Most of our daily activities are projects. Some of them may succeed and some of them may fail. But if you have a proper plan, you can increase the success rate. There is a number of steps to follow when creating a project plan.
How to create a work plan
Identify the work, which you want to do
As the first step, you have to identify the project. For example, constructing a house, opening a business, e-commerce website, implementing new strategies in a company, improving efficiency, profit increasing is an example of projects. At the end of the project, it must create something new or add more value to the business process. Otherwise, the cost, time, and resources are useless.
Identify the sub-activities
All the projects must contain activities. When creating the activities you have to consider a few things. They are the accountability of the progress, the possibility of resource allocation, and the possibility of calculating cost. When we complete these activities step by step, you can achieve your mentioned work.
Define the sequence of the activity
Now you have a list of activities which you going to complete. All the activities cannot stat at once and complete. There are relationships among them. One activity must start after completing another activity. If the project is simple, you can make these schedules on paper manually. But if the project is complex, you have to use software like MS – project. The importance of the sequence is, you can reduce the ideal time. You also have an idea about the required activities to accelerate, when you want to finish the project quickly.
Create a resource plan for the above activity
Now you have an activity list and expected starting dates of them. To complete a project, you need resources. These resources can be materials, machinery, human resources, and other supportive services. The required amount can be calculated using previous data. If you do not have previous data you can go for standards norms or contact experts. We are working in a world with limited resources. To incorporate those limited resources into the project, you may need to adjust the schedule.
I recommend you to focus more on preparing a resource plan because the resource is a cost. Wasting resources can end your project at a high cost.
Calculate the cost (Activity and total)
Based on the above resource allocation, you can calculate the cost of each activity and the complete project. Since we have the duration and the starting dates of the activities, you can calculate the required amount of money for each month. This is called the budget of the project. I the expected income of some months less than the budgeted expenditure, you can go for a loan or adjust the starting dates and durations of the activities.
Quality management plan
Maintain quality is important for sustain in a business environment. If you are doing your own project, it is important to maintain proper quality. So, how to create a quality plan.
There are different approaches in quality management, they are given chance for the customer to find the defects. The company has to provide a warranty. But this decreases the reputation and increase the rework cost.
Work the plan
Now you have a plan for your works. The next step is monitoring the plan. If the actual works are done according to the plan, no corrective measure is required. But if the actual works are not performed under the plan, corrective measures are required.
Monitor the scope
Scope means the worklist. You can have a list of activities, which you have to complete. Then mark the completed activity with a tick. In day to day life, you may have to do several activities that are not included in the list. But try to complete those minimizing the disturbance to listed activity. But if you have just a list, you are in a trouble to select and mark activity. I advise you to arrange the activities with the time
Monitor the schedule
You cannot succeed only in completing the activities. You have to complete all activities in a time frame. You can tick the completed activities at the end of each day.
Now you have a list of activities which you have to complete. Then list down the required completed date of each activity and required duration. Now arrange all the activities into a timeline, according to the finish date and duration. After that, you will be able to get your activity schedules for weeks and days. You this schedule to monitor the progress.
Sometimes you may not be able to complete activities as you planned. You can revise the schedule once a week to improve the efficiency of the completion. Once you revise the schedule, you can see the possible dates of completion.
Monitor the resource
Once you have the scheduled activity list, you can arrange the resources for that. The resources depend on the activity. If you want the same resource for a number of activities, you have to arrange activities as appropriate. The common practice is arranging activity considering the resource as a limiting factor. This resource arrangement with the time is called a resource plan. Once the resource plan is completed you can measure the resource usage day by day. The resource is money. If you monitor resources and improve performance, you can save a lot of money.
Now you have an idea on how to plan the works and work on the plan. Let’s succeed in your project.
