Planning the Project

Planning has two outputs: a risk management strategy and a project schedule. Do risk assessment first — it directly shapes the schedule and resource decisions.

Risk Management

Score Every Risk

Use a simple scoring model: Impact (1–5) × Probability (1–5) = Risk score

Low risk: scores below 12
High risk: scores of 12 or above — these require a mitigation strategy before you build the schedule

Use a risk matrix to list all risks with their impact, probability, and score.

Respond to Each Risk

For every identified risk, choose one of four responses:

Response	Meaning
Transfer	Shift the risk to another party (e.g. insurance, contract clauses)
Accept	Acknowledge it and proceed — appropriate for low-scoring risks
Mitigate	Take action to reduce impact or probability
Eliminate	Change the plan so the risk no longer exists

Be Honest with Stakeholders

Accountability demands transparency. If the risk of failure is significant, you have an obligation to communicate it. Don't hide high-scoring risks — share the risk management plan with both stakeholders and the team.

The Project Schedule

The schedule must be visible, constantly updated, and accessible to every team member. Build it in the following order.

1. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

List every deliverable and the component tasks required to complete each one. This becomes the foundation for everything else — once you have the WBS, you can build a Gantt chart.

2. Sequence Activities

Map the dependencies between tasks:

Finish-to-start — task B can't start until task A finishes
Start-to-start — tasks can begin at the same time
Finish-to-finish — tasks must finish together

3. Identify the Project Team

Assign the right people, not just whoever is available. A common mistake is filling roles with whoever has capacity rather than finding the right person for each job. You need a clear schedule first — otherwise there is no "science" to the assignment.

4. Estimate Task Durations

Duration is calendar time, not pure effort. If someone can only spend 1 hour per day on a task that takes 8 hours of work, the task duration is 8 days.

Add float and breathing room — don't promise what you can't deliver
Don't make durations too long either: people fill the time allocated (Parkinson's Law), which creates a culture of procrastination
Tasks that genuinely take only 6 hours should still be rounded up to a full day as the minimum unit

Ways to estimate: draw on experience, ask for a reference, consult an expert, or use the PERT formula.

5. Identify the Critical Path

The critical path is the sequence of tasks that determines the project's minimum end date. Tasks not on the critical path have slack or float — they can slip without affecting the finish date.

Put your best resources on the critical path
Ideally, more than one person should be capable of doing critical-path tasks
If things get difficult, you can redeploy float resources to the critical path

6. Add Milestones

For tasks planned to take a long time, insert milestones into the schedule. These maintain visibility and keep the team accountable against intermediate checkpoints — not just the final delivery date.

7. Create the Budget

Add 10% contingency for miscellaneous expenses
Disclose this contingency to key stakeholders — they should know it exists and why

Communication Plan

Determine: who needs what information, when, how, and from whom.

Most key stakeholders want to know project status and how they can help
Know each stakeholder's preferred communication style — mismatched communication is a project risk
If you don't follow through on your own communication commitments, you give others permission not to keep theirs

Planning Principles

Assess risk before building the schedule — risk shapes every timeline and resource decision
Front-load planning; time invested here pays back many times during execution
A schedule that no one can see is a schedule that no one follows
Be honest with your stakeholders about high-scoring risks — it builds trust before you need it