Three Project Planning Techniques that is useful for Business Analysts to
apply
There are a few reasons why it is really good for a Business Analyst to have some familiarity and
practical skills when it comes to some basic (but powerful) Project Planning
Techniques. Apart from the fact that most Business Analysts operate within a
project environment and therefore should really understand the main planning
activities and cycles that is happening around them it can also be extremely
useful for a Business Analyst to be able to properly plan for their ownBusiness Analysis activities on a project using
these Business Analysis Planning
techniques.
It is also very useful knowledge for a Business Analyst simply from the
perspective of adding even more value as a Business Analyst within a project
environment.
There are a few specific Project Planning techniques that a Business
Analyst should learn and a few concepts to understand to really perform
optimally within the project environment. These techniques and concepts are
very applicable when it comes to Business Analysis planning and estimation
activities. On smaller projects where the Business Analyst gets more involved
with working closely with a Project Manager (or even play the role of a pseudo
Project Manager) these techniques are like your bread and butter when it comes
to planning tasks.
So let’s now have a look at the three core Business Analysis Planning Techniques (borrowed from the Project Management
Profession) that will help you in your role as a great Business Analyst.
These three Business Analysis Planning Techniques are distinct techniques
but they all work together to build up a comprehensive Project Plan which turns
into the Project’s detailed schedule. The steps to build this overall Project
Plan / Project Schedule is as follows:
Step 1: Build a Work Breakdown
Structure (WBS)
Step 2: Create a Network Diagram (using
your WBS)
Step 3: Create a Gantt Chart (using the
Network Diagram)
Business Analysis Planning Technique #1: Work Breakdown Structure (Step 1
in Building a Project Plan)
The Work Breakdown Structure is a Project Planning technique used to plan
out everything that needs to be delivered by the project in terms of Phases,
Deliverables and Tasks. It deliberately doesn’t take the timeframe, the
sequencing or any dependencies into account yet and should be seen as the very
first step of Building a Project Plan / Schedule.
Let’s first define the specific terms you need to understand when
learning about the Work Breakdown Structure:
Phase: The Phase of a project is a logical grouping of activities and
deliverables that is grouped together for purposes of planning for a project.
The Phases often aligns with the phases used in the Systems Development Life
Cycle although this will be different when you plan for an Agile based Project.
Deliverable: A deliverable is a specific output that the project must deliver
along the way of being executed. Examples of deliverables could be documents,
software packages or any tangible result that makes the project progress to the
next stage of the plan.
Tasks: A task in the context of project planning refers to a set of
steps or activities that is typically performed to work towards achieving a
deliverable. Therefore there will be a set of different tasks that needs to be
completed before a deliverable can be achieved. In most cases it takes more
than just one task to deliver an outcome. When you define your tasks you should
break down small enough to assign to one person or one group with specific
skills to execute. A task will be typically something that requires between 1
and 5 days worth of work effort.
So
now that you understand the concepts you need for starting to build your Work
Breakdown Structure. You should also take note that there is another approach
to determining all the required work for a project by using a Product Breakdown
Structure. This method is similar to the Work Breakdown Structure and achieves
the same overall outcome but is underpinned with another methodology called
Prince II. We will not be covering that method here but once you understand the
Work Breakdown Structure Technique, you will be in a great position to
understand the Product Break Down Structure too.
How to build your Work Breakdown Structure?
Ideally
you should get yourself a big white board or a large table to work on. Get
yourself some large and medium sized “Post It” notes and some different
coloured marker pens. You are going to be sticking things on the wall and
scribbling on them as you go, so make sure you are prepared. The reason using
“Post It” notes are recommended is because you are going to be moving the “Post
It” notes around and will be using them again when you start Step 2: Creating
the Network Diagram.
Give
your Project a Name: Take a large “Post It”
note and write the Project Name on it. You then put that note at the very top
(in the middle) of the white board or table as if it was the position of the
CEO on an organisational chart.
Define
your Phases: The second step you will
do is to define which phases you believe will be involved with your project.
For example, if you are planning a software development project you may want to
have phases such as: Initiation Phase, Analysis Phase, Design Phase, Build
Phase, Test Phase and Implementation Phase.
You
should take the large “Post It” notes and write a Phase Name on each of them.
You will then stick them at the top of your white board from left to right
(leave as much space in between each Phase “Post It” note as you can.
Define
your Deliverables: Now that you have your Project Name and Phases defined and up
on the white board or the table, you can start thinking about what key
deliverables each phase will be delivering. For example: Your Analysis Phase
will probably be delivering the following two deliverables (as a minimum):
Business Requirements Document and Business Analysis Approach Document. These are just two examples
but you can image the type of deliverables that you need to think of here.
You
should again take the large “Post It” notes and write the name of the
Deliverable on the note. You then stick these “Deliverable”s under each Phase
(where they will be completed) as if they are the Phase’s sub-ordinates on an
organisational chart.
Define
your tasks: Each Deliverable will
have to be delivered as a result of a range of different tasks that was
performed by the project team. This is now where you take each Deliverable and
break down exactly what tasks must be completed in order to deliver that
deliverable. Examples of some tasks required for the delivery of the Business Requirements
Deliverablecould be: Perform a Requirements Gathering Workshop,
Document Business Requirements,
Review Business Requirements.
You
now take the small “Post It” notes and write each task on the note and stick
the tasks underneath the corresponding Deliverable on your white board or
table. Once you have done all the tasks for each deliverable you will have the
framework for your WBS all set up and ready for estimation.
