What are the 4 stages of project task planning?

The definition of objectives is essential, because if we want to deliver the application in less than two months, we'll have no choice but to call on more staff.

These are issues that concern subsequent management and the division of tasks, so that's the first thing to clarify.

Once the objectives have been defined, it's time to take the four key steps to managing and assigning tasks correctly.

Step 1: Divide the project into tasks and prioritize them

With your objectives in mind, divide the project into tasks and sub-tasks so you can prioritize them.

There are various task planning tools to help you.

The Eisenhower matrix

This is a system for categorizing urgent and important tasks, distinguishing between quality and time constraints.

The Eisenhower matrix has four spaces to organize your project tasks.

• Important and urgent tasks This box contains tasks that need to be completed immediately, usually as a result of unforeseen events in everyday life. To take the previous example, the absence of one of the programmers and the need to complete the work assigned to him before this eventuality.
• Important tasks but not urgent: these are long-term tasks that can be postponed.
• Not important but urgent tasks These are issues that can be delegated to other team members, or that need to be automated.
• Tasks that are neither important nor urgent These are tasks that are neither important nor urgent: they could therefore be eliminated, because they waste our time.

The PERT method

The PERT diagram is another tool for efficiently dividing a project into tasks.

It is made up of sets of interrelated actions. It is particularly useful in projects where tasks depend on different departments or large teams.

It unifies criteria and tightens relationships to ensure that tasks are carried out smoothly and correctly, in the right order and with priority given to delivery dates.

Its representation is reminiscent of a relay race, where worker "B" cannot start running until worker "A" has completed his assigned task.

ICE rating

The ICE ( Impact, Confidence, Easy) rating model is another methodology that evaluates tasks on the basis of three parameters, allowing us to prioritize the most important tasks.

The following aspects are rated from 1 to 10:

• impact impact: what is the objective of the task. 1 being low impact and 10 high impact (crucial task).
• confidence the certainty that the expected impact of the task will be achieved. A value of 1 corresponds to a task that inspires little confidence, and a value of 10 to tried and tested tasks that we know will produce the expected impact.
• ease ease: the degree of ease of the task, given the constraints of time, resources, costs, etc. The easier the task, the higher the score.

The ICE score for each task will be the result of multiplying the values given for impact, confidence and ease. The highest product will designate the order of priority of the tasks.

The MosCow method

The MoSCoW method is a task prioritization technique used in agile management.

It classifies task requirements into four categories.

1. Must have (indispensable),
2. Should have (important but not critical),
3. Could have (optional) and
4. Won't have (no priority for now).

With a more concrete example, in an application development project, user authentication could be a Must have, while a dark mode would be a Should have and compatibility with a connected watch a Won't have.

Step 2: Analyze available human resources

The second step is to carefully plan the available human resources, taking three aspects into account:

• their skills,
• their availability,
• their appetites.

Checking skills

At this stage, make sure that staff have the necessary skills to carry out a given project.

It's important to bear in mind that these are not just technical issues. Depending on the project, soft skills can be just as relevant. 

For example, in projects involving several departments, it will be necessary to check that the participants have negotiation, empathy or communication skills. These skills will be needed to bring the project to a successful conclusion. 

Check availability and monitor load

One point that is often overlooked is checking resource availability especially in companies with several projects underway and profiles involved in several of them.

It's essential to ensure that we have the right developer for a given development, and that he'll actually be available when we need him.

This involves checking for any paternity or maternity leave, vacations, scheduled absences, and so on. In particular, it will be necessary to reorganize tasks or find a replacement when the person initially assigned is not available.

To correctly manage staff resources and make the best decisions, you need to rely on resource planning software such as Stafiz.

With this type of tool, you can :

• visualize workloads quickly and easily,
• analyze at a glance whether individual tasks are being completed on time,
• see who's responsible for each task,
• track the progress of each task,
• speed up decision-making and redirect the project if objectives need to be modified,
• set goals realistic for each task and for the project as a whole,
• controlled by warning systems overruns - should the project continue to develop as it has to date,
• keep up-to-date real-time data on work in progress,
• reassign profiles and employees with agility, if necessary.

With a project manager, we can quickly find profiles with the skills we need.

Assessing motivation

This is a matter for personnel management Is the team motivated, and are the right conditions in place to ensure 100% commitment?

To improve employee motivation and maximize their involvement, the first step is to ensure that they have the necessary skills to carry out the tasks.

When professionals feel confident, they become more involved in projects. If they don't have the right level of qualification, it's worth training them within the company.

In this way, they will perceive that the organization cares about them and provides them with the resources they need to get the job done, which enriches them professionally. 

You can then make a point of considering the professionals' preferences when allocating tasks.

To maintain high levels of willingness and commitment, there's no secret: you have to share workloads fairly.

In this respect, it's essential to anticipate future needs by using analyses to predict which teams will be busier or less busy, redistributing tasks to other employees if necessary.

Step 3: Assign project tasks

Once you've broken down your project into tasks and identified your human and technical resources, you can move on to the third step: task allocation.

To do this, assign the following informationto each of the tasks that make up the project.

• Who will be responsible?
• How long will it take, and when will the job he's responsible for be ready?
• What tools will beused ?

Task allocation can be implemented and represented in a variety of ways.

GANTT: the flowchart of flagship project tasks 

This task scheduler is a system of bars occupying a certain amount of time.

In a GANTT chart, you can see at a glance :

• task name,
• the estimated time for completion,
• the person responsible for the task, 
• interdependence with other tasks.

Using a staffing table

The staffing table also provides a quick overview of the professionals involved in a project, the tasks assigned to them and the estimated time needed to complete them. 

Both in the GANTT chart and in the staffing tables, the workloads of the available profiles are displayed.

Sometimes, as the project evolves, it may be necessary to rebalance these workloads to ensure proper project development. 

Balancing workloads

utilization rate is the indicator that enables workloads to be measured and balanced fairly, without jeopardizing the objectives and deadlines set for the execution of a project.

The utilization rate is equal to the time spent on billable projects divided by the time available. If an employee works 5 hours a day on billable projects out of a total of 7 hours in his working day, his utilization rate for that day will be : 5 / 7 * 100 = 71,42%.

By knowing the utilization rate of all project members, you can make better decisions about task organization, scheduling, etc.

TACE also makes it possible to organize costs according to the actual time spent by each person, and to optimize the time scheduled for each task, thus ensuring project continuity. 

With resource planning software, you have up-to-date data on the whole team, taking into account staff vacations, days of absence or sickness, whether they work full-time or part-time, and so on.

Thanks to all this, resources will be better distributed, enabling overloads to be avoided or potential mismatches to be detected before they even occur. This will have a positive effect on the overall development of a project.

Step 4: Keep meticulous track of tasks

Once all resources have been allocated according to objectives, it's time to keep track of task tracking itself.

As we've seen, planning is essential. But sometimes unforeseen events occur that require changes or modifications to the original plan. 

Detecting unforeseen events in good time, or even anticipating them, is the main benefit of this phase. Theuse of a project tracking tool tool is extremely useful, as it enables you to :

• automate alerts when certain tasks are not completed on time or in the right form,
• act quickly if changes need to be implemented in the event of unforeseen events ,
• the right coordinationresources to achieve objectives - visually, agilely and simply,
• detect bottlenecks in certain tasks that delay the development of other necessary actions,
• readjust workloads in real time, boostingworker motivation and productivity, and ensuring that the project is carried out within the planned parameters,
• detect budget deviations, control subcontracting costs or unbillable costs,
• streamline communication between all team members.