How to Effectively Review the Structure and Sequence of Your Project Tasks

Proper structuring and sequencing of project work is strongly related to how you approached task identification and planning with the team. I like to use a six step approach, leading to a final review of plan completeness, including questions about whether the right tasks are identified, in the right places, in the right order, with the right dependencies.

1. Define project scope and success criteria. This step results in a project charter, signed by the project champion. Projects without this document tend to float, never quite reaching shore. Download a project charter template, made available by Carleton University.
2. Define project phases. Although completion of Step #1 can be accomplished without bringing together key members of the project team, Steps 2 through 6 are ineffective without input from representatives of the design and implementation teams. Input starts with definition of the major project phases. For example, the following phases are from an actual project with the goals of ensuring accounts of former employees are immediately disabled across critical applications, and realizing an ROI via self-service password resets and synchronization:
   1. Automate account terminations
   2. Implement password self-service
   3. Synchronize password resets
   4. Automate stale account processing
   5. Develop metrics
3. Define activities within each phase. Although there are different ways to approach this step, I usually define activities in terms of the expected deliverables.I usually include a note in MS Project for each activity in which I describe the deliverable, management expectations, and any assumptions made.
4. Identity tasks to create deliverables. In this step, you identify the work required to produce the deliverable described in each activity. The granularity of the tasks--how deep you have to drill to ensure proper management--depends on the complexity of the work and the risk involved. Too much granularity can be as bad as not enough. Consider developing checklists for complex or risky tasks instead of breaking them down into painfully small project sub-tasks.
5. Identify resources, work duration, and dependencies for each task. This is where proper activity and task structure becomes critical. However, this is a first pass. Let the team work through the entire plan first, assigning people, work effort, predecessors, and successors for each item. See figure .
6. Review plan against charter success criteria, adjusting activity/task structure and sequences as necessary. After completing Step #5, it's important to compare the results to success criteria defined in the charter created in Step #1. Often, time or cost constraints are exceeded, requiring a review of dependencies and work structure to identify opportunities for improving project efficiency.