Project Management

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In your planning of project, what is the level of detail you go to?

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Vincent Guerard Coach - Trainer - Speaker - Advisor| Freelance Mont-Royal, Quebec, Canada
For planning a project you do start with a high level schedule or with a more detail approaches.

To what Level of detail do you go?

Does it goes to the packages detail?
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Vincent Guerard Coach - Trainer - Speaker - Advisor| Freelance Mont-Royal, Quebec, Canada
Dec 28, 2017 12:39 PM
Replying to Lonnie Pacelli
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I'll try to be a bit more quantitative on this. I like to use 1/1/1/1 rule, as follows:

1 task assigned to
1 person creating
1 deliverable with a duration of no more than
1 week

Naturally your situation may vary, but I've found this to be a good guideline.
Lonnie,

Not sure I understand.
Your package definition involve a 1/1/1/1 rule.
1 TASK assign to 1 PERSON to execute 1 DELIVERABLE in 1 WEEK.

What is the distinction between Task and Deliverable in that case?
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1 reply by Lonnie Pacelli
Dec 28, 2017 11:00 PM
Lonnie Pacelli
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The task is the activity, i.e. "Document user requirements for feature xyz" and the deliverable is "User requirements document". It is a good cross check to ensure that tasks have associated deliverables and that each task has purpose.
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Vincent Guerard Coach - Trainer - Speaker - Advisor| Freelance Mont-Royal, Quebec, Canada
Dec 28, 2017 9:25 PM
Replying to fei xiao
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I will not go to the work packages' detail. because at the very beginning if there are too many details to handle it will be a very huge wbs so it's focus on the important point: deadline, resources, risks.
Fei,

You don't go to the package detail at the start, do you do it eventually? When?
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Lonnie Pacelli Author & President| ProjectManagementAdvisor.com Bellevue, Wa, United States
Dec 28, 2017 10:39 PM
Replying to Vincent Guerard
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Lonnie,

Not sure I understand.
Your package definition involve a 1/1/1/1 rule.
1 TASK assign to 1 PERSON to execute 1 DELIVERABLE in 1 WEEK.

What is the distinction between Task and Deliverable in that case?
The task is the activity, i.e. "Document user requirements for feature xyz" and the deliverable is "User requirements document". It is a good cross check to ensure that tasks have associated deliverables and that each task has purpose.
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Kailash Kant Program Management| DLF Ltd. New Delhi, Delhi, India
Simply put,
Its good to go up-to a Measurable Unit,
which once Complete, lands up in some Benefit Achieved (a measurable part of the whole of the benefit targeted by the project).

Have witnessed sheer wastage of resources preparing too-detailed schedules which could not even be updated in time. Its just like splitting a grand into pennies and gathering it back to make a grand.
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Bill Bartlett Ca, United States
Based on the earlier response by Eduard. I too break down a project into phases based on the scope of work with the highest level of detail first. Much like the detail path of Project Schedule. The small details have to be filled in as you build the schedule.
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