How to write an effective and actionable project plan in 6 steps? A Beginner's guide for Agile team

While starting a new project, a project plan is the most important document that your entire team can rely on and refer to when they need to make any decisions.

This plan acts as a guiding light through the entire project and drafting it correctly is vital to the success of it.

At TimeDive, we believe in one mantra: Simplify, prioritise, and execute.

It’s important for employees to take ownership of work.

Here’s how you can draft an action plan before starting a project

1. Analyse the tasks
2. Identify resources required
3. Decentralise the planning process
4. Determine the course of action
5. Plan for contingencies
6. Delegation

Let’s deep dive on each;

1. Analyse the tasks:

Write down

• Why are we doing this project? What is the leadership’s intent?
• What are the tasks involved?
• What is the end goal?

When the why is clear, and how tasks are connected to the strategic picture, your employees are more likely to have a clear overview of what you are trying to achieve through the project.

2. Identify resources required:

• People
• Budget
• Software
• Timeline

Who are the project leadership and execution team with the right skills and what are their individual roles.

A project budget will control decision making, resources that will be deployed for the project and the people involved in it. Setting a realistic one will help you access the right amount of capital that will be used to execute the project without any hindrance.

What are the tools, documents, softwares required to execute as having them handy will help you save a lot of time and employees can execute the project faster.

Having a start and end date will make employees stay on track of the progress.

3. Decentralise the planning process:

Have faith and trust in your subordinate and ask your subordinated to create the plan. Gives them a buy-in for the task as they will be executing it.

4. Determine the course of action:

Schedule a meeting with employees and discuss the best course of action. Employees can work on the details, and leaders can share their fresh perspective. As a leader, you have an urge to come up with an action plan and share it with employees; however, this will hamper their decision-making skill and be dependent on you for every single detail.

5. Plan for contingencies:

A team should always be prepared for contingencies. There’s always risk associated through each phase of task/project so ask your employees to think it through and note them down along with their solution to tackle it.

6. Delegation:

Share all the information and delegate it to your team.

At the end, ask questions to your employees and have a discussion to make sure they have understood correctly. Asking questions to their leader is not disrespectful in fact the best thing they can do to get your task done.

Using TimeDive, you can create a standardised planning process and checklist.

You can draft a document covering the entire project plan with the minute details that your employees can refer to.

Clear communication as to why, what and how of the project will increase your success rate by great margin.