Defining Deliverables and Activities

How to Define Project Deliverables

Defining your project deliverables is an important step in project scheduling, even though the process is quite simple. There are three steps:

1. Review the Project's Objective

First, review your project’s objective. This is the high-level or “big picture” goal of the project. For example, a project’s objective may be to improve team safety practices and reduce the number of workplace accidents and injuries.

2. Get Specific

Finally, review all of your project deliverables and see if there are any opportunities to make them more specific and measurable. For example, if a project deliverable is a series of training videos, how many videos will you deliver? And how long will each video last?

3. Break It Down

After reviewing your project’s objective, break it down by answering the question: What are the actual products or outcomes that will be delivered at the end of this project?

For example, if your objective is to improve team safety, then the deliverables might include:

• A safety report that analyzes why past accidents or injuries occurred.
• A new training guide or training video.
• The installation of a new piece of safety equipment.

How to Define Activities

Activities are in the details. You must evaluate every step involved to produce a project deliverable. Work through the following three steps to create a thorough and detailed activity list:

1. Review Deliverables Individually

Start by reviewing each project deliverable individually. That means you’ll work through the following two steps for each project deliverable—one at a time.

2. Identify Steps from Start to Finish

Start at the beginning of each deliverable and ask yourself:

• What’s the first thing that needs to happen to produce this deliverable?
• After identifying the first activity, ask: What needs to happen after that? And what about after that?

Continue identifying each step of the project sequentially until you reach its completion.

Example: If you were defining the activities involved to produce a training video:

1. Develop a concept for the video.
2. Write a script.
3. Edit the script.
4. Continue listing the steps until the deliverable is complete.

3. Probe Further and Look for Gaps

After outlining all the steps involved in your project, review it as a whole and look for any gaps.

Questions to Ask:

• Is anything missing?
• Can this step be broken down further?

Example: If you're reviewing the activity to shoot the training video:

• What needs to happen to complete that?
  • Rent a studio space
  • Hire talent
  • Design the set

These follow-up questions help brainstorm additional activities that might otherwise be overlooked.