UPI Study › Courses › Project Management › Free lessons › Lesson 1.6 Free with a free account
Project Planning Processes and Supporting Tools
Project Management · Chapter 1: Foundations and Framework of Project ManagementSection 1.6 · lesson 6 of 7311 min · free with a free account
Free preview
Create a free account to keep watching
It takes a minute and costs nothing. Your free account unlocks all of Chapter 1 and 3 more lessons of Project Management.
Lesson complete
Earn the 3 college credits for Project Management
Enrolling adds a quiz after each lesson, the graded work and the official transcript. Recommended for credit by NCCRS.
Next lesson: Business Portfolio and Project Portfolio Management →← Identifying and Managing Project StakeholdersNext lesson: Business Portfolio and Project Portfolio Management →
In this lesson
How planning areas, rolling waves, inputs and tools build a baseline.
- List the planning areas and explain how integration ties them together
- Explain how scope, risk and change link the planning areas
- Apply rolling-wave planning and judge when it fits
- Distinguish planning inputs, tool categories and the role of a baseline
Free study notes
Get this lesson's notes by email
The key points and 4 practice questions with answers, in your inbox. One email, free.
One email. Unsubscribe in one click.
Transcript
Everything said in the video, section by section (1,555 words). Read along, or search it.
Opening Question
A Full Plan Before Suppliers Exist
On her first day, Dana is asked to present the full plan for a nine-month warehouse automation project. New conveyors, sorting equipment, and a control system. But neither of the two key suppliers has been chosen yet. The board meets in two weeks, and it wants one finish date and one cost figure. Any installation date she writes today would be a guess dressed as a fact. So what can she honestly put in a plan?
Definition
Eight Questions Every Plan Answers
Planning means working out, in writing and in advance, how the work will be done, by whom, in what order, at what cost, and to what standard. Every project faces eight questions, whether anyone asks them or not. What will we deliver, and what not? When will the work happen? What will it cost? Who and what will do the work? How well must the result perform? What could go wrong? Who needs to know what? And what will we buy from outside, instead of making ourselves? A project that never asks still answers them, by accident, usually when a problem forces the issue.
Planning Areas
Nine Areas Plus Integration
Those eight planning areas each have their own question, their own written output, and their own methods. A ninth sits beside them: stakeholders. Scope gets a written statement of what's included and excluded, taught in lesson three point two. Schedule logic comes in three point ten, with techniques in chapter five. Cost, the estimates and budget, fills chapter four. Quality targets and checks are in three point six, and the resource list in three point three. The communications plan is three point nine, the risk list three point seven, and procurement three point eight. Stakeholders, as you've seen, are lesson one point five. The PMBOK Guide adds a tenth area, integration, which ties all of these into one plan. The map also exposes gaps. A detailed schedule with nothing under risk or procurement has answered only part of the questions.
Interactions
How One Change Reopens Other Areas
The areas are separate subjects, but not separate plans. Three links explain most of how they interact. First, scope drives schedule and cost. Deciding how much work is included decides how long it takes, and what it costs. Second, risk touches every area. A late supplier threatens the schedule; an unclear requirement, scope and quality; a key person leaving, resources. Third, a change in one area reopens the others. Picture a library renovation. The trustees add a second reading room. Schedule and cost grow. Resources need another tradesperson, and risk gains hidden problems in altered walls. Procurement orders more materials, and communications must warn users, who are stakeholders, of a longer closure. One request reached seven more areas.
Concept
Plans as a Series of Drafts
Planning is where progressive elaboration does its most visible work. At the start, the team knows the goal and the main constraints, but not the specifics, like which supplier will win. A plan written then can be accurate at a coarse level, but it can't honestly be precise at a fine one. So the plan is a series of drafts, each more precise than the last. How far to push this is debated. The predictive side says early detail gives funders something firm to commit to, and finds problems on paper, where they're cheap. The adaptive side says detail written before the information exists is mostly fiction, and breeds false confidence. Both use progressive elaboration. They differ in how much they fix at the start.
Technique
Rolling-Wave Planning on the Calendar
Rolling-wave planning is a specific, calendar-based way of doing it. Plan the near term in detail, the middle at moderate detail, and the far term as an outline. Then repeat at set intervals, so the detailed window rolls forward. A council moving its records office over 39 weeks plans weeks one to eight in detail: who inventories the files, when shelving is measured, when staff are briefed. Weeks nine to eighteen get medium detail, because they depend on the inventory. Weeks nineteen to thirty-nine are milestones with date ranges. At the week-eight review, it plans weeks nine to sixteen in detail, firms up the middle, and adjusts the outline. The far term is coarse because its information doesn't exist yet, not because nobody bothered.
When to Use
Where Rolling Waves Fit and Fail
Rolling waves fit when near-term work is well understood, far-term work depends on information the project hasn't produced yet, and the sponsor can accept a range. They fit poorly when a fixed date and price must be committed, for the whole project up front, or when the work is so familiar it can all be planned now. The danger is a vague far term. A coarse outline is not a blank. It should still state its milestones, its assumptions, its expected date range, and the trigger event that will detail it. Otherwise long-lead purchases and approvals hide there.
Quick Check
Which Project Suits Rolling Waves
Quick check. Three projects. A bridge repaint must have one fixed price, signed before any work starts. A software rollout's later phases depend on what a pilot reveals. And the monthly payroll run is the same every month. Which one suits rolling-wave planning best? Pause, and decide. The software rollout. Its near term is clear, and its later phases wait on facts the pilot will produce. The repaint needs one price for the whole job up front, and the payroll run is familiar enough to plan in full.
