources, personnel, evaluation methods, potential problems)
- The General Approach to executing the project; if your company employs a formal project management methodology, what components will you include and which will you exclude… and why? if your company employs a formal project life cycle, what components will you include and which will you exclude… and why?
- Identify your sponsor and stakeholders, explaining when and how you will communicate with them.
- Identify the high-level scope of the project and what problems and challenges need to be addressed as part of the project.
- Explain what quality means in the context of this project and how you will ensure that quality.
- Discuss the draft of the resources you will need to complete the project, remembering that resources are not just people—they can be equipment, office space, special software packages, etc.
- Discuss how you plan to manage issues and requested changes to the project’s scope.
- If your project will need to engage vendors, explain your process for vendor selection and management
- The Plan for Logistic Support and Administration.
- Discuss any training requirements.
- Based on Past Experience and documented ‘Lessons Learned’, what problems do you foresee arising and how do you plan to deal with them if they do arise?
Project Sub-Plans;
In many cases a project plan includes a number of sub-plans that address key components of project activity. For your project, you’ll need to draft two sub-plans and include them as appendixes:
Risk Plan
The purpose of the risk plan is to identify the key risk that can threaten your project and present your approach to addressing these risks. For this assignment you should identify 5-10 risks and include the following for each:
- what the risk is
- how likely it is to occur
- what would be the severity of consequences if it did occur
- how the project team will monitor for the risk
- the mitigation plan and its cost if the risk were to become a reality
Communication Plan
The project communication sub-plan is a description of the routine and emergency communication procedures that will be used during the project. You should include the type and frequency of all the following that apply:
- full project team meetings
- project technical team meetings with team leads
- status checks
- updates of project documentation
- updates to management and/or executives
- reports from project technical leads to the project manager
Also include how emergencies are to be communicated both up and down the project hierarchy.
Project Budget
Include as an appendix your project budget. The budget should be an Excel spreadsheet, where you will document all of the costs associated with your project – people costs, vendor costs, costs of supplies, etc, as well as 25% of the total mitigation costs of your risks which should be noted as a “contingency fund” Provide some detail as to how you came up with your figures, but for the purposes of this course, not too much detail. One page should suffice unless you feel you need more space. Be clear that a four-line budget encompassing the items mentioned above in this paragraph is NOT sufficient.
