What does a good project and programme plan look like?

Recently in a programme management office environment PMO I was asked this question  “what a good project plan should look like ?” A good project or programme plan should at the minimum answer the following questions

1. What are we doing ? project scope, deliverables, milestones
2.  When are we doing it ?  project timeline
3. How are we doing it? project activities sequences and logic,risk,assupmtions and cost
4. Who is doing what and what are we using ? resources (labour, materials, plants,equipments etc), responsibilities assignment matrix RAM
5. What could happen and how does it impact the project plans? project risks and  assumptions, known unknown . Are there planned risk mitigation actions in place to take care of risks impact?
6. How do we track performance and keep project on track ? what project control processes are in place ?

Project or programme plan in other words can be called the ” programme of works” to be carried our or delivered in a particular sequence at specified time, duration, at agreed cost or budget using resources (labour, materials, equipments or plants and other ) in order to bring about a change and to deliver the project deliverables within the constraints of time, cost,qaulity and risks and accomplish the project objectives .

What are we doing? 

A plan should fully and accurately capture all the scope of works as agreed authorised by the business as per the business case, project charter, WPO work package order ,statement of works SOW, scope documents, contract documents etc. in terms of :

1. Scope; deliverables, key milestones .Plan should be structurally breakdown based on how related works/products are to be delivered i.e. Work breakdown structure WBS and products breakdown structure PBS.
2. Cost; should capture the authorized/agreed project total budget, contractors’ budgets and forecast cost to complete the works EAC.
3. Time/Duration: should capture the project start and project completion date, project duration, contracts start, contract completion, contract duration start and completion of key milestones, all the key deliverables dates and duration.

When are we doing it? Timeline and Duration

1. Activities should have realistic duration with time risk allowance TRA (buffer) already factored in.
2. Programme plan should have project start date and project completion date and duration
3. The duration of activities should not be long; be less than 2 months, not more than the duration of the reporting cycle whichever less is. Consider breaking long duration activities into more detailed short duration activities that can be progress within one reporting /update cycle. Long duration activities may reduce the accuracy of CPM. However there are cases where the detailed information is not yet known as in rolling wave planning having long duration activities placeholders.
4. For integrated master schedule IMS, the integrated contractor’s accepted programme / Work Package Order WPO programmes of works should capture the agreed contractual start, contractual completion, key deliverable dates, planned completion date and terminal float (buffer) between the agreed contractual completion date and plan completion date.
5. A good plan should have proper closeout and handover activities including benefit realisation plan.

How are we doing it? Sequence and driving logic and who is doing what?

1. All activities should be sequenced logical link with the driving/dependent activities to established critical paths CPM.
2. Interface interdependencies should be established. E.g. Design -> Installation/Construction-> Test & commission.
3. No Incomplete activities i.e. Activities not started or in-progress should have negative float i.e. Total float less than 0 working days. This indicates project completion is unrealistic. Negative float may be caused by unrealistic/artificially accelerated or constrained schedule.
4. Activities should have a realistic float e.g. Less the 2 months. Activities with excessive float should be considered for acceleration.
5. Hard constraint should be avoided e.g. ‘Must finish on’,’ Must start on’,’ Mandatory start/finish’ as these bypasses and ignores network logic CPM. Hard constraint should be less than 5% of the programme.
6. Activities should have no negative lag. This hide the logic detail, brings the successor to start before the predecessor activities. Lead (negative lag) relationship type should be avoided. When unavoidable leads can be achieved by adding normal activities to build the logic.
7. Lag should be avoided in activities relationship. Lag delays the successor activities; it should be less than 5% of the programme relationship when not possible. As this hides details in the relationship and cannot be progressed /statused like normal activities.
8. At least 90% of activities should have finish to start FS typical relationship. Non typical relationship (SS, SF, FF) should be less than 10%.
9. Each activity should have at least a predecessor or a successor associated to it as appropriate. Less than 5% of the activities should be dangling or open end i.e. without a predecessor or successor relationship or both.
10. Key milestones activities should be identified and logically link to driving activities and correctly baseline as per agreed date.
11. Programme should be progressed periodically based on the reporting cycle. As programme progresses the Data date DD or status date should be advanced to beginning of next reporting cycle i.e. the earliest the remaining activities can start.
12. There should be no actuals in the future and forecast in the past.
13. Programme should be resource loaded with appropriate resources (man hours) and programme should establish a resource profile/resource plan and s- curve.
14. Programme should be cost loaded to capture the correct authorized budget and forecast cost for the project(s) and contractor/WPO.
15. Programme cost and resources should be phased to truly capture the periodic forecast and budget.
16. The work breakdown structure WBS should be aligned to the cost breakdown structure CBS at the appropriate levels where costs are been aggregated /collected.
17. Aggregation of related works should be based on WBS, PBS, CBS and OBS.
18. At the programme progresses you should be able to give quantitative and qualitative measurement of the programme progress by comparing the current scheduled works with the original agreed baseline planned works. Performance in terms of cost, time, scope and risks e.g. as of now is the programme ahead or behind or on schedule? is the programme overspending or underspending or on budget .e.g. You can use EVM; CPI,SPI,SV/CV,TCPI, BEI,KPIs etc.
19. A good programme should have defined testing and commissioning activities to check if the implemented solution successfully delivered the agreed project objectives and deliverables to the expected standards.

What could happen? If it happened how does it impact our plans? How do we respond ?

1. Risks i.e. threats, opportunities and assumptions should be identified cost of risk exposure analysed against the benefits, agreed contingencies or risk budget.
2. Mitigation or risk response activities should be added to the programme in order to both mitigate potential threats and capture the potential opportunities or savings.
3. Risks assessment /management activities could be are based on the lessons learnt, scenario planning and what if analysis.

References

1. Earned Value Management System (EVMS) Program Analysis Pamphlet (PAP)DCMA-EA PAM 200.1 (DCMA ,2012)
2. APM Knowledge Planning ,scheduling ,Monitoring and control –The practical project management of time ,cost and risk(Association for project management, 2015 )
3. NEC3 : User’s Guide (Jon Broome,2013)
4. DCMA 14-Point Assessment Metrics http://www.mosaicprojects.com.au/WhitePapers