The planning phase in project management
The key objective of the planning phase is to get everything ready for the actual execution of the project. As simple as this sounds, it involves multi-dimensional skills from the project manager to get all stakeholders aligned with the project. The project manager will be expected to integrate scope management, cost management, quality management, and resource management together to develop an effective schedule.
At a bare minimum, the planning process can be visualized as three key project artifacts, as follows:
The preceding figure also shows a minimal path to get from the scope to the schedule. Depending on the complexity of a project, there may be many other corresponding artifacts, such as the risk management plan, the quality management plan, the cost management plan, and others. The WBS and the schedule are often considered...