Chapter 8. The Project Management Plan

The project management plan (PMP) document is the culmination of all planning activities undertaken by project managers. The outputs of the various planning activities appear in this document, which becomes the baseline document guiding the overall execution of the project. It should not be confused with the detailed project schedule, which represents only the schedule and assignment of activities.

Documenting the planning outputs enables the project plan to be reviewed for deficiencies. At Infosys, project plans are usually reviewed by a group that includes project managers, members of the SEPG, and senior management. In many instances, a project plan review has revealed glaring shortcomings that, if not corrected, could have spelled trouble for the project. A thorough review of the management plan is one of the best ways to nip potential problems in the bud a huge value to project managers, particularly those who are less experienced.

The document also serves an important communication purpose. It gives senior management an overall view of the project goals and commitments and describes how the project will be managed to meet them. It gives the project team a comprehensive view of the project and the roles of the individual team members.

Although we have discussed most of the planning activities, so far we have not discussed the team and communication issues, which are covered in this chapter. Here, we also discuss the structure of the template used at Infosys to document the plan and examine the project management plan of the ACIC project.