Project Management Plan

This assignment assists the team in defining and planning the activities that are required for the successful completion of the project. The project plan reflects your understanding of the project at the time it is developed. You should update your plan throughout the Fall Semester and you will also submit an updated version of your plan at the beginning of the Spring Semester.

There are many ways to approach project planning and it is likely that someone on your team has experience as a project planner. You are free to use whatever project planning methods and tools work best for your team. (It may even be that your client prefers a particular way to do project planning.)

Whatever plan you end up with will have tasks. For example, one task might be the production of a patent search report. Whatever planning method you use, for each task, include the task deliverable and, most importantly, the name of the one person on the team who has oversight for the task. While several people may work on a task, only one person should be assigned oversight responsibility for the task. In other words, never heard in a team meeting is, "Sally and John, you have the lead on the VOC1 task." Instead, it should be, "Sally, you have the lead on the VOC1 task. It's a big one that will involve the entire team but you will be the one to organize the activities and will be the one who is accountable for the task."

The rest of this assignment description has one way to project plan, but you do not have to follow the method described here.

In the Ulrich and Eppinger book, read the chapter on Product Planning, and the chapter on Managing Projects for an overview of planning related to product development. Apply the methods from the Managing Projects chapter when planning and executing your project.

Your plan should include a work breakdown structure (WBS) with a brief but understandable identification of major activities. Your WBS should cover at least three nested levels. One level should address a conceptual grouping of activities (perhaps even somewhat generic to most product design and business development projects). A second level should address specific project deliverables (the course assignments are intended to contribute to the accomplishment of the first level groupings). A third level should address the tasks that you believe will be necessary to complete to develop each deliverable. The plan does not require extensive detail, but does require careful thought.

The plan should have considerable detail for the fall and sketchy detail for spring. The revised plan should have considerable detail for spring

Use project planning software, to document the plan. Include, at a minimum, tasks, timing, deliverable and responsible person. A graphical representation, such as a Gantt chart is the best way of displaying your timeline.

Update your plan frequently.

Submitting the Assignment

Email (PDF format) to your company contact and to your faculty mentor. Upload (PDF) to the course Canvas site. Only one member of the team has to upload to Canvas.