Achieving deadlines is a fundamental part of successful projects, this best practice ensures your Pega Express™ project makes the most of the time you have available through thorough and effective planning.

What is planning?

Effective planning is a important part of any implementation. Planning is a broad best practice in which you prepare for the key activities for a Pega Express project. The following examples highlight the steps to take for successful planning.

Planning for the minimum lovable product (MLP) release: 

• Identify and resource project roles.
• Set up environments and access.
• Agree on the project management tools.
• Create a sprint and test plan.
• Approve the Microjourneys® and MLP roadmap.

Planning before the first sprint:

• Organize the project kick-off meeting.
• Schedule the scrum ceremonies.
• Agree on and set up governance.
• Agree on the project standards such as the definition of ready or definition of done. 
• Record the Directly Capture Objectives sessions.

Planning for the go-live phase:

• Communicate the go-live criteria communicated.
• Compete the Change Management activities.
• Conclude business readiness activities.
• Create a go live checklist with named primary and back up resources
• Schedule the release retrospective.
• Prepare to report on business outcomes.

What is the value of planning?

Thorough planning provides an execution strategy for project team members and external stakeholders contributing to the delivery. With planning, the project team members understand the timeline, the expectations of their roles, and the key milestones and deliverables. Planning mitigates potential issues and risks during implementation and allows the team to track progress against the agreed schedule and manage the budget. You can also ensure that the team adopts values and best practices and applies those practices to the implementation.

When does planning take place?

You can revisit plans throughout the project, supported by a change request (a change request is where there is a need to deviate from the approved project scope, budget or timescale). However, the best time to effectively plan is during project readiness before configuration begins through the sprints. Planning as part of project readiness ensures that the sprint plan, associated resources, testing schedule, and environments are outlined and understood by the project. Once you assemble the project team, establish how the project team works together during the sprints to ensure that everyone involved uses the time and resources effectively to achieve the business outcomes.