Process 3: Package the Master Project Plan

In this process, the project team writes the individual project plans and packages them as the master project plan.

Figure 5. Package the master project plan

Activities: Package the Master Project Plan

After the team baselines the functional specification, it can begin detailed planning. The team leads prepare project plans for the deliverables in their areas of responsibility and participate in team planning sessions. Examples of project plans are the deployment plan, the test plan, the operations plan, the security plan, and the training plan. As a group, the team reviews and identifies dependencies among the plans.

The master project plan is the collection of the individual project plans; it is not an independent plan on its own. Depending on the type and size of the project, different types of project plans may be merged into the master project plan.

The benefit of a master project plan that contains a number of smaller project plans is that it allows for concurrent planning by various team roles and provides for clear accountability because specific roles are responsible for specific plans. It facilitates synchronization into a single schedule, facilitates reviews and approvals, and helps to identify gaps and inconsistencies.

The following table lists the activities involved in this process. These activities include:

• Writing individual project plans.
• Rolling up individual plans into the master project plan.

Table 6. Activities and Considerations for Packaging the Master Project Plan

Activities

Considerations

Write individual project plans

Key questions:

• Does the organization have established standards for planning?
• Are specific tools available to the project team during the planning process?
• Has the project team previously planned similar projects from which the team can reuse existing planning documents?
• Does the project structure document assign team leads for each role?
• Does each planning document have a clear owner?

Inputs:

• Functional specification

Outputs:

• Project plans, including:
  • Availability plan.
  • Backup and recovery plan.
  • Budget plan.
  • Capacity plan.
  • Communications plan.
  • Deployment plan.
  • Development plan.
  • End-user support plan.
  • Migration plan.
  • Monitoring plan.
  • Operations plan.
  • Performance plan.
  • Pilot plan.
  • Purchasing and facilities plan.
  • Security plan.
  • Support plan.
  • Test plan.
  • Training plan.
  • Best Practices:
• Don’t work in isolation. Establish a collaboration methodology, such as a workgroup portal and a shared alias to share thoughts and work more collaboratively.

Roll up individual plans into the master project plan

Key questions:

• None

Inputs:

• Project plans, including:
  • Availability plan.
  • Backup and recovery plan.
  • Budget plan.
  • Capacity plan.
  • Communications plan.
  • Deployment plan.
  • Development plan.
  • End-User support plan.
  • Migration plan.
  • Monitoring plan.
  • Operations plan.
  • Performance plan.
  • Pilot plan.
  • Purchasing and facilities plan.
  • Security plan.
  • Support plan.
  • Test plan.
  • Training plan.

Outputs:

• Master project plan
• Best Practices:
• Maintain consistency in structure and use of terms across all documents.

This accelerator is part of a larger series of tools and guidance from Solution Accelerators.

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