Project Planning in context of CMMI

CMMI FAQ 0

3rd August, 2013

Project Planning (PP) process area is available at CMMI Maturity Level 2 under the Project Management category. Project Planning (PP) helps in establishing the plans for the project task and activities.

Project Planning is an important process area that helps in setting the foundation of the whole project. Project Planning includes different activities like tasks identification, estimation, taking commitments, resources selection, resource allocation, scheduling, measurement management, issues and risks management.

How to implement Project Planning (PP) as per CMMI:

Steps for implementing Project Planning (PP) in projects:

1. Prepare Estimation. First step for Project Planning is to prepare estimates of different activities in the project. These activities includes items like identification of the scope of the project in terms of different tasks, sub-tasks to be performed in the project, selecting the project life cycle model like waterfall, agile, spiral etc., then estimating the effort and cost for the these tasks and sub-tasks.
2. Prepare Plan document. Then the next step is to develop a project plan document. This may be a single document or multiple plan documents. Project Plan document includes the documented tasks, estimated budget, schedule,  resources, risk management technique to be used in the project, data management procedure, training plan for the project resources, identification of different stakeholders and their involvement in the project, training plan for team members, status updates including different kind of meetings and status reporting.
3. Base-lining project plan. Next step is to take commitment for these planned items from relevant stakeholders. Then planning document is reviewed by peers and management. Commitment from management is then taken in the form of approval. With these steps project planning document gets baselined.

4. Records Maintain. As part of the Project Planning phase different records are prepared and maintain. These include – Project Plan, Tasks details, Estimation, Schedule, Resource details, Data Management Plan, Risk Management Plan, Training Plan, Communication Plan etc.

Source: CMMI-DEV Model, CMMI Institute.

Interpretation by the author.

Benefits of Project Planning (PP) in the projects

Project Planning (PP) when conducted in the projects has following benefits:

• Helps in the better estimation of tasks and sub-tasks
• Helps in the better management of resources
• Helps in the identification of risks early in the project
• Helps in the establishment of management techniques/tools for risks management, data management, configuration management
• Helps in the planning of the training for project team members to upgrade their skills
• it serves as a tool to take commitment of relevant stakeholders required from different stakeholders
• it serves as a reference document for the project through out the project life cycle

Want Project Planning (PP) training in your organization

DQS India, CMMI Authorised Partner, provides Project Management training for better project planning and project monitoring and control in the project.  Training is divided into four parts – project initiation, project planning, project monitoring and control, project closure.

Training covers best practices to be followed for each phase of the project management. Training is delivered through highly qualified and experienced CMMI Authorised Trainer and CMMI Consultants.