The Beginner’s Guide to Using Project Planning Software
When was the last time you got lost in your project work because you didn’t plan ahead? To increase your chances of success, you need a defined plan. Unfortunately, not having one is still common in practice for smaller teams in particular.
Picture this: Your task list is forever growing, new team members are showing up every three weeks, and your client is always asking for last minute changes.
Chaos, chaos, and again chaos. What truly matters is to cut through it and separate real results from the clutter that you find yourself in.
Here’s where project planning comes in. The project management practice depicts a step-by-step process that helps you establish everything you need to do on a project. From setting expectations to creating a clear path towards reaching your goals.
It is done either on paper or using a project planning software for more complex projects (commonly part of a project management software), being usually led by a project manager.
The tide is shifting towards the digital side of project planning though. According to GetApp Lab’s report, more companies are starting to use project management and planning tools and 56.4% of project managers use them daily. In fact, 95% of these project management practitioners use more than one tool on a regular basis.
Coming back to our subject, project planning is not something to go light on. That’s why we’ve created this complete guide to help you get started:
- What is Project Planning?
- How to plan a project from start to finish using project planning software
- Best project planning software options
What is Project Planning?
Planning is the second project management phase following the initiation part of any project. Briefly put, project planning will tell you what needs to be done, who’s working on what, how the team’s going to communicate, what extra resources you’ll need, and when is the work scheduled to be completed. Due to the variety of decisions made during this planning stage, it’s critical that you don’t skip this part.
A project plan’s typical structure (can vary slightly from one project to another) includes the following activities:
- Establishing the project’s title
- Clarifying the project’s background and context
- Defining the project’s objectives
- Organizing tasks
- Selecting project team members
- Creating a communications plan
- Identifying risks and planning to prevent them
- Setting the project’s schedule
- Deciding upon a project budget
- Choosing the project’s resources
- Reviewing the final plan and getting stakeholders’ approval
Why Do You Need Project Planning?
Knowing what to do, how a task should be completed, and when your deadline is up can be essential for any project’s evolution. Planning before moving on to work on a task can also keep your team’s work organized, help you save time during execution, and cut down on project costs.
Rushed planning might determine you to miss some of the essential aspects. For instance, communication is one project aspect that you might miss.
Writing a loose communications plan or failing to build one could cause team members to make mistakes. But what is a communications plan in the first place? It’s a formal document that contains all details on who receives project updates, when someone can deliver them, and which channels, methods, and tools can be used for information delivery and feedback.
With a detailed and accurate plan in place, everyone knows exactly what they have to do and which procedures to follow in case unexpected errors show up.
Keep in mind:
A well-crafted project plan can increase your chances of project success. Organized tasks, roles, and backup plans ensure that you’re prepared for almost any obstacle that could postpone your project. So, before moving on to executing your tasks, make sure you’ve created a comprehensive project plan.
How to plan a project from start to finish using project planning software
The easiest way of planning your project from start to finish is by using online project planning software. Thanks to its convenience, you can keep track of your project’s status and all-time documents in one secure system/platform. Ideal in case you need to follow-up on archived projects or use them as a reference for future ones.
Project planning software doesn’t usually exist on its own since it’s commonly part of a complete project management solution. This is because people have in mind more than planning when they’re looking for a solution. There are some dedicated tools though that you can use to partially plan your projects (for example Gantt Chart software).
Most project managers will be interested in a complete project management software to help them manage a project from start to finish even when only looking for a project planning tool. They’re also looking for complementary features to help them with other duties such as invoicing, time tracking, reporting, and so on. This is why complete project management tools come with features to fulfill these needs too.
So, why work with a project planning platform in the first place?
Although a project planning software isn’t mandatory, using one can significantly help you planning projects from start to finish. You’ll no longer have to do admin work like holding unnecessary status meetings, approving tasks, and asking for specific documents via email as part of it will be automated and made readily available by the system.
Imagine not using any technology for planning a project. Your team would get their tasks on post-it notes and all documents would be scattered all over the office. They would have to meet in person to update each other about the progress of their tasks and draw endless timelines on walls or glued paper to include everyone’s schedule. How scalable is that?
The good news is that you can manage all project planning steps through a combination of tools. It’s even better if you do it all from a single place. This way you reduce costs and make sure that all data is unified across all departments, leaving no room for misinterpretations.
For some inspiration, take a look at the list of project planning software we recommend below or check out these project management tools.
But where do you move on to after picking a project planning tool?
Remember that you should never skip the project’s initiation phase. This part helps you find out your client’s goals, requirements, and if you have the right resources to complete your project or not. For this, a client meeting is held.
You can only start creating exact project plans after discussing project targets and outcomes with your client. A project plan is a guide that shows a team how they can reach general business goals and particular project objectives at the same time.
Simply put, a project’s plan needs to answer the following questions:
- What do you need to do?
- When should you do a task?
- When should the project be completed?
- How much will the project cost?
- Who’s in charge of a specific task?
- What are each member’s responsibilities?
- What communication methods you’ll use?
- How will you measure the project’s status?
Throughout the entire planning process, keep in mind that every step you map out needs to be clearly documented and written. This prevents confusion and ensures that everyone on your team knows exactly what they have to do at the right moment.
Creating a general project plan
Before you start working on a project, establish its most important details that help you identify it: name, ID, and client. For some project planning tools, set other details such as workflow, billing method, hours estimate, and more.
The next step is to think of all the tasks that need to be completed from a project’s start to its finish. Create full task lists that can group and structure all tasks you need to do.
As a project manager, you’ll need to get everyone’s feedback on task planning. For instance, if you don’t have a technical background, reach out to your software engineers. They’ll tell you how long it will take for a feature to ship given the current resources and deadlines. Otherwise, chances are you won’t know what tasks to prioritize when going into production.
For processes like this one and other types of complex task structures, you might also want to create subtasks. These help you break down larger chunks of work into much smaller, less-frightening ones and create clear structures for your team. For example, one of your web developers might be sick one day. With subtasks, another team member knows how much of his colleague’s task has been completed and can continue the other person’s work from where they left it.
One of the easiest documents to structure your project’s tasks is an activity list:
Another way of organizing tasks is through a detailed table that can show you all deadlines, elapsed time, costs, and more:
If you’re looking for a visual method of organizing your activities, try Kanban boards:
Kanban is a visual task organization tool built on top of the task management process. A typical Kanban board consists of a series of activities in the form of cards that you can move from one project stage another column until you complete them.
While using project planning software to create a plan and organize tasks is a solution for small teams, larger organizations might want to put every detail on paper.
Take a look at this project plan example from the Minnesota Geospatial Information Office to see how a paper-based project plan could look like in its final form.
Before setting up project tasks, invite the whole team to participate at an initial meeting and contribute with their insights for the general project plan.
For on-site teams, this is easy. All team members gather into a conference room and offer their feedback on how the plan should be developed based on their expertise.
For remote teams, it’s a bit trickier. While there are many tools that support video conferencing (Skype, Google Hangouts, join.me, etc.), it can be more difficult to get people to speak.
To avoid this, make sure that nobody bumps into any technical issues. Some employees can use this as an excuse to turn off their cameras and be less active in the conversation.
Also, keep everyone engaged. Diversify your questions and try to get the entire team to answer them. This way all employees get to say something at least a few times.
Change the questions and their timing to have more productive meetings. Knowing that someone might ask them a question at any time makes them more likely to actively listen and take part in the conference.
Appointing your team and distributing duties
But you can’t have tasks without a team that has clear roles and responsibilities. All projects need a project manager or team leader to supervise the project development process.
As a project manager, you decide who’s responsible for what. Project planning tools help you in this sense and allow you to assign a person to a task and keep track of their progress. Once done, they’ll be notified and directed to the task with full details on how to complete it. But only if you’ve equipped them with the required information.
You can outsource your talent by hiring a freelancer or external collaborator. These new team members can then join your virtual workspace even if they’re not part of your company.
Alternatively, stakeholders can become a part of your workspace. This makes it easier for them to keep up with the project’s status and suggest changes if needed.
Each task should be paired with a person responsible for it. In Paymo, you can choose who’s going to work on a task and pick a project manager with a few clicks:
You can also manage all your account users from a single view to see their overall progress:
