PRINCE2 Process: PL1
Designing a Plan

by Guy Holford

March 2006

Planning is often one of the most visible and best provided-for parts of the project management process.  One of the typical first tasks for an aspiring project manager is to create a plan in Microsoft Project.  When an organisation is thinking about adopting a project culture, kitting out the team with MS Project or another resource/scheduling tool is a typical first step.

The Gantt chart is the lingua franca of planning.  However, as experienced project managers know, the Gantt chart and resource sheet are only examples of a much wider set of tools that need to be used to create effective plans.

PRINCE2 makes this clear in its initial Planning process - PL1 Designing a Plan.  You are normally expected do PL1 only once in a project, near the start.  PL1 provides sound guidance about what you should consider putting in your plans and encourages you to think broadly about the contents.

The aim of PL1 is to provide a firm basis for all the subsequent planning activities on the project - and there are several different kinds of PRINCE2 plan, often repeated a number of times through the course of the project.  A key point is that there plans are not "one size to fit all" - you may need many different flavours of plan to suit the different interested parties.

Applying PL1

How you apply PL1 depends largely on the project-maturity of your organisation.  For an organisation that is relatively new to the project culture, it's unlikely that everyone will have agreed on the style, type and scope of plan that should be used.  You may find that different planning styles are breaking out all over - they may incorporate all manner of ideas from best practice through to strong personal preferences.

There's nothing wrong with having different plan designs for different projects - in fact PRINCE2 encourages this.  The complexity and depth of your plan design may evolve to follow your growth in PRINCE2 terms.  In addition you may be obliged to create plans of a particular types for different (typically external) customers.

In this case the PL1 process is especially valuable in aligning ideas against the PRINCE2 checklist of things to consider.  PRINCE2 mentions that you should have a look at these points:

• Presentation and layout;
• Planning tools;
• Estimating methods;
• Allowances (i.e. a change budget and a contingency plan).

Mature Organisations

For the project-mature organisation, it is likely that some level of plan design will have been decided upon for the whole organisation.  For instance where your project is part of an internal change programme, the plans may be of a single design to allow effective consolidation at the programme level.

Even where there is a prescribed corporate plan design, there may be the need to visit PL1 to consider different plan designs for your different audiences e.g.

• An external customer may need a design of plan that centres on milestone delivery, strongly tied to the contract.  You might consider a rolled up Gantt chart, with pre-agreed milestone status levels.
  
• Your team may need a design of plan that is focused on scheduling of detailed tasks. 
  
• You may need a plan design for your own individual use that allows you to convert the fine detail of day to day tasks to a simplified, A4 page traffic light report for the users.  These are often implemented with customised spreadsheets, which is fine as long as they don't need to be shared (other than the outputs) - otherwise there is a danger of them becoming a maintenance headache.
  

Plan Narrative

One element commonly missing from complex plan designs is a narrative that brings out the key points and acts as a guide.  In the absence of such a narrative the project manager may find themselves repeatedly having to explain the elements of the plan to the stakeholders.  A good narrative will give everyone the opportunity to understand the features of the plan at the same level.  Never forget that a plan is first and foremost a communication tool.

Action Points

• Consider multiple plan designs for different audiences.
• Try to get buy-in from for your designs from the intended audience.  This is particularly important when you are relying on others to populate parts of the plan.
• PRINCE2 recommends the particular technique of Product Based Planning.  You will need to decide how you are going to do this, and may need to look at some specialist tools.
• Don't forget to include a narrative in the plan design.  You could consider a graphical technique such as the Rich Picture to help get your message across quickly.