Information Development: Managing Your Documentation Projects, Portfolio, and People

Chapter 16. Planning Your Information Development Project

	Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.
	--Alan Leiken

You may not have all of the information about your project that you would like to as you begin your Information Development Project Plan, but if you have answers to most of the questions outlined in Chapter 15: Starting Your Project, you should be ready to put your plan in writing. Writing the Project Plan is essential to good planning. It is not enough to have ideas about your project in your head. No one can see them there. If the plans are not expressed clearly and communicated effectively to team members and other stakeholders, you can predict with great accuracy that each individual will have a different idea about the project.

An effective Project Plan is primarily a communication tool, although you may find that committing your thoughts to paper clarifies your thinking. You use the plan to communicate the vision, goals, scope, and cost of your project to your team members, members of the team developing the product or service, those involved in marketing and product design, the users of the information, and others whose agreement you need. The Project Plan is an important step toward reaching consensus, making decisions, and obtaining the funding you need.

When you produce a plan for your project, you are relying ...