How do I write a work plan?

See also: How do I organise the project work?

The objectives should give to the structure of your work plan. The work plan is what you will do to fulfil the achievement set out in the objectives. You make a work plan because:

  • You show how you will do the excellent work
  • You need a plan for your work
  • You need to explain to the evaluator and reviewer of your project what you plan to do and what you have done, including use of resources
  • You need to divide the work between the partners in the project
  • It is the bottom up input to the budget

In most projects it is useful (required) to divide the work in work packages. You further divide the work into tasks.

The WPs you set up must correspond to the objectives: To achieve something you need WPs where you do the work. You should not plan work that you do not plan to achieve in your objectives. Adapt WPs to objectives but there does not need to be a one to one relation between the two.

A WP is a major and distinct part of your total work. Each WP must have a WP leader that is responsible for overlooking and coordinating the work.

Do:

  • Divide the work into WPs
  • Assign the work to the partners and let the partner doing the work write the WP text
  • Further divide the work into tasks
  • Explain as precise as possible what shall be done in the WPs and the tasks
  • Estimate the effort needed to do the work per partner i.e. how many person months will the work take in the WP
  • Make a spreadsheet like an effort table: WPs in the left column, partners in a row at the top and fill in person months per partner/WP
    • This will give you an idea of the work load per partner and the total work load in the project
  • Use this spreadsheet actively to balance the work in the WPs and among partners
    • If you very roughly use €10 000 as cost per person month you will get a first idea about the person months you can put in and the budget you have. You will not use this for the budget but it gives you some idea of project size and available budget
  • Further divide the work (PM) per partner on tasks (you can do this late in the process)
  • Organise the work with major parts of work for a limited number of partners in each WP. Do not put all partners in all WPs. This makes work hard to plan and follow up
  • Consider how the work you have planned match the resources you have. Do you have the right partnership to do the job?
    • If you start early you can make adjustments!
      • Competence not covered
      • Partners with overlapping competence
      • Too much work/too little work for some partners
  • Take a second look at the call text and check how you work plan match the call
    • Balance between the problems addressed/expected impact and your plan??
    • All questions expectations covered?
  • Assure that objectives, work plan and resources make a good match. If not:
    • Modify objectives or plan
    • Add or remove partners or change partner roles in project
  • Adjust the effort plan to the size of the budget by fine tuning the person months per partner
    • When you have a budget almost ready you can add, move or remove person months to optimize your work plan i.e strengthening some tasks or giving more to some partners

 

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