What Is Project Planning? Benefits, Tools, and How to Start

Project planning refers to the phase in project management in which you determine the actual steps to complete a project. This includes laying out timelines, establishing the budget, setting milestones, assessing risks, and solidifying tasks and assigning them to team members. Project planning is the second stage of the project management lifecycle. The full cycle includes initiation, planning, execution, and closing.

If you're ready to learn high-level project planning and management skills, consider enrolling to earn a certificate from an industry leader through Google's Project Management Professional Certificate program. Through real-world scenarios and hands-on learning, you'll gain experience with project documentation, Agile methodologies, and stakeholder communication.

What are the 5 stages of project planning?

Project planning typically follows a structured approach with 5 key stages:

1. Initiation: Defining the project's purpose and laying the groundwork

2. Planning: Laying out the project's specifics and creating a roadmap for execution

3. Execution: Formally launching the project and clarifying roles and expectations

4. Monitoring: Ensuring the project stays on course and adapts to changes.

5. Closure: Completing the project and reviewing for lessons learned.

Components of a project plan

During the planning phase of the project management lifecycle, you'll determine the steps to achieve your project goals. This is the "how" of completing the project.

Project planning includes tasks, milestones, people, documentation, and time. This step involves outlining the project scope, objectives, and timeline to ensure all stakeholders are on the same page.

Tasks: Tasks are activities that must be accomplished within a set period. They're assigned to different team members according to their roles and skill sets. Tasks are the components of work that have to be completed in order to achieve milestones, and eventually the entire project.

Milestones: Milestones are important points within the schedule that indicate progress. They tend to signify the completion of a deliverable or phase of the project. For example, completing a website prototype in a project to redesign a company’s website would be considered a milestone.

People: A project plan also includes the people working on your team and their roles. Each team member must understand their role and the tasks they're responsible for completing. Ensuring everyone is clear on their assigned tasks frees the project manager to focus on managing the project, ultimately creating a sense of personal responsibility for team members.

Documentation: During the project planning phase, it is a good idea to draft a project plan that links to relevant documentation. Besides your project plan, you can include documents like a RACI chart, which defines roles and responsibilities for individuals on your team. Another document is your charter, which defines the project and outlines the details needed to reach your goals. You can include a budget and risk management plan, if relevant.

Time: Project plans should include the estimated duration of the project. How much time will be spent on each part? The schedule will be the anchor of your project plan. It includes dates for starting and completing tasks and dates (deadlines) for reaching specific milestones. Indicating the project's start and end dates will help situate the project among competing priorities and help determine resources (including people) needed and when you'll need them.

Check out this video that outlines the components of a project plan:

How to create a project plan

Your exact project plan might look different depending on the preferences of the project manager and the organization. Generally, however, you can start with determining your timeline before going on to solidify tasks, milestones, and roles, and compiling other important documents.

1. Determine a timeline.

The cornerstone of the project plan is often the timeline or schedule. A timeline should include the date you’ll begin and expect to end the project, how long it’ll take to finish each task and milestone, and the dates you expect tasks and milestones to be completed. A work breakdown structure can be beneficial at this stage.

Project managers often begin creating schedules around hard constraints determined by stakeholders. Do you need to design and produce a new toy before the holiday shopping season? You’ll want to make sure your schedule reflects this. Be sure to speak with team members to get a sense of how long each task typically takes. You may also want to include time buffers for tasks that involve some risk.

Tools used in project planning

Project planning tools can be manual, using tangible items like pen and paper. They can also be software tools that produce visual elements that connect teams across departments and time zones. Two common tools used in project planning include a Gantt chart and a risk register, which you can create manually or on software.

• Gantt chart: A horizontal bar chart in which members can see what tasks must be completed in what order and how long each is expected to take

• Risk register: A chart that lists risks associated with the project, along with their probability, potential impact, risk level, and mitigation plans

2. Build out tasks and milestones.

Once you know when tasks, milestones, and the whole project should be completed, you can determine what resources are needed at what point in the project and which of your team members will work on each task. This exercise is called capacity planning. 

You can also use this time to determine a project's critical path. The critical path is the bare minimum of tasks you need to complete to meet the project goal.

Project plan template

A template can provide project managers with a starting point that they can customize to their needs. Many are available for free download online, like this project plan template, from the Google Project Management: Professional Certificate, which uses Google Sheets. Other templates use Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or Microsoft Excel.

• Microsoft Word project plan template from Smartsheet

• Google Docs project plan template from Smartsheet

• Microsoft Excel Gantt chart template from Microsoft

Image from Google Project Management: Professional Certificate.

3. Establish roles.

In this phase, solidify the tasks each team member is assigned, and communicate with them to make sure they’re informed and have their questions answered. Clarify their assigned tasks, project expectations, and performance standards. Clearly articulate project objectives, deadlines, quality standards, and any specific requirements or constraints associated with their tasks. Address any questions or concerns they may have and provide necessary resources or support to help them succeed in their roles.