Planning Inputs
Six Inputs Behind Every Plan
Planning never starts from nothing. A planning input is information the planners use as raw material. An output is what planning produces, like a budget. The same document can be an output of one process and an input to the next. It's about the role it plays at that moment. Six inputs appear in almost every project. The project charter formally authorizes the project, and names its manager. Requirements are the needs the result must meet. An assumption is treated as true without proof, so each one is a risk waiting to be tested. A constraint is a limit the plan can't change, like a fixed date or a spending ceiling. Lessons learned come from earlier projects. And organizational standards are the rules and templates the organization already requires.
Tools
Four Categories of Planning Tools
Supporting tools fall into four categories by purpose. A scheduling tool records activities, their order and dates, and shows what a slip does to the finish. A collaboration tool puts messages, tasks and updates in one place. A document control tool keeps the current version and a history of changes. An estimating tool gathers and totals estimates, so their logic can be inspected later. Five criteria decide how much tool is justified: fit to project size, team skills, cost including learning time, integration with other tools, and the effort to keep it current. A tool that falls behind the real project is worse than none, because it shows confident information that's wrong. Five volunteers running a two-month fair need shared tasks and one current vendor list: a collaboration tool and simple document control. A full scheduler would fail on size and effort.
Quick Check
Crews Working From Old Drawings
Quick check. Twice this month, a builder's crew worked from a drawing the client had already replaced with a newer one. Which category of tool answers that need? Pause, and decide. Document control. The need is knowing which version is the approved one, and that's exactly what it preserves. A collaboration tool would show who said what about the drawings, but not which file is current.
Definition
The Approved Plan as Baseline
Once approved, the plan becomes a baseline: the agreed version of scope, schedule and cost that actual performance is measured against. During execution, the baseline says what the team intended. During control, it's the yardstick that makes a difference visible at all. When a change is approved through the agreed process, the baseline is updated, and the old version is kept, so the history stays clear.
Common Mistakes
Three Recurring Planning Errors
Three planning mistakes recur. The first is planning once and filing it. Within weeks, the plan describes a project that no longer exists. The cure is a review rhythm, and a named owner. The second is planning in isolation, one person or department alone. The plan misses what the doers, suppliers and stakeholders know. The third is treating the plan as a prediction, judged right or wrong. Then every deviation looks like failure, and teams hide them. Treat it as a baseline instead. A deviation becomes information to act on, and teams report it early.
Case Resolution
A Defensible Thirty-Nine-Week Plan
Back to Dana. Instead of refusing, or inventing detail, she proposed a rolling-wave plan across the thirty-nine weeks. Weeks one to eight in detail: documenting current operations, writing requirements, setting criteria for choosing the two suppliers, and scheduling the evaluations. Weeks nine to eighteen at medium detail: supplier selection, contracts, and design. Weeks nineteen to thirty-nine as milestones, with date and cost ranges, each with written assumptions. She named the two supplier decisions as the triggers for detailed planning, and late supplier selection as the biggest risk. The cost was the sponsor's discomfort at showing the board ranges. In return, every statement could be defended, and every gap in certainty was named, not hidden. She promised a new baseline at week eight, and again once both suppliers were chosen.
Key Takeaways
Areas, Elaboration and Baselines
To recap. Nine planning areas each answer one question, and integration ties them together. Scope drives schedule and cost, risk touches everything, and one change reopens the rest. Plans grow by progressive elaboration, and rolling waves schedule that growth on the calendar. And an approved plan is a baseline: a reference point, not a prediction.
About Project Management at UPI Study
Project Management (Business 230) is a self-paced online course of 73 video lessons in 12 chapters, from starting and defining a project to planning, budgets, scheduling tools, proposals, contracts, execution, monitoring, closure, teams and certification. It carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits.
Every lesson transcript is free on pages like this one, and the videos are free with a free UPI Study account. Enrolling adds a practice quiz after each lesson, the graded work and final exam that earn the credit, lifetime access, and an official transcript on completion. UPI Study has helped over 130,000 students with college credits. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.
Enroll now → Course details Download the syllabus All Business courses Every course with PRO →
Why take it here
Why students take Project Management with UPI Study
Where the credit goes
Universities that work with NCCRS
Project Management carries a NCCRS credit recommendation. These universities work with NCCRS; some are UPI Study's signed partners. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.
Thomas Edison State UniversitySigned partner
University of the PeopleSigned partner
Charter Oak State CollegeSigned partner
Strayer UniversitySigned partner
Columbia Southern UniversitySigned partner
Indiana TechSigned partner
Penn StateWorks with NCCRS
Southern New Hampshire UniversityWorks with NCCRS
SUNYWorks with NCCRS
+many more cooperating universitiesFind my college →Find my college → Not listed? Ask Athena in the corner of this page, or book a 15-minute call.
FAQ
Questions students ask us
About Project Planning Processes and Supporting Tools
What is rolling-wave planning?
When is rolling-wave planning a poor choice?
What are the knowledge areas of project planning in the PMBOK Guide?
What is the difference between an assumption and a constraint in project planning?
About the Project Management course
How many college credits is Project Management?
How much does Project Management cost and what is included?
Which universities accept UPI Study credits?
How long does Project Management take?
How are the exams done?
How do my credits reach my college?
Ready for the full course? Earn 3 credits in Project Management.
73 video lessons, a quiz after each one, and the graded work that earns the credit. Recommended for credit by NCCRS.
3 credits · NCCRSEnroll →