Planning and Conducting Joint Project Planning Sessions
,All of the planning activities discussed so far to create the detailed project plan take place in a Joint Project Planning Session (JPPS). I advocate and use a group process for generating the detailed project plan. The JPPS is a group session in which all of the people who are involved in the project meet to develop the detailed plan. The session can last from one to three days, and it can be work-intensive. Conflict between session attendees is common, but the final result of this meeting is an agreement about how the project can be accomplished within a specified time frame, budget, resource availabilities, and according to client requirements.
My planning process shares many of the same features as Joint Requirements Planning (JRP) and Joint Applications Design (JAD) sessions. The JRP session is commonly used to design computer applications. My JPPS is robust – that is, it can be used for any type of project.
The objective of a JPPS is this: Develop a project plan that meets the COS as negotiated between the requestor and the provider, and as described in the POS and RBS. Sounds simple, doesn't it?
Unfortunately, that agreement doesn't often happen with any regularity, for many reasons. The client and the project team are generally impatient to get on with the work of the project. After all, there are deadlines to meet and other projects demanding the team member's attention. Team members don't have time for planning — there is too much work to do and too many clients to satisfy. Regrettably, at the project's eleventh hour, when it is too late to recover from a poor plan, the team and the client bow in defeat. Next time, pay more attention to the planning details. But somehow that next time never seems to come. It's time for change!
In this day and age, the virtual team seems to be the rule rather than the exception. To accommodate this type of team, the project manager usually does one-on-one planning with each team member and consolidates the results for review with the entire team participating in an online review session.
Planning the JPPS
Team planning has always been viewed as advantageous over other forms of project planning, such as the project manager planning the project by walking around gathering data for the plan. In my experience, the synergy of the group provides far more accurate activity duration estimates and more complete information input to the planning process itself. Team planning is more likely to be complete than any other form of planning. Perhaps the best advantage of all is that it creates a much stronger commitment to the project on the part of all those who lived through the pain of generating and agreeing to the complete project plan. There is a sense of ownership that participating in the planning session affords. If all else fails, it is more fun than doing planning in isolation.
I know you sometimes feel that planning is a necessary evil. It is something you do because you have to and because you can then say that you have thought about where you want to go and how you are going to get there. After they have been written, plans are often bound in nice notebooks and become bookends gathering dust on someone's shelf or in a file folder in your desk drawer. Make up your mind right now to change that! Consider the plan as a dynamic tool for managing the project and as the base for decision making, too.
Planning is essential to good project management. The plan that you generate is a dynamic document. It changes as the project commences. It will be a reference work for you and the team members when questions of scope and change arise. Make no bones about it: To do good planning is painful, but to do poor planning is even more painful. Remember the pain curves in Figure 5-1? Which one will you choose?
The first document considered in the JPPS is the POS. One may already exist and therefore will be the starting point for the JPPS. If one doesn't exist, it must be developed as the initial part of or as a prerequisite to starting the JPPS. The situation will dictate how best to proceed. The POS can be developed in a number of ways. If it is an idea for consideration, it will probably be developed by one individual — typically the person who will be the project manager. It can be departmentally based or cross-departmentally based. The broader the impact on the enterprise, the more likely it will be developed as the first phase of a JPPS. Finally, the POS may have been developed through a COS exercise. In any case, the JPPS begins by discussing and clarifying exactly what is intended by the POS. The project team might also use this opportunity to write the Project Definition Statement (PDS) — their understanding of the project. The PDS is nothing more than an expanded version of the POS, but from the perspective of the planning team.
The JPPS must be planned down to the last detail if it is to be successful. Time is a scarce resource for all of us, and the last thing you want to do is waste it. Recognize before you start that the JPPS will be very intense. Participants often get emotional and will even dig their heels in to make a point.
Before learning about how to plan and conduct a JPPS, let's take a look at who should attend.
Attendees
The JPPS participants are invited from among those who might be affected by or have input into the project. If the project involves deliverables or is a new process or procedure, then anyone who has input to the process, receives output from the process, or handles the deliverables should be invited to participate in the JPPS. The client falls into one or more of these categories and must be present at the JPPS. Any manager of resources that may be required by the project team should also attend the JPPS. In many organizations, the project has a project champion (not necessarily the project manager or client manager) who may wish to participate at least at the start.
