Milestone Planning

How to focus on the outcomes and end products rather than tasks and activities

Course benefits:

Planning can often become an exercise that focuses on the task and forgets that the task is simply the means to creating a product. A task focus can lead to plans that are out of date almost as soon as they are created, and a loss of control over projects until it is too late to take corrective action. Equally likely is that the final product is not what was wanted, or is unusable.

Effective planning requires a concentration on what is to be delivered, but this requires a change in mindset of those developing the plans.

This workshop teaches the results-based 'milestone planning' technique. Development of a task plan based on milestones ensures that products are concrete and visible. Project control can be exercised more effectively when every developer has a specific product to construct, be it a part of a requirements specification or a module of code. Projects can no longer be '90% complete', the product is there or it is not.

The tangible benefits to the organisation in tighter and more visible control are enormous. The intangible benefits to the development team, who can see their progress as it happens, lead to less schedule slippage.

Who should attend:

This workshop is aimed at anyone who has responsibility for managing a project, particularly those who are writing a project plan for the first time. It will also be useful for people whose jobs include carrying out or reviewing plans produced by others.

Prerequisites:

No previous experience of project management is assumed, but experience of working on computer projects, in any capacity, will be an advantage.

What you will learn:

Milestone planning characterises a project in terms of its end products - what has to be the case when the project is concluded. Working back from this final milestone, intermediate milestones are introduced to show how progress will be monitored. Each milestone indicates the achievement of quality targets and/or the removal of technical or business risks.

On successful completion of the course, attendees will be able to:

Identify all the end products for a project or project phase
Identify the quality assurance and technical tasks associated with an end product
Describe end products in terms of features, qualities and constraints
Structure a project by means of milestones to secure quality and minimise risk
Write a project plan for a project

What you will cover:

Introduction; writing plans that stay the course; planning for results versus planning for activity; planning for consensus
How to describe a milestone; identifying end products; identifying who will sign off an end product; describing end products: features, qualities and constraints; identifying development tasks and quality assurance tasks
Using milestones to shape a project; outlining a project as a set of milestones; planning to minimise risk; planning for fitness-for-purpose; relationship to DSDM and Prince projects
How to write a project plan; the signed-off plan as the end product of project planning; characteristics of a project plan; features: a standard format for a project plan; qualities: a consensus of; constraints: when the work has to start

How you will learn:

This course provides a forum for discussing the problems of project management. Lectures are participative and exercises are used to highlight key points.

Duration and availability:

One day non-residential. In-house only.