Project Management Plan Essay

Projects in a business are always set up to bring some beneficial change or add value to what the business already have (Knutson and Bitz, 1991). They are therefore set with goals that have to be accomplished. In a business organization, there are staff members given responsibility by the manager or the human resource manager based on their qualification and experience, on the kind of job they are assigned. Project management is always given to a project manager. A project manager has the responsibility to ensure that the planning, organizing and management of the project resources, comes to an end with the successful completion of the objectives (Knutson and Bitz, 1991). One of the roles of a project manager as has been noted is planning of the resources available for a specific project. Project Management Plan A project management plan answers the four W’s. Why, what, when and who (Kimmons, 1990). LRH product company (who), intends to present a trade show (what), in Kansas City as a marketing strategy for the benefit of the company (why), in the quest to increase company sales. The project is due in ten weeks (when) from the start of preparations to the show. The project manager has been provided with all the resources required. This paper aims at giving the rest of the steps needed in a work breakdown structure of a project management plan, that the objectives and the requirements of its completion, are already provided. Completing the Project Management plan The first steps of the project management plan have been done. They are, identification of the project goal, which is to participate in a trade show for marketing purposes and what the project requires to ensure that the goal is met, which is already done. The next steps in a project management plan that have not been completed and need to be done are scheduling and development of support plans (Spinner, 1992). Scheduling: What the project needs to deliver, should be accomplished in order to consider the project as a successful one. For delivery purposes, tasks on the appropriate selected deliverables have to be identified and written down on a list to guide the planner. The tasks are identified while considering the amount of time or effort needed to complete the task and the qualified person to complete the task (Spinner, 1992). In the description given, these tasks and the relevant people needed for the project to deliver had already been identified, but the next steps in scheduling had not been done . The next step is to calculate the effort required for each deliverable plus the delivery date. It is important for the project manager to select an appropriate software for this kind of calculation. Normally it is PERT that is used, which is a software used to evaluate the total time the project will take to be completed and the total time the tasks will take to complete the project (Spinner, 1992). If in any case the project manager finds out that the provided time for project completion is not enough, he/she has to inform the sponsor/manager to get more time. In the case of this assignment, the project manager could ask to start the project earlier if the time allocated is found not to be enough. Support plans: The next step in the management plan is to develop support plans. These include plans that should be involved in the project management plan either included in it or not. They are such as, the human resource plan, communication plans, that indicate who should be informed about the issues of the project and risk management plans, that give identified risks to the project and how to deal with each. When preparing a project plan, a project manager can decide to select a tool of project planning that he/she feels appropriate for formulating the plan. This is where the Gantt charts, which gives a project schedule from the start to the end, showing the terminal and the summary elements as well as the structure used for the work breakdown, is used (Spinner, 1992).