Learn How to Develop a Project Implementation Plan

Scope and Role Assignments

Developing a project implementation plan is necessary in order to ensure the success of any project. The plan must lay out the reason for starting the project, how the project will be executed, and how to oversee the project to ensure that the project is going to be completed on time and within budget. Stakeholders must agree to the project plan or they may not support the project. When writing a project implementation plan, a project manager needs to focus on key components to ensure that nothing is missed.

While each plan should clearly state the background of why the project is being started and what the goals are, these are just minor parts of the implementation plan. The first major component of a project implementation plan is scope planning. The scope statement details why the project is being initiated and for whom. The scope should also include exclusions such as what isn’t going to be included in the scope. Project assumptions about the environment, similar projects, and the overall business community should also be laid out before starting a project.

All participants’ roles need to be discussed from the team to management to vendors to third-party suppliers. Project managers also need to consider resource planning to figure out how many people are needed, how much of each resource is required, and an estimation of how long each project task will take to complete in order to ensure that resources are available. If additional people are needed, this should be planned for in the beginning. Next, identify the key deliverables for your plan from software to hardware.

Scheduling, Cost Estimating, and Quality Control

Scheduling is another key component to developing a project implementation plan. Completion dates need to be planned for in the beginning to ensure that key deliverables are on schedule and that key project tasks are being completed on time.

Cost estimating is next. A project manager needs to figure out what each resource will cost for each task and then factor in those individual costs into the overall budget. The next component is quality assurance. The project manager needs to figure out how quality will be maintained throughout each part of the project. This can involve testing or incident reports. Dealing with risks (risk management) is also part of quality control in any project.

Communication Plan and Evaluation

A communication plan should also be set up to ensure that stakeholders, clients, project owners, and managers are constantly being updated on the progress of the project. This will also ensure that teams are meeting the standards and expectations of stakeholders and project owners. This includes project reporting, which provides stakeholders and clients with the status of the project.

Finally, the project needs to be evaluated once the project has been turned over to the client. This should include records of what was accomplished, how long it took to finish each task, whether or not tasks were completed on time, what worked, and what project management tasks failed. This will allow future teams to learn from this project and do things better.

As the project manager, it’s important to take the time to create a project implementation plan, especially if you want your projects to be successful.