Every time you estimate a new project and assign resources to it, you create a high-level project plan. High-level planning is focusing on establishing your project’s requirements and deliverables and then tracking them over time. It’s different from a detailed project plan, consisting of all the tasks needed to complete the project. One could say that a high-level plan is a manager’s view of the project.
For example, Jira is a great project planning tool that lets you track each task within a project. Teamdeck, on the other hand, helps you manage resources within your organization, and assign people to projects based on their availability. Teamdeck is resource management software with a team time tracking tool, resource scheduling tool, and leave management system features.
High-level planning means managing your project’s goals, dependencies, and available resources (resource planning), together with its timeline and budget. It states what should be done, when and by whom, without getting into details of particular tasks. It gives you a clear overview of the scope and required resources, so you can make informed decisions about estimating and running your project.
High-level project planning is closely connected to Agile project management principles, which state that a project manager (PM) should oversee the process, which can be described as a facilitative way of leadership.
In this case, “facilitative leadership” means that PMs point their teams in the right direction, and ensure proper communication and project flow, at the same time allowing the team to take responsibility for the projects themselves. This way, PMs can increase the sense of ownership amongst team members, which proves to make them more productive.
In creating a high-level plan, you need to include:
This way you focus on project requirements, business objectives, and roles needed to deliver the project, and based on that, create a schedule and allocate resources to your project.
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We’ve already listed what a high-level project plan should consist of.
Now, let’s evaluate how you can use it to schedule resources, estimate their cost, and manage your schedule.
You need to evaluate your project’s objectives and scope in order to decide whom to include in the project. Make use of a kick-off phase to better understand the project and the roles required to deliver it.
When it comes to allocating resources, the first thing to do is align employees’ skills and experience with your project’s requirements. Having drafted a high-level project plan you are already familiar with goals and deliverables. All it takes now is to come up with a list of employees who meet the project’s criteria.
Allocating resources remember to include not only what they’re currently working on (or the future projects they’ve already been assigned to), but also:
This way, you lower the chances that some unexpected events interfere with your project over time.
Assessing your team’s availability is much easier when you use high-level planning tools like Teamdeck. It comes with a schedule where you can check the current workload of your employees.
Once you’ve identified your team members and confirmed that they are available for the time of the project, estimate the budget with them using the story points-based estimation technique, which we described more thoroughly in this article about project kick-off.
Key takeaways: Using high-level project plans, you’re able to identify resources you need to deliver a project, confirm their availability, and estimate the project’s budget.
High-level planning is not just about the project’s start. It’s also overseeing your project over time.
One of the techniques you may want to use is resource-leveling. It’s simply adjusting the workload to your employees’ availability in order to avoid overbooking (read about workload management). What you need to watch out for, however, is that it changes the project’s path, resulting in delays in development.
To distribute the slack more evenly, you can use the resource smoothing technique. According to PMBOK® Guide, it’s adjusting “the activities of a schedule model such that the requirement for resources on the project do not exceed certain predefined resource limits”.
Key takeaways: Using a schedule to monitor your team’s workload during the project allows you to spot how the availability of your team members changes. Then, you’re able to adjust their capacity and project scope, avoiding under- or overbooking, and employee burnout.
We’ve discussed what high-level planning is and how having a schedule helps to better manage your team. Use it to have a better overview of your resources’ capacity and project scope.
In order to implement a high-level project plan:
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