One of the areas of confusion for candidates for the APM PMQ is the different parts of the project management plan. This brief video describes the main parts of the PMP including the executive summary, the policy and procedures and the schedules and plans to be followed.
If you prefer, you can read the transcript of the video below.
Here’s a quick recap of the components in the Project Management Plan. One of the areas that people sometimes struggle with, is understanding the different parts of the Project Management Plan (PMP).
The 3 main components of the Project Management Plan
The first part is an executive summary, the second part is a set of policies and procedures that guide the way in which we deliver the project and the processes we use to deliver the project. And the third part is a set of plans that set out how we’re going to manage the project in terms of the work we’re going to do and how we’re going to keep track of risks and progress and things like that.
So let’s go through those in a little bit more detail…
At the top level, we usually have some form of executive summary, and this builds on what we had in the business case. It sets out the purpose of the project, why we’re doing it, the assumptions, the constraints, the organisation and the contracting approach that we’re adopting for the project. It’s not a long document, it’s usually quite concise and is designed for new team members or senior management to quickly assimilate what we’re trying to do with the project.
The second part is a set of references, but it sets out how we’re going to control risk management in terms of the process that we’re going to follow. For instance:
- Where are we going to store the risk register?
- Who’s going to fill it in?
- How often are we going to update it?
- What categories are we going to use to control risk?
- What are the steps in the change control process?
- Where do we keep change control procedures?
- What does the change request form look like?
- Who fills the forms in?
- Who are change requests approved by?
- What system are we using for configuration management?
- What will be the naming convention for files that we use and what version number?
- What issue process we have for new documents?
The answers to these questions quite often come from the method. Many organisations have a common method that they use across multiple projects. Because clearly you want one document control system in your organisation, you don’t want each project management team going off and developing their own document control and configuration management system. These should be quite generic and stable. If your configuration management system works, then you’ll continue to use it and you won’t change it.
Schedules & Logs
Then we have schedules and logs that are part of the project control cycle. These guide us through the execution of the project and includes things like the Gantt chart. So this is the planned work that we’re going to do over a certain amount of time and we’ll plan it out at the beginning and then, depending on the project, we’ll go back and update this with actual progress and compare with our plans.
It’s the same for the budget.
We’ll have an initial budget and then we’ll do a forecast budget and we’ll say what’s our cost curve doing and this is how much we’ve spent to date and therefore we’re ahead or behind the budget. So these are live documents like the change log, which will be the list of changes that have been agreed usually in Excel or a database. That change log will get updated as new changes happen.
It’s the same with the risk register.
The risk register is not a static document, but something that gets updated as the project progresses. So schedules and plans are a bit like the roadmap that we’re going to follow for the journey and update to make sure that we’re still on track. If you look at a real Project Management Plan, the exact summary is probably the most significant part.
There will also be references that will say, for example, we’re following our company document control system, we’re following our company procurement approach, information is stored in a particular way in this organisation so we’re following that process and procedure. This information will often be stored in an Excel spreadsheet or planning systems or risk control systems. This data can also be stored in live databases that gets updated regularly.
If you think of a PMP, it’s more like a container than a printed document. Some people will print all the PMP out but quite often it’s a collection of information that sets out our plan for the delivery of the project.