Estimation
Now
that you have all the Phases, Deliverables and Tasks outlined on the White
board or table you are ready to evaluate each task in terms of how much effort
is involved to complete this task. It is typically suggested that you write the
minimum number of days (or hours for a smaller project) in one corner of the
small “Post It” note and the maximum number of days (or hours) in another
corner of the “Post It” note. You only do this for the Tasks because the tasks
are the only things on your WBS which requires effort to complete.
So
now go through each Task with your team and agree on the minimum and maximum
values for each Task.
Milestones
As
a final step before you complete the Work Breakdown Structure is to identify
the Deliverables and Tasks which you see as Milestones. A milestone in the
context of Project Management is when you feel like you have reached a critical
point or achieved a significant result in the project.
With
your team you should review all the Deliverables and Tasks and decide which
ones are deemed “milestones” for your project as it progresses. For those
milestones you should draw a diamond symbol on the “Post It” note to illustrate
that the particular item is a milestone for the project.
Now
you can stand back and admire the WBS. It is a great idea to mark each
Deliverable and Task in a way which will remind you which Task belongs to which
Deliverable and which Deliverable is part of which phase. This is important
especially for the next step where you will start the build the Network
Diagram.
Business
Analysis Planning Technique #2: Network Diagram (Step 2 in Building a
Project Plan)
The
purpose of the Network Diagram is to ultimately determine the critical path of
the project. The Network Diagram shows the sequence and dependencies that
project tasks have upon each other.
How to build your Network Diagram:
You
do this by taking all the ‘Post It’ notes which are the Tasks (put the
Deliverables & Phases aside) of your project. Start to take them one by one
and by starting on the left of the white board, you place it in the sequence of
execution. Part of the objective here is to figure out which tasks can run in
parallel and what dependencies exist between tasks.
Let’s say your Project is to make
coffee. Pretend you have unlimited people helping you do this project.
Task
1: Put the kettle on
Task
2: Find a cup,
Task
3: Drink the coffee.
You
would place Task 1: Put kettle on and Task 2: Find a cup in the same invisible
column on the white board on the left (working from left to right).
Then
you will place Task 3 (drink the coffee) in the next invisible column along.
Task
1 & 2 are not dependent on each other because they can be executed at the
same time and there were enough people helping to make the coffee and therefore
you place one below the other in the first invisible column.
Task
3 is dependent on both Task 1 and Task 2 to be executed before you can start
executing Task 3. This is why you place Task 3 in the next invisible column.
You
should now try and do this with all the Tasks in your real project.
Critical Path
Once
you have all your Project tasks outlined in the way described you have achieved
two key project planning results. You know what sequence you need to execute
the tasks in and you also know which tasks is dependant on other tasks. You now
have to determine what the duration of the project is by working out what is
the longest time-frame the project needs to execute all the tasks. Keep in mind
that the number of people who you would have available to execute your project
has not been determined yet. It is now just about understanding based on the
sequence and dependencies what is the quickest and the slowest duration of the
project.
How to determine the critical path?
When
you determine the critical path you need to identify each task in each
invisible column on the Network Diagram with the maximum duration assigned to
it. Remember how you placed a minimum and maximum duration on each task? Now is
the time to use this maximum number. So for each task that you identify in each
invisible column with the highest maximum value, you should make a circle
around the maximum duration for that task (preferably in a new colour). Once
you have determined the highest maximum task for task in the invisible column
and you marked them out you should add the maximum durations for all these
tasks together. Once you come up with a total duration you will know that
maximum length of time the project should take. These tasks you identified
forms what is referred to as the critical path of your project. If any of the
tasks on the critical path is taking longer to finish than the maximum duration
that was planned for, your project is effectively running over the critical
path and is therefore running late. This is why project managers are often very
focussed on doing whatever they can to stay within the critical path of the
projects!
Finally,
you can a similar exercise to determine the quickest that project can be
completed by identifying, marking and adding up the highest minimum duration
values for each invisible column on your Network Diagram. This is another great
measure for project managers because they will know that regardless of how many
people they assign to their project, the project would need at least that
minimum number of days to be completed.
You
have now successfully created the Network Diagram for your Project Plan. You
now only need to finish Step 3 of Building the Project Plan before you
completed!
Business
Analysis Planning Technique #3: Gantt chart (Step 3 in Building a Project
Plan)
This
final step of creating the Gantt Chart or Project Schedule is where people often
start. Starting with this step is not a great way to build a project plan
because you have not considered the WBS step or Network Diagram step in any
detail. It means you will be guessing a lot of the tasks, their dependencies
and durations with trying to start directly within a calendar based planning
tool. It is really valuable to first complete the WBS and then the Network
Diagram before drafting the Schedule.
So
what does this step really entail? In short, it is a combination of your WBS
(Phase, Deliverable, Milestones and Tasks!) and Network diagram (Sequence and
Dependencies) with the additional layer of a calendar and resources. You are
essentially combining all your steps with a calendar where you are able to see
specific calendar months and assign and share tasks among resources for your
project. It shows you the “real” duration of the project in calendar months
rather than work effort required.
Use
a Gantt Chart (MS Project) to put this together electronically rather than the
“Post It” notes.
In Conclusion
In a nutshell, if you
are able to do these three project planning techniques and you understand the
underlying purpose of each step, you are set to start participating or leading
any project planning efforts! You will by know have a greater appreciation for
the benefits of how these Project Planning Techniques and steps can assist you
in your own Business Analysis Planning
activities. Once you
applied these three steps in practice once, you will never stop using it –
promise! Give it a go!
