Importance of project planning in construction: Why do we need to prepare a project plan before making a project? previously we discussed and shared with you importance of project planning and management. Project planning is the second of four phases in the project management life cycle: initiation, planning, execution, and completion which is the final stage in project life cycle. In this section we share advantages and disadvantages of project planning at each phase, and how the project manager develops a project plan.
It contains information on all aspects of the project such as resources, financing, risk, quality control, and procurement. Developing this detailed document is an important part of project management. It serves as a map of the project and provides all stakeholders with important information about elements such as milestones, timelines, resources, deliverables, and scope.
What To Include in a Project Plan?
The project plan is a comprehensive document that guides the project team through the execution phase of the project. For this reason, project managers should include detailed information in this document to keep the project running smoothly. The importance of project planning in construction includes:
Scope planning: This is one of the most important steps in project planning as it describes exactly what the team needs to deliver for the project to be successful.
Organizational Planning: This aspect of project planning includes a work breakdown structure in which project managers break down project deliverables into detailed activities and tasks. This includes recruiting talent and assigning resources to project tasks.
Create a schedule: This part of the project plan includes creating a list of milestones, sequencing project activities, documenting interactivity dependencies, and setting the schedule.
Resource Planning: Resource planning involves determining the personnel, materials, equipment, and other resources required to complete a project and estimating their costs.
Risk Planning: This includes identifying potential risks and addressing them if they occur. Risks may include material shortages and other potentially negative consequences.
Quality Planning: The quality of work delivered by the team must meet certain standards. This part of the project plan identifies these criteria and how quality control will be done.
Budget planning: A project cannot succeed if it is not within budget. During budget planning, the project manager associates all project costs with key tasks and deliverables. For example, these include equipment, materials, salary, travel, accommodation, consulting fees, and consumables.
Communication Planning: Communication between participants is the key to a successful project. Project managers need to formalize how effective communication is done, including methods, channels, and frequency.
How to Plan a Project
Although different project managers may have different approaches to planning a project, there are important considerations that all project managers should keep in mind.
1. Set Project Goals
The first step in creating a project plan is to identify project sponsors’ and stakeholders’ needs. After documenting and prioritizing the needs of all stakeholders, the specific project goals that address those needs should be established and the project goals should be outlined.
2. Define the scope of the project
The next important step is to define the scope of the project. This means exactly what the team needs to do to reach the project goals. Project scope defines the boundaries and boundaries of a project and helps prevent “scope creep” associated with tasks or products that fall outside the agreed scope.
3. Determine Key Deliverables
Once all parties have agreed on the project scope, the next step is to define the project deliverables. Project scope refers to all the work required to complete the project, while deliverables include the specific products or services that the project team creates or delivers during the project.
4. Create the Scope Statement
Next, you need to create a Scope Statement document. It contains key information such as the business needs, goals, scope, deliverables, assumptions, exclusions, and key milestones that the project addresses. Once this document is created, the sponsor and all stakeholders must agree on the project details recorded in the document to avoid any possible misunderstandings. Since this is essentially a contract between the project manager and the sponsor, the latter should be aware of and approve any changes that may be requested at a later stage of the project.
5. Create A Work Breakdown Structure, Schedule, And Cost Baseline
At this stage, you understand what the major deliverables of the project are and decide how to implement these deliverables. This includes developing a work breakdown structure that divides large deliverables into smaller, actionable tasks.
Once you have identified all the different activities your team will need to perform to implement the deliverable, place them in a logical order. Next, determine how long each task will take to complete and the costs associated with completing it.
It is a good idea to start with a list of milestones outlining the major phases of your project and use that as a starting point for setting timelines for each task. Next, create a project timeline with a clear start and end time for each task.
6. Assign Roles and Responsibilities
The next step is to assign specific tasks to team members so that everyone understands their responsibilities. It may also be necessary to procure outside resources and experts for complex tasks that require expertise or are beyond the capabilities of the project team. As an example, create a staffing plan that clearly outlines the amount of time each resource takes in a project.
7. Conducting a Risk Assessment
A risk management plan is a very important aspect of project planning. Additionally, it addresses aspects of the project that may adversely affect the success of the project. Further, possible risks, their probability of occurrence, and the consequences if they occur are identified. Once the risks and their severities are identified, develop a risk response plan outlining actions and contingency plans. This helps minimize the impact of larger threats on your project.
Planning in Construction
Planning is an important part of construction management. It helps engineers complete projects on time and within budget. Further, the word “construction” includes the physical activities of people, materials, and machines. However, it also covers all activities from conception to the realization of a construction project. Therefore, managing resources such as people, materials, and machines requires effective planning of each activity.
Importance Of Planning in Construction
[Answer] The Importance of Construction Project Planning: Planning helps minimize costs through the optimal use of available resources. Likewise, planning reduces irrational approaches, duplication of effort, and interdepartmental conflict. Lastly, Importance of project planning in construction is that the plan fosters innovation and creativity in field managers. The plan gives the company a competitive edge.
Today effective, early project planning in construction leads to improved better performance in terms of project cost, schedule and operations, balancing the competing needs of a project. Properly planned projects in construction have been known to reduce expensive change orders for a project and cost overruns, they also limit liability and can break the success of your project.
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