Here is a list of potential JPPS attendees:
Facilitator — A successful JPPS requires an experienced facilitator. This person is responsible for conducting the JPPS. It is important that the facilitator not have a vested interest or bring biases to the session because that would diminish the effectiveness of the plan. It must be developed with an open mind, not with a biased mind. For this reason, I strongly suggest that the project manager not facilitate the session. If using an outside consultant is not possible, I recommend that you select a neutral party to act as the facilitator, such as another project manager.
Project manager — Because you are not leading the planning session, you can concentrate on the plan itself, which is your major role in the JPPS. Even if you receive the assignment before any planning has been done, having you facilitate the JPPS may seem to be an excellent option, but it can be the wrong choice if the project is politically charged or has clients from more than one function, process, or resource pool. You must be comfortable with the project plan. After all, you are the one who has final responsibility when it comes to getting the project done on time, within budget, and according to specification.
Another project manager — Skilled JPPS facilitators are hard to find. Because you are not a good choice for facilitator, then maybe another project manager — presumably unbiased — would be a good choice, especially if he or she has JPPS experience. If your organization has a PMO, they will likely be able to provide an experienced facilitator.
JPPS consultant — Project management consultants will often serve as another source of qualified JPPS facilitators. Their broad experience in project management and project management consulting will be invaluable. This is especially true in organizations that have recently completed project management training and are in the process of implementing their own project management methodology. Having an outside consultant facilitate the JPPS is as much a learning experience as it is an opportunity to get off to a good start with a successful JPPS.
Technographer — The JPPS facilitator is supported by a technographer, a professional who not only knows project management but is also an expert in the software tools used to document the project plan. While the JPPS facilitator is coordinating the planning activities, the JPPS technographer is recording planning decisions on the computer as they occur in real time. At any point in time — and there will be several — the technographer can print out or display the plan for all to see and critique.
Core project team — Commitment is so important that to exclude the core team from the JPPS would be foolish. Estimating activity duration and resource requirements will be much easier with the professional expertise these people can bring to the planning session. The core project team is made up of individuals (both from the client and from the provider) who will stay with the project from the first day to the last day. This does not mean that they are with the project full-time. In today's typical organization, an individual would not be assigned to only one project at a time, unless the organization is totally projectized or uses self-directed teams.
Client representative — This attendee is always a bit tricky. Face it: Some clients really don't want to be bothered. It is up to the project manager or champion to convince clients of the importance of their participation in the JPPS. I don't claim that this will be easy, but it is nevertheless important. The client must buy in to the project plan. The client won't have that buy-in if the project manager simply mails a copy of the plan. The client must be involved in the planning session. To proceed without the client's involvement is to court disaster. Changes to the project plan will occur, and problems will arise. If the client is involved in preparing the plan, he or she can contribute to resolutions of change requests and problem situations.
Resource managers — These managers control resources that the project will require. Putting a schedule together without input and participation from these managers would be a waste of time. They may have some suggestions that will make the plan more realistic, too. In some cases, they may send a representative who will also be part of the project team. The important factor here is that someone from each resource area is empowered to commit resources to the project plan. These are not commitments to provide a specific named person or room. They are commitments to provide a certain skill set or type of facility.
Project champion — The project champion drives the project and sells it to senior management. In many cases, the champion can be the client — which is an ideal situation because the client is already committed to the project. In other cases, the project champion can be the senior managers of the division, department, or process that will be the beneficiary of the project deliverables.
Functional managers — Because functional managers manage areas that can either provide input to or receive output from the project deliverables, they or a representative should participate in the planning session. They will ensure that the project deliverables can be smoothly integrated into existing functions or that the functions will have to be modified as part of the project plan.
Process owner — For the same reasons that functional managers should be present, so should process owners. If the project deliverables do not smoothly integrate into their processes, either the project plan or the affected processes will have to be altered.
A formal invitation that announces the project, its general direction and purpose, and the planning schedule should be issued by the project manager to all of the other attendees.
RSVPs are a must! Full attendance is so important that I have canceled the JPPS when certain key participants were not able to attend. On one occasion, I acted as the project manager for a client and cancelled the JPPS because the client did not think his attendance was important enough. My feedback to the client was that as soon as it was a high enough priority for him to attend, I would reschedule the JPPS. Pushback like this is tough, but the JPPS is so critically important to the ultimate success of the project that I was willing to take this strong position with the client.
