Manage Your Project Using V-Model Methodology

Discover the Project Management Plan

Did you know that there’s a document dedicated to explaining how a project is organized? This document is called the project management plan. It covers the organizational conditions needed to track progress and manage the project. It also describes the procedures you need to put in place to facilitate collaboration between project team members.

Imagine you’re a client who is investing time and money in a project. You would want to have detailed information on how the project is going to be managed! And that’s where the project management plan comes into play. It gives your client an overview of the way in which the project will be organized, scheduled, and monitored.

With a well-defined project management plan in place, everyone knows what they’re doing and when and how they’re doing it, and this helps to avoid misunderstandings and confusion.

It also contains:

• the project objectives.

• the different steps, such as project phases.

• information about the roles of the various people working in the team.

You’ll also include:

• the budget.

• the schedule.

• the management strategy (progress, risks, procedures, etc.).

This will give you an overview that brings together all the information about the project organization.

The project management plan is a tool that enables you to plan ahead and prepare for potential issues. It helps you identify what needs to be done to deliver a successful project.

This key document allows you to answer a number of fundamental questions:

• What is the final objective you’re trying to achieve?

• What is the available budget?

• How will you achieve the project objectives?

• When are you planning to finish the project?

• What will you do if a change is required?

• How are you planning to monitor the progress of the project?

• What are you going to do if one of your team members is absent?

These are the kinds of questions you’ll need to answer to ensure that you manage the project effectively.

The project management plan starts during the requirements phase (step 1). This is one of the first deliverables you need to produce. It sets out how the project will be organized based on the requirements defined in the business requirements document. As project manager, you are the main contributor to this document.

Write the Introduction

In the introduction to the document, it’s always important to set out the project context.

Once you’ve laid the foundations, you can talk about the objectives.

These should be presented as SMART goals in the introduction to your project management plan. SMART goals are:

• Specific: Detailed, clear objectives.

• Measurable: Quantifiable criteria.

• Achievable: Feasible given the available resources.

• Relevant: Relevant and achievable in the specific context.

• Time-bound: Clearly defined delivery date.

Here’s an example.

SMART Goal:

“Complete the design and development of the AirGalaxy rocket-testing application by December 31, 2024, following all steps in the V-model methodology with less than 2% critical errors being identified during the validation phases and achieving a user satisfaction score of at least 90% during the initial rocket tests.”

SMART Goal Explanation:

• Specific: The goal focuses on the design and development of a rocket-testing application as part of the AirGalaxy project.

• Measurable: The goal is measurable in terms of adhering to the V-model methodology, the critical error percentage, and the user satisfaction score.

• Achievable: Although it’s an ambitious goal, it is feasible with the appropriate project planning and management.

• Relevant: The goal is directly linked to the primary aim of the AirGalaxy project.

• Time-bound: The goal has a clear deadline of December 31, 2024.

This SMART goal provides a clear direction and measurable criteria to assess the success of the AirGalaxy project.

It will also be useful for providing details about the project stakeholders in the introduction. You should identify all people, hierarchies, and team structures that will play a role in the project team. A RACI table is a good way of representing this.

Include the Schedule

After defining the project context in your introduction, you’ll indicate the different tasks that will be performed. This happens during the planning step, where you list details of all actions and deliverables expected at each step in the V-model.

Define Roles and Responsibilities

As project leader, you will define the roles and responsibilities for each project team member to ensure that no task is overlooked.

To do this, you can ask the following questions: 

• Who are the most suitable people to carry out each task? 

• Who has the required skills? 

• Do they have enough availability to take on the work?

This approach ensures that work is allocated in an optimal way.

In this situation, you’ll need to plan ahead and put solutions in place, such as training staff or redistributing tasks to the appropriate people.

That might seem obvious to you, but it happens more often than you’d think!

Even if a project has urgent requirements and issues, there could be a major impact on team morale if team members don’t feel like they’re being listened to or qualified to take on the role.

This is why, as project manager, you need to listen to your team and create a sustainable team structure. Your role is key to ensuring high-quality internal and external communication.

You can define the communication channels to be used up front, based on activity and urgency.

This table gives an idea of which communication channels are the most suitable based on how urgently the information needs to be sent. Of course, this can vary based on personal preferences and the standard methods used within an organization.

In addition to communication methods, you’ll also need to define what’s known as the decision-making process.

For example:

• Who makes decisions within your team? 

• What process should be followed to make a suggestion?

• How can decisions be challenged?

But this does raise the question of what to do if a decision is needed quickly due to an issue.

By establishing a clear and efficient decision-making process, you’ll avoid conflicts and delays that could negatively impact the project.

Establish Monitoring and Control Methods

After planning your project in detail using the V-model methodology, you’ll need to ask yourself: “How can I ensure that my project stays on track?” And that’s a great question to ask! Effective monitoring and rigorous control are key to the success of your project. Let’s reflect on each of these points to gain a better understanding.

There’s a fundamental question you need to ask when monitoring a project: “What’s our status?”

It is vital that you can answer this question at any moment in time.

You can use various methods to do this:

• Project dashboards: These visual tools give you a quick overview of the project status. Dashboards usually include key performance indicators (KPIs) such as cost, time, and quality.

• Regular team meetings: These are a way of checking progress on tasks with the team and resolving problems before they get out of hand.

• Project reviews: These are a more formal approach and usually take place at key project milestones. They’re an opportunity to review progress and discuss the next steps.

It is possible to make changes, but don’t forget that any change could have an impact on the cost, timeline, or quality of the project. So, it’s important to manage changes in a structured way:

1. Change requests: If a change is required, it needs to be formally submitted. The request must include reasons why the change is required and its potential impact.

2. Change assessment: You must assess the impact of the change on the project. This could mean reviewing the cost, time constraints, or required resources.

3. Change implementation: If the change is approved by the project stakeholders, you must incorporate it into the project management plan and ensure that everyone is informed.

To do this, you’ll need to assess the project outcomes. This could involve:

1. Assessing objectives: Compare the actual results with the initial objectives. Did you meet the original objectives you’d set at the beginning?

2. Feedback from stakeholders: Ask stakeholders for their views on the project. Were they satisfied?

3. Lessons learned: This is also an opportunity to reflect on what went well and what could be improved in future projects.

Over to You!

Background

The existing project management plan is a solid basis to work from, but it needs some additional information to cover all aspects of the project. This is where your expertise comes into play.

Instructions

Your main task is to flesh out this document by including the following elements that you created during the previous exercises:

1. RACI: Detail who is responsible, who can authorize decision-making, and who needs to be consulted or informed about each project task.

2. Project plan: Create a detailed schedule for each project activity, taking note of any dependencies between tasks.

3. Risk management plan: Identify the potential risks relating to the project and prepare a prevention plan with preventive measures and corrective actions to put in place.

Once you’ve completed the project management plan, you can export it to PDF format and upload it to Notion if you'd like.

Let’s Recap

• The project management plan is a key document to enable you to organize and track the project.

• This plan should be created during the requirements phase (step 1) and should be based on the business requirements document.

• The project management plan covers how communication, resources, and risks will be managed.

• The project management plan details how the project will be monitored and controlled, including managing change and assessing outcomes.

Now that we’ve defined the objectives and the plan structure, let’s move on to a key stage: setting up an efficient monitoring and control methodology.