---
title: "Planning the Project"
section: "Project Management"
sectionId: "project-management"
date: "2026-05"
---

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.

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## 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

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## 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

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## 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