Project Planning Services (Continued)
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Project Management Plan (PMP)
A project plan, according to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, is: "...a formal, approved document used to guide both project execution and project control. The primary uses of the project plan are to document planning assumptions and decisions, facilitate communication among stakeholders, and document approved scope, cost, and schedule baselines. A project plan may be summarized or detailed.".
The latest edition of the PMBOK (v5) use rather the term Project Charter to refer to the contract or document that the project sponsor and project manager use to agree on the initial vision of the project (scope, baseline, resources, objectives...) at a high level. The project management plan is the document that the project manager builds to describe in more details the planning of the project and its organization. In the PMI methodology described in the PMBOK v5, the project charter and the project management plan are the two most important documents for describing a project during the initiation and planning phases Description of PMBOK v5 project documents.
PRINCE2 defines:
"...a statement of how and when a project's objectives are to be achieved, by showing the major products, milestones, activities and resources required on the project."
The project manager creates the project management plan following input from the project team and key stakeholders. The plan should be agreed and approved by at least the project team and its key stakeholders.
Our definition is that a PMP is not just a schedule but it is also a schedule and it aggregates all other relevant sub-plans..
The objective of a project plan is to define the approach to be used by the Project team to deliver the intended project management scope of the project. At a minimum, a project plan answers basic questions about the project:
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Why? - What is the problem or value proposition addressed by the project? Why is it being sponsored?
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What? - What is the work that will be performed on the project? What are the major products/deliverables?
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Who? - Who will be involved and what will be their responsibilities within the project? How will they be organized?
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When? - What is the project timeline and when will particularly meaningful points, referred to as milestones, be complete?