Facilities
Because the planning team may spend as many as three consecutive days in planning, it is important that the physical facility is comfortable and away from the daily interruptions. To minimize distractions, you might be tempted to have the planning session offsite. However, I prefer onsite planning sessions. Onsite planning sessions have both advantages and disadvantages, but with proper preparation, they can be controlled. In my experience, having easy access to information is a major advantage to onsite planning sessions, but interruptions due to the daily flow of work are a major disadvantage. With easy access to the office made possible by cell phones and e-mail, the potential for distraction and interruptions has increased. These distractions need to be minimized in whatever way makes sense.
Allocate enough space so that each group of four or five planning members can have a separate work area with a table, chairs, and a flip chart. All work should be done in one room. In my experience, breakout rooms tend to be dysfunctional. To the extent possible, everybody needs to be present for everything that takes place in the planning session. The room should have plenty of whiteboard space or blank walls. In many cases, I have taped flip-chart paper or butcher paper to the walls. You can never have enough writing space in the planning room.
Equipment
You will need an ample supply of sticky notes, tape, scissors, and colored marking pens. For more high-tech equipment, an LCD projector and a PC are all you need for everyone in the room to see the details as they come together.
The Complete Planning Agenda
The agenda for the JPPS is straightforward. It can be completed in one, two, or three sessions. For example, an early meeting with the requestor can be scheduled, at which time the COS are drafted. These will be input to the second session, during which the POS is drafted. In cases where the POS must be approved before detailed planning can commence, there will be an interruption until approval can be granted. After approval is obtained, the third session can be scheduled. At this session (which is usually two or three days long), the detailed project plan can be drafted for approval.
Here's a sample agenda for the project planning sessions:
Session 1
- Negotiate the COS.
- Build the RBS.
Session 2
- Write the POS.
Session 3 (JPPS)
- The entire planning team creates the first-level WBS.
- Subject matter experts develop further decomposition, with the entire planning team observing and commenting.
- Estimate activity durations and resource requirements.
- Construct a project network diagram.
- Determine the critical path.
- Revise and approve the project completion date.
- Finalize the resource schedule.
- Gain consensus on the project plan.
Deliverables
The deliverables from the JPPS are listed here:
Work Breakdown Structure — Recall that the WBS is a graphical or indented outline of the work (expressed as activities) to be done to complete the project. It is used as a planning tool as well as a reporting structure.
Activity Duration Estimates — The schedule, which is also a major deliverable, is developed from estimates of the duration of each work activity in the project. Activity duration estimates may be single-point estimates or three-point estimates, as discussed later in this chapter.
Resource Requirements — For each activity in the project, an estimate of the resources to perform the work is required. In most cases, the resources will be the technical and people skills, although they can also include such things as physical facilities, equipment, and computer cycles.
Project Network Schedule — Using the WBS, the planning team will define the sequence in which the project activities should be performed. Initially, this sequence is determined only by the technical relationships between activities, not by management prerogatives. That is, the deliverables from one or more activities are needed to begin work on the next activity. You can understand this sequence most easily by displaying it graphically. The definition of the network activities and the details of the graphical representation are covered later in this chapter.
Activity Schedule — With the sequence determined, the planning team will schedule the start date and end date for each activity. The availability of resources will largely determine that schedule.
Resource Assignments — The output of the activity schedule will be the assignment of specific resources (such as skill sets) to the project activities.
Project Notebook — Documentation can be a chore to produce. But that's not the case in the five-phase PMLC described in this book, where project documentation is a natural by-product of the project work. All you need to do is appoint a project team member to be responsible for gathering information that is already available, putting it in a standard format, and electronically archiving it. This responsibility begins with the project planning session and ends when the project is formally closed.
Conducting the JPPS
The first priority of the facilitator is to create an open and collaborative environment for the planning team. There is going to be disagreement, and all members of the planning team must feel free to express their thoughts. In conducting the sessions, the facilitator must encourage everyone to fully participate. Those who are more reserved must be drawn into the conversation by the facilitator. Likewise, those who tend to dominate the conversation must be diplomatically controlled by the facilitator. Excellent meeting management skills are required. That is why a trained facilitator is preferred over a project manager when it comes to running a JPPS.