PP.SP 2.8 Establish the Project Plan
Summary
Establish and maintain the overall project plan.
Description
A documented plan that addresses all relevant planning items is necessary to achieve the mutual understanding and commitment of individuals, groups, and organizations that execute or support the plans.
The plan generated for the project defines all aspects of the effort, tying together the following in a logical manner:
- Project lifecycle considerations
- Project tasks
- Budgets and schedules
- Milestones
- Data management
- Risk identification
- Resource and skill requirements
- Stakeholder identification and interaction
- Infrastructure considerations
Infrastructure considerations include responsibility and authority relationships for project staff, management, and support organizations.
The project plan can include multiple plans such as staffing plans, stakeholder involvement plans, measurement and analysis plans, monitoring and control plans, solicitation plans, agreement management plans, risk mitigation plans, transition plans, quality assurance plans, and configuration management plans. Regardless of form, the plan or plans should address the acquisition strategy as well as the cradle-to-grave considerations for the project and product to be acquired.
Examples of plans that have been used in the U.S. Department of Defense community include the following:
- Integrated Master Plan—an event driven plan that documents significant accomplishments with pass/fail criteria for both business and technical elements of the project and that ties each accomplishment to a key project event.
- Integrated Master Schedule—an integrated and networked multi-layered schedule of project tasks required to complete the work effort documented in a related Integrated Master Plan.
- Systems Engineering Management Plan—a plan that details the integrated technical effort across the project.
- Systems Engineering Master Schedule—an event based schedule that contains a compilation of key technical accomplishments, each with measurable criteria, requiring successful completion to pass identified events.
- Systems Engineering Detailed Schedule—a detailed, time dependent, task oriented schedule that associates dates and milestones with the Systems Engineering Master Schedule.
Example Work Products
- Overall project plan