An overview of project planning

- [Voiceover] During planning, you define the project in more detail. Identifying additional objects, fine-tuning requirements, and fleshing out deliverables, success criteria, assumptions, and risks. You also identify the work that must be done. Who's going to do it, how long everything will take, when things happen, and how much it'll cost. Planning also includes how you'll run the project, such as how you'll communicate.

Manage change and risk and ensure quality. All of this information goes into documents that, together, represent the project plan. The completed project plan doesn't get put on a shelf to gather dust. You put it to use once the project work gets started. To direct the people working on your project, to keep track of how the project is going, to correct course, if necessary, and to communicate with stakeholders.

Are you ready to explore the components of a project plan? We'll start with defining a project and then dive into developing an overall plan. Because a project schedule is a key component of your plan, an entire chapter is devoted to how you build one.