Project planning is a critical role in the success of the overall project. According to TechRepublic “Project planning plays an essential role in helping guide stakeholders, sponsors, teams, and the project manager through other project phases. Planning is needed to identify desired goals, reduce risks, avoid missed deadlines, and ultimately deliver the agreed product, service or result. Without careful planning, project performance is almost certainly guaranteed to suffer. The Project Management Institute estimates that as of 2017, organizations were wasting an average of $97 million for every $1 billion invested, due to poor project performance.”

Last week, Brian and Mike discussed project initiation and the vital steps needed to kick off a project. This week, Brian and Mike will be diving deeper into the seven pillars NETRIO utilizes in order to effectively move forward after project planning. 

Refine the Scope

We have already defined the scope during project initiation, but it is now time to revisit what was discussed and really start digging into this. This step should involve detail-oriented discussion with clients or third-party vendors about what the goal is we are going to accomplish. Nail down things like numbers of devices, assets, people, technology, and other important details pertaining to the individual situation. 

Team Selection

Team selection is a step that takes place to define internal and external people and what each party’s role will be for the duration of the project. Defining this solidly at the planning phase will allow for smooth communication throughout the project. 

Resourcing

According to Wrike, “A resource is a necessary asset whose main role is to help carry out a certain task or project. A resource can be a person, a team, a tool, finances, and time.” This is the step to identify materials needed, dependencies, and hardwares and structured toward the end goal. 

Budget

The budget has already been defined, but we will take another detailed look at it in this step. This step is a good time to start thinking about where the budget is allocated and when and where that money may be spent. Additionally, define how you will invoice your client during this step.

Define Timeline

The timeline has already been identified, but now we are securing dates. During this step, assign different tasks with the completion date. This will allow the project to stay on track as we move through the other tenets. 

Risk Analysis

As we continue to drive detail into the project, this will allow us to better access the risk. Once the timeline is defined, that will allow you to take a look at the overview and pinpoint which points of the project might inherently allow more risk, and move forward accordingly. 

Quality Assurance

PMLearningSolutons defines Quality assurance as an audit function that evaluates the actual project quality results against the planned or intended results to ensure that the appropriate processes are being employed by the project team. “Assuring” quality implies ensuring the project quality requirements are being achieved.”

This blog post is part of NETRIO’s weekly White Board Wednesday series. Follow along on Linkedin and YouTube each week as Brian and Mike discuss use cases, new technology, and trends. The goal is to provide insights for enterprise customers and channel partners, trying to solve complex problems using technology.