Preparing the Planning Phase

00:02 I know it sounds silly, but planning your plan is what makes the difference between a productive plan and that napkin mind map.

00:10 I mentioned a few lessons ago.

00:13 Planning. Your planning does take a fair amount of time and effort.

00:17 There are plenty of things for a project manager to think about.

00:21 First, the project manager must assess their own knowledge of the required work. Is it enough for a sufficient plan? Second, do they know all the stakeholders? If not, they need to get in touch and discuss what their involvement will be in the project. What will they be expected to do? For example, the project manager can't plan who will pay the construction team if they don't know who the financial team is.

00:49 Third, they must recall lessons learned.

00:53 No need to reinvent the wheel, right? Have they or any of their team worked on a similar project? And if so, what lessons have they learned that they can bring across to the current project? Lastly, what about any knowledge gaps? Are there any expertise that the project manager lacks? Do they need to bring in extra support for any areas of planning? A good project manager is not someone who knows everything, but somebody who can see their shortcomings and find the right people to compensate for them.

01:26 The project manager needs to determine how much time they need to put all the pieces of the project plan together.

01:32 They will decide who they need to keep in contact with and if they need to reaffirm expectations. Reviewing the four points above will definitely help with that task. And in the case of meetings and workshops with stakeholders, they must make sure they have a clear agenda, a distinct goal, and a comprehensive list of topics to ensure they get the answers they need with as little resistance as possible.

01:57 See, project managers really do have to think of everything.

02:02 That's why the next lesson is going to be all about planning your plans.

02:06 Plan? Just kidding.

02:09 We're going to take a short interlude to explain a couple of planning tidbits that will be useful to know.

02:15 See you there.