Top-Down and Bottom-Up Planning
Define the duration of each project phase upfront without listing and scheduling each task individually. This enterprise planning feature or top-down strategic planning approach is useful when the detailed aspects of the project are unknown. It allows the project manager to work at the level of detail that is just right. Likewise, when project components are already known due to previous projects of a similar nature, 2-plan Desktop allows a bottom up processing approach.
You can add tasks as these are identified by your consultants, sub-contractors or internal teams and assign efforts to various levels of your WBS workpackages without changing the planned duration. Check out 2-plan Desktop's work breakdown structure tool; the Graphical WBS. You can also reserve a time buffer for your project during the planning phase. Later on, you can allocate this buffer to your tasks on a need basis instead of distributing the entire budget upfront across the deliverables. Most importantly, just drag-and-drop your project components with known details into your new projects. This way, you can focus on the project management work packages that have unknown details. This top-down, bottom-up planning capability addresses the needs of firms at the forefront of technology or even construction firms with definite and known project component details.
For instance, when implementing a software appliance for the first time, a project manager will have to consult with technology vendors who already have an expertise in the area. Also, a real estate development firm can easily drag-and-drop project details for various kinds of swimming pools, club houses or parks in a suburban development project to come up with various project configurations based on previously known project component details.
Project Management Milestones
Experience 2-plan Desktop’s unique distinction between the WBS and the project milestone. Try this more workable system and test a simpler method that lets you define the milestone’s date and shift work packages to be completed before or after the milestone.
A typical milestone in project management software is usually directly related to the WBS. Thus, changes to the time assigned for just one task will change your entire schedule. In 2-plan Desktop, this problem is eliminated as project management milestones are defined independently.
Likewise, you can assign your work breakdown structure work packages to start after or finish before the milestone date. Since the milestone date remains fixed, you can quickly drill down to see when an outstanding work package is going to cause you to miss the milestone date. Here, the Gantt chart provides a simple and clear view of the milestones which are shown separately from work packages. This project management milestone chart technique simplifies your work innovatively.
Plan Phases and Iterative Planning
Incorporating iterative planning is simple using the top-down planning feature.
Manually select the start and end dates for each work package, which will remain fixed throughout the project unless you intentionally change it. The interactive Gantt chart displays the calculated effort of each work package against the fixed planned date and allows drag-and-drop capabilities to adjust the schedule quickly.
Other project management tools tend to complicate agile planning by requiring you to enter constraints on milestones, such as the earliest start-date to schedule time between events.
With top-down planning, you maintain full control over the start and end date at the work package level.
Time Scheduling and Task Management
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