Rolling Wave Planning

Rolling wave planning, sometimes called continuous planning or block planning, is a useful technique for longer duration projects where the statement of work (SOW) is likely to change. It is an incremental planning approach where near term work effort is planned in detail and future work effort is planned at a higher level, in a planning package, until more is known about the work scope requirements. These planning packages may be summary level planning packages (SLPPs) within the WBS or control account level planning packages. As the project progresses and more becomes known about the future work effort, the higher-level planning packages are converted to detailed plans as soon as possible maintaining a continuous planning horizon for near term work. Planning packages must have a period of performance and identify the likely resource requirements for the work effort (scope, schedule, and budget).

Rolling wave planning helps to:

  • Reduce the time required to develop the schedule and budget plan for future work effort in situations where you don’t yet have the necessary information to define the detailed tasks.
  • Ensure you have scheduled the work and allocated the necessary budget for the future work scope. Budget allocations for future work effort should be specific to the work for which it is intended, time phased in alignment with the schedule activities, periodically reviewed for validity, and not used to perform other work scope. The intent is to prevent the situations where project personnel “borrow” the budget allocated for future work to complete current work effort.
  • Reduce the volume of budget baseline change requests (see Change Control Workflow Process). You maintain the planning package until you are ready to define the detailed tasks. When you know more about the work effort, you can convert the control account planning package to one or more work packages with an assigned earned value technique. Or, you convert a SLPP to one or more control accounts with subordinate work packages and planning packages.

A planning package must be converted to one or more control account level work packages (scope, schedule, and budget) with an assigned earned value technique before work begins. Your rolling wave planning process should strive to ensure work is detail planned as soon as it is practical depending on the nature of the work.

  • To create a summary level planning package, see Add WBS Planning Packages. This topic includes use notes when you are ready to convert the summary level planning package into one or more control accounts with subordinate work packages and planning packages.
  • To create a control account level planning package, see Add a Work Package and follow the use notes for setting the earned value technique to "Planning Package."
  • When you are ready to convert a control account planning package to work package with an assigned earned value technique, see Edit a Work Package and follow the use notes for changing the earned value technique.