Project Planning Service Management Overview
During project planning, project teams complete the bulk of their planning work—preparing the functional specification and solution design and preparing work plans, cost estimates, and schedules for the various deliverables—which they roll up into a master project plan and master schedule.
Project planning follows envisioning and is kicked off after the project team meets the requirements of the Vision/Scope Approved Management Review. Prior to beginning project planning, program management must choose a management discipline to apply to the project. Possibilities include Microsoft® Solutions Framework (MSF), agile software development, Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) process management, Scrum, and Lean. While MSF is the basis for much of this SMF, organizations can easily adapt this SMF to any management discipline. For more information on agile software development, see Microsoft Visual Studio® Team System Process Guidance Home at https://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/teamsystem/aa718795.aspx.
The Project Plans Approved MR marks the end of project planning. At this management review, project teams and their customers agree in detail on what they will deliver and when they will deliver it. They also re-assess project risks, update priorities, and finalize resource and schedule estimates. At this management review, project teams submit a formal Request for Change (RFC) to IT operations. For more information about the Project Plans Approved MR, see the Deliver Phase Overview.
Project Planning SMF Role Types
The primary team accountability that applies to the Project Planning SMF is the Solution Accountability. The key role type for the SMF is Program Manager. All role types within the accountability and their primary activities within this SMF are displayed in the following table.
Table 1. Solution Accountability and Its Attendant Role Types
Role Type
Responsibilities
Role in This SMF
Solution Manager
- Accountable role
- Owns all SMFs in this accountability
- Acts as project director for all projects
- Resolves conflicts between projects
- Ongoing oversight
Program Manager
- Drives design, schedule, and resources at the project level
- Sets design goals
- Describes the solution concept
- Creates the project structure
Developer
- Builds the agreed-to solution
- Builds prototypes
- Investigates development and technology options
- Analyzes the project’s feasibility
Tester
- Tests to accurately determine the status of solution development
- Tests strategies
- Tests acceptance criteria
- Documents project implications
Product Manager
- Acts as the customer advocate
- Helps drive shared project vision
- Manages customer expectations
- Sets overall goals
- Identifies customer needs
- Determines project requirements
- Produces the vision/scope document
User Experience
- Acts as the user advocate on project teams
- Helps define user requirements
- Helps design to meet user requirements
- Documents user performance requirements
- Documents project test implications
Release Management
- Evaluates the solution design
- Documents operations requirements to ensure they’re met by the design
- Creates a pilot, deployment plan, and schedule
- Manages site deployment
- Documents deployment implications
- Documents operations management and supportability
- Documents operations acceptance criteria
Operations Experience
- Advocates for operations on the project team
- Brings in operations experts as needed for detailed information
- Coordinates with release management
- Documents operations performance requirements
Test Manager
- Owns all testing across all project teams
- Develops testing strategy and plans
- Ensures that best practice test methods are used
- Ongoing oversight
Architect (role type within Architecture Accountability)
- Looks at future directions and solutions to propose across infrastructure
- Designs future state
- Helps evaluate products and technologies being considered for building or deploying the solution
Goals ofProject Planning
The ultimate goal of project planning is to deliver a clearly scoped plan for building and delivering an IT service solution, which is represented by a master project plan, a master project schedule, and a functional specification at the Project Plans Approved MR, when the project team, its customers, and its stakeholders agree that the team has met all interim milestones. They also agree that the schedule is realistic, the roles and responsibilities of team members are well defined, and procedures are in place to address project risk. At this point, the team also baselines and places under change control all project planning deliverables.
Table 2 shows the desired outcomes of the Project Planning SMF goals and lists measures that can gauge how successfully the team has achieved these goals.
Table 2. Outcomes and Measures of the Project Planning SMF Goals
Outcomes
Measures
The design and features of the solution are clearly documented in the functional specification
- Number of bugs filed during development
- Number of change requests needed for clarification
- Functional specification approved by the team and stakeholders
- Signoff on the Project Plans Approved MR
- Support tickets during pilot or other phases of the project
The design and features of the solution are clearly traceable to business, user, operational, and system requirements
- Number of features that cannot be traced to requirements
- Functional specification approved by the team and stakeholders
- Signoff on the Project Plans Approved MR
The project plans clearly describe the tasks for which the project team is responsible and the schedules for performing those tasks
- Number of tasks completed on schedule and as planned
- Master project plan approved by the team and stakeholders
- Master project schedule approved by the team and stakeholders
- Signoff on the Project Plans Approved MR
Key Terms
The following table contains definitions of key terms found in this guide.
Table 3. Key Terms
Term
Definition
Baseline
A known state by which something is measured or compared. Baselines make managing change in complex projects possible.
Bottom-up scheduling
Team members representing each role generate time estimates and schedules for deliverables. Each team’s schedule is integrated into a master project schedule.
Conceptual design
Conceptual design involves understanding the business requirements and defining the features that users need to do their jobs. Product management takes the lead in creating the conceptual design, which begins during envisioning and continues with project planning.
Customer
For IT solutions, the customer is the person or organization that commissions and funds the project (typically management).
Interim milestone
Early progress indicator that segments large work efforts into manageable portions. The Deliver Phase recommends a set of interim milestones, but project teams should define their own interim milestones that make sense for their projects.
Logical design
Logical design uses the conceptual design and the current state of the technology infrastructure to define the new architecture at a high level.
Milestone
A project synchronization point. Major milestones mark the transition of a project from one phase to the next phase. They also transfer primary responsibility from one role to another role. The Deliver Phase SMFs correspond to major Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) milestones.
Personas
Describes various types of users and their job functions, including operations staff.
Physical design
Physical design describes the desired architecture in greater detail than the logical design. It also defines the hardware configurations and software products to be used. As a general rule, the design should contain enough detail to enable the team to begin work on the project plan.
Scope
A view of the project’s vision limited by constraints such as time and resources. Solution scope describes the solution’s features and deliverables. Project scope describes the work to be performed by the team.
Solution
A coordinated delivery of technologies, documentation, training, and support to successfully respond to a unique customer’s business problem. Solutions typically combine people, processes, and technology to solve problems.
Stakeholder
Individuals or groups who have an interest in the outcome of the project. Their goals and priorities are not always identical to those of the customer. Examples of stakeholders include departmental managers who will be affected by the solution, IT staff who will be responsible for running and supporting the solution, and functional managers who contribute resources to the project team.
Users
The people who interact with the solution to perform their jobs.
Use case
Describes an individual task performed in a use scenario.
Use scenario
Describes a particular activity that a user tries to accomplish, such as processing a transaction or checking e-mail.
Vision
Describes the fundamental goals of the solution.
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