INF3708 – Software Project Management
Chapter 6
Activity planning
6.1 Introduction
A detailed plan for the project, however, must also include a schedule indicating the start and
completion times for each activity. This will enable us to:
Ensure that the appropriate resources will be available precisely when required;
Avoid different activities competing for the same time;
Produce a detailed schedule showing which staffs carry out each activity;
Produce a detailed plan against which actual achievement may be measured;
Produce a timed cash flow forecast;
Re-plan the project during its life to correct drift from the target.
6.2 The objectives of activity planning
In addition to providing project and resource schedules, activity planning aims to achieve a number
of other objectives which may be summarized as follows.
Feasibility assessment – Is the project possible within required timescales and resource
constraints?
Resource allocation – What are the most effective ways of allocating resources to the
project.
Detailed costing – How much will the project cost and when is that expenditure likely to
take place?
Motivation – Providing targets and being seen to monitor achievement against targets is an
effective way of motivating staff, particularly where they have been involved in setting those
targets in the first place.
Coordination – When do the staff in different departments need to be available to work on a
particular project and when do staff need to be transferred between projects?
6.3 When to plan
Planning is an ongoing process of refinement, each iteration becoming more detailed and more
accurate than the last. Over successive iterations, the emphasis and purpose of planning will shift.
During the feasibility study arid project start-up, the main purpose of planning will be to estimate
timescales and the risks of not achieving target completion dates or keeping within budget. As the
project proceeds beyond the feasibility study, the emphasis will be placed upon the production of
activity plans for ensuring resource availability and cash flow control.
Throughout the project, until the final deliverable has reached the customer, monitoring and
replanning must continue to correct any drift that might prevent meeting time or cost targets.
6.4 Project schedules
Before work commences on a project or, possibly a stage of a larger project, the project plan must
be developed to the level of showing dates when each activity should start and finish and when and
how much of each resource will be required. Once the plan has been relined to this level of detail we
call it a project schedule. Creating a project schedule comprises four main stages.
The first step in producing the plan is to decide what activities need to be carried out and in
what order they are to be done. From this e can construct an ideal activity plan — that ¡s, a plan of
when each activity would ideally be undertaken were resources not a constraint.
Chapter 6
Activity planning
6.1 Introduction
A detailed plan for the project, however, must also include a schedule indicating the start and
completion times for each activity. This will enable us to:
Ensure that the appropriate resources will be available precisely when required;
Avoid different activities competing for the same time;
Produce a detailed schedule showing which staffs carry out each activity;
Produce a detailed plan against which actual achievement may be measured;
Produce a timed cash flow forecast;
Re-plan the project during its life to correct drift from the target.
6.2 The objectives of activity planning
In addition to providing project and resource schedules, activity planning aims to achieve a number
of other objectives which may be summarized as follows.
Feasibility assessment – Is the project possible within required timescales and resource
constraints?
Resource allocation – What are the most effective ways of allocating resources to the
project.
Detailed costing – How much will the project cost and when is that expenditure likely to
take place?
Motivation – Providing targets and being seen to monitor achievement against targets is an
effective way of motivating staff, particularly where they have been involved in setting those
targets in the first place.
Coordination – When do the staff in different departments need to be available to work on a
particular project and when do staff need to be transferred between projects?
6.3 When to plan
Planning is an ongoing process of refinement, each iteration becoming more detailed and more
accurate than the last. Over successive iterations, the emphasis and purpose of planning will shift.
During the feasibility study arid project start-up, the main purpose of planning will be to estimate
timescales and the risks of not achieving target completion dates or keeping within budget. As the
project proceeds beyond the feasibility study, the emphasis will be placed upon the production of
activity plans for ensuring resource availability and cash flow control.
Throughout the project, until the final deliverable has reached the customer, monitoring and
replanning must continue to correct any drift that might prevent meeting time or cost targets.
6.4 Project schedules
Before work commences on a project or, possibly a stage of a larger project, the project plan must
be developed to the level of showing dates when each activity should start and finish and when and
how much of each resource will be required. Once the plan has been relined to this level of detail we
call it a project schedule. Creating a project schedule comprises four main stages.
The first step in producing the plan is to decide what activities need to be carried out and in
what order they are to be done. From this e can construct an ideal activity plan — that ¡s, a plan of
when each activity would ideally be undertaken were resources not a constraint.
