Develop Superior Project Work Plans

This chapter provides guidelines on how to develop superior project work plans. It provides program and project teams with guidelines to develop superior project work plans and technical documents. On most Environmental Restoration (ER) projects, technical document quality makes the first and last impression on Government ER Remedial Project Managers (RPMs). Project plans include title page, table of contents, executive summary, introduction, background, project objectives, technical approach, and appendices. Contractors must work within the established outline to describe their technical approach, including various project support tasks. Technical content in work plans, as with proposals, must be “reviewer-friendly.” The five predictable stages of the contractor technical document quality learning curve on major environmental restoration programs include contract start up (time frame), problem recognition by client, contractor response and recovery plan development, improvement phase, and breakthrough. Furthermore, this chapter provides some best practice recommendations for contractors. These include screening the new employee candidates for their technical writing skills, estimating work plans and other technical documents accurately, and finally, approaching technical documents with the same degree of commitment as proposals. Finally, the study illustrates sample work plan development interfaces among the project manager, technical staff, and document production staff. It also presents a typical work plan development timeline from contract award through preliminary draft document delivery to the client, emphasizing the importance of planning during the first week.