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How to write an effective project plan in 6 simple steps

Contributing writer

If you’re a Type A personality, project planning might sound like music to your ears. Setting deadlines, organizing tasks, and creating order out of chaos — what’s not to love?

The reality is that project planning isn’t for everyone. In one survey by Association for Project Management, 76% of project professionals said their main project was a source of stress . Poor planning, unclear responsibilities, and overallocation are often the culprits behind the stress. 

An effective project plan helps teams stay within budget, scope, and schedule, while delivering quality work. In short, it gets you to the finish line without the stress.  

What is a project plan?

A project plan, also known as a work plan, is a blueprint of your project lifecycle. It’s like a roadmap — it clearly outlines how to get from where you are now (the beginning of the project) to where you want to go (the successful completion of the project). 

“A project plan is an action plan outlining how…[to] accomplish project goals,” says Jami Yazdani , certified Project Management Professional (PMP), project coach, project management consultant, and founder of Yazdani Consulting and Facilitation . 

A comprehensive project plan includes the project schedule, project scope, due dates, and deliverables. Writing a good project plan is key for any new, complex project in the pipeline.

Why Are Project Plans Important?

Project plans allow you to visualize your entire project, from beginning to end—and develop a clear strategy to get from point A to point B. Project plans steer stakeholders in the right direction and keep team members accountable with a common baseline.  

Project plans help you stay agile

Projects are bound by what is traditionally called the “iron triangle” of project management . It means that project managers have to work within the three constraints of scope, resources (project budget and teams), and schedule. You cannot make changes to one without impacting the other two.    

Modern-day project management has shifted to a more agile approach, with a focus on quality. This means that resources and schedules remain unchanged but a fixed number of iterations (flexible scope) helps teams deliver better quality and more value. 

A project plan puts this “agile triangle” in place by mapping out resources, schedules, and the number of iterations — sprints if you’re using a Scrum framework and work in progress (WIP) limits if you’re using the Kanban methodology . 

As Yazdani points out, “Project plans help us strategize a path to project success, allowing us to consider the factors that will impact our project, from stakeholders to budget to schedule delays, and plan how to maximize or mitigate these factors.” 

Project plans provide complete visibility

A project plan, when created with a comprehensive project management software , gives you 360-degree visibility throughout the project lifecycle. 

As a project manager, you need a single source of truth on team members and their project tasks, project scope, project objectives, and project timelines. A detailed project plan gives you this visibility and helps teams stay on track.

Project plans also help to get everyone involved on the same page, setting clear expectations around what needs to be accomplished, when, and by who. 

“Project plans create a framework for measuring project progress and success,” says Yazdani. “Project plans set clear expectations for…stakeholders by outlining exactly what…will [be accomplished] and when it will be delivered.”

Project plans boost engagement and productivity

A well-written project plan clarifies how each individual team member’s contributions play into the larger scope of the project and align with company goals. When employees see how their work directly impacts organizational growth, it generates buy-in and drives engagement , which is critical to a project’s success. 

“Project plans provide…teams with purpose and direction,” says Yazdani. “Transparent project plans show team members how their individual tasks and responsibilities contribute to the overall success of the project, encouraging engagement and collaboration.”

How To Write A Project Plan in 6 Steps

Writing a project plan requires, well, planning. Ideally, the seeds for a project plan need to be sowed before internal project sign-off begins. Before that sign-off, conduct capacity planning to estimate the resources you will need and if they’re available for the duration of the project. After all, you want to set your teams up for success with realistic end dates, buffer time to recharge or catch up in case of unexpected delays, and deliver quality work without experiencing burnout .

Based on organizational capacity, you can lay down project timelines and map out scope as well as success metrics, outline tasks, and build a feedback loop into your project plan. Follow these project planning steps to create a winning plan:      

1. Establish Project Scope And Metrics

Defining your project scope is essential to protecting your iron, or agile, triangle from crumbling. Too often, projects are hit with scope creep , causing delays, budget overruns, and anxiety.

“Clearly define your project’s scope or overall purpose,” says Yazdani. “Confirm any project parameters or constraints, like budget, resource availability, and timeline,” says Yazdani.

A project purpose statement is a high-level brief that defines the what, who, and why of the project along with how and when the goal will be accomplished. But just as important as defining your project scope and purpose is defining what metrics you’re going to use to track progress.

“Establish how you will measure success,” says Yazdani. “Are there metrics, performance criteria, or quality standards you need to meet?”

Clearly defining what your project is, the project’s overall purpose, and how you’re going to measure success lays the foundation for the rest of your project plan—so make sure you take the time to define each of these elements from the get-go.

2. Identify Key Project Stakeholders 

Get clarity on the team members you need to bring the project to life. In other words, identify the key stakeholders