Documentation of desired outcomes both imposes a discipline on the planning process, and provides a clear criteria to determine project completion. A project team must include the right people and also establish their working relationships. Work breakdown must be detailed and thorough. Projects should usually be divided into sequential phases, which break down into smaller and smaller tasks until realistic time estimates can be made. Estimating must be thorough and agreed to by all stakeholders.
Contingency planning is needed to address areas of potential project failure.
Finally there needs to be a process to manage project changes. A structured set of questions is provided to help raise the ethical issues that should be applied during project planning.