If you’ve created a RACI chart in the project initiation phase, this will be a good time to refer to it. 

4. Link to important documents.

A project plan often becomes a central document that is referred to often as the project progresses. It might be a good idea to attach or link documents that will be useful to have on hand. If your project plan is in a spreadsheet, you might link to other documents in separate tabs for easy access.

Important documents might include:

• Project charter

• Project budget

• Communication plan

• RACI chart

• Risk management plan

• Change management plan

Benefits of project planning

Project planning is important because it helps form the steps to complete a project successfully. Planning helps teams avoid potential problems and roadblocks to ensure the project stays on track. The benefits of a good project plan include the following:

• Helps ensure projects are completed on time, within budget, and to the required standard

• Facilitates effective communication between all members of a project team

• Helps identify potential risks and issues at an early stage

• Helps you communicate your vision and objectives to your team

• Keeps everyone focused on the goal

Learn more: Project Management Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Challenges in project planning

During the project planning phase, challenges may arise that can slow the project down. Knowing these challenges beforehand can help you take action to overcome them. Let's explore some common challenges:

• Unclear objectives and scope: When the goals or a project keep changing or the scope keeps widening or shifting, project teams will likely find it difficult to outline the project plan.

• Communication breakdowns and information silos: All team members and stakeholders need a central communication hub to exchange important information in a timely fashion. That way, projects can progress smoothly and on time.

• Stakeholder management: Sometimes there are communication gaps or conflicting interests among project stakeholders. These issues can hinder project planning. You can mitigate this challenge by managing conflicts and creating win-win solutions for everyone.

• Resource allocation: When a team faces constraints in allocating resources (labor, equipment, money, time, and space), project planning becomes more difficult, especially if certain tasks depend on the availability of resources. To mitigate this challenge, you can assign priority to particular resources and develop contingency plans in the event that some resources become scarce.

Stand-up meetings (also called Scrum meetings) are short, daily meetings during which project teams discuss the project's progress and blockers. These meetings can be a great way to strengthen team relationships, generate more excitement about a project, streamline communication, align on daily objectives, and address concerns quickly. Incorporate these into the project planning process to make it easier to complete projects on time.

Project management software for planning

Project planning software helps you track and manage your project from start to finish. It can help you plan your project, assign tasks, track progress, and more. Project software has become more sophisticated, and using cloud technology enables anyone to access the project data anywhere.

Take a look at some planning tasks you can perform with project management software:

• Prioritize, organize, and allocate responsibilities using charts and graphs.

• Create a timeline with milestones and task dependencies

• Keep track of your progress, costs, and resources

• Adjust timelines and maintain flexible scheduling as obstacles arise

• Share project plans with relevant parties

• Prepare data-driven reports and updates for stakeholders

7 popular project planning software tools

Each project planning software has its own unique features and benefits. Consider some of the most popular options:

1. Asana

This is a great option for small businesses because it offers task management, time tracking, and file sharing features. You can create projects and assign tasks to team members. It even has a built-in calendar so you can plan your upcoming workload.

2. ClickUp

ClickUp is a cloud-based software for managing projects, teams, and tasks. It allows you to create projects, organize tasks, assign tasks to team members, track progress, and more. ClickUp also offers integrations with other popular apps, including Trello, Jira, Google Docs, and Slack. 

3. Freedcamp

Freedcamp is a web-based project management tool designed specifically for people who need help managing multiple projects at once. It features task lists, calendars, file sharing, and other features needed by teams who want to collaborate on a project simultaneously. 

4. Hive

This very simple and easy-to-use project management tool is great for teams of any size. It offers time tracking, progress reporting, and task management features. You can also integrate Hive with tools like Slack, Google Drive, and Jira.

5. Scoro

This popular project management tool has many great features, such as Gantt charts, resource planning, and issue tracking. You can also add comments on tasks, assign tasks to specific users or teams, and collaborate with them through chat.

6. Trello

Trello is a popular free project management app for managing projects and collaborating with teams. With Trello, you can manage projects across teams or solo efforts using cards representing tasks or ideas for future projects. The tool offers flexible sharing options so team members can collaborate on specific cards from anywhere.

7. Wrike

Wrike is a project management and collaboration tool that allows you to manage projects from start to finish. It has a clean, easy-to-use interface and features like time-tracking and resource management. Wrike can integrate with other tools like Slack and Gmail.

Learn project management with Google.

Whether or not you want to become a project manager, learning to make a project plan and keep team members on track is important to many jobs. Google offers the popular Project Management Professional Certificate that covers the basics of project management, from traditional to Agile methodologies. Over 75 percent of Google Career Certificate Graduates in the US report an improvement in their career trajectory (e.g. new job or career, promotion or raise) within six months of certificate completion. Get started today.