If there is a change you want to create – whether in your community or on a bigger territory, you will probably need to do so with a project. These are the ideas you have put down in words, send to organizations with resources who will agree to them and fund them. However, even when your project gets approved, you will still have a lot of work to do! If you don’t know how to organize and have a successful creative project planning, then all your previous effort was for naught! That’s why in this article we take a look at the steps you need to take to create a perfect project plan!
What is a project plan?
The first question you might have is what even is a project plan, and how to achieve this mysteries successful creative project planning that we mentioned. Well, a project plan is exactly what it sounds like – you sit down with your team and create a plan for the whole project. This is the reason why you create a plan after the proposal goes through – it takes a lot of work, and you need to know that you are doing the project. But, it is also tightly connected to the proposal, because it shows exactly how you intend to bring this proposal to life.
This is why the majority of the project plan is designating various tasks to your team members. You need to consider everything that you need to do during the project, and who you are working with. Afterward, you need to plan who will take care of each task. However, it is not as easy as it sounds! There are three important factors you need to take into account when doing this:
- the scope of the project – everything you are planning to do and achieve with it;
- the schedule – which is very important for successful creative project planning and
- the budget – without which you cannot even do your project.
Mixing these with the tasks for each of your teammates can be hard. That’s why a lot of people use help from a good android project management app. This way, not only do you get help planning your project well, but you will also keep everything in one place, even while you’re on the move!
Things to look into for successful creative project planning
Luckily, this doesn’t need to be as scary or as complicated as it might sound for you right now. The whole project planning can be divided into four parts, and this way become much easier to achieve! These steps are:
- Creating a task list
- Thinking about the duration of each task
- Interconnecting tasks and
- Looking into resources
1. Creating a task list
Creating a task list is pretty straightforward. However, there are some hidden traps that you can fall into here as well! This is because you need to arrange tasks in an essential order. Basically, you think about each thing you need to do – and how beneficial it is for the project as a whole. That will give you a clear list of things you need to do – and those you can sacrifice if there is a need for it.
2. Duration of each task
Then, you should consider just how long each task will take. This is where you need to fit everything into the schedule, and this can be hard because time management requires practice. Still, if you are planning your first project, this will be a lot of guesswork. Otherwise, use all the experience you and people on your team have for the best, most thorough schedule.
3. Interconnecting tasks
Interconnecting tasks means looking into what you need to do – and in which order you need to do them. Is there a task that you cannot finish before others are done? In successful creative project planning, these are called dependent tasks. You need to mark them – and the tasks before them need to gain on importance.
4. Resources
Finally, you need to think about the resources you have. However, this isn’t only tied to the budget you have. Also, think about your team members and what they can do. Then, you can explore various equipment or software you can use! Managing these well will make or break your project!
What you will need for a successful creative project planning
If this sounds too complicated – that’s because it is! However, this is no time to panic! Everybody can do perfect project planning, as long as they have two things! These are empathy and good communication skills.
When it comes to empathy, it’s important to remember why you are doing this project. Usually, you are doing it for the people, so you already have some empathy there! What you need to realize is that successful creative project planning is not typing out numbers, though. It’s also working with people! Understanding who the members of your team are, what makes them tick and how you can get the most out of them will do wonders for your project! So just turn that empathy to the maximum and dive into it!
This will also lead to better communication on your team! We cannot even begin to talk about just how important having good communication is for successful creative project planning! You are not only communicating your project ideas but also how you will go through each task with your team! Only by communicating together can you decide who will handle what task – and what the best way to accomplish everything is. Just be empathic and open to communication, and your project plan will be clear, cohesive and perfect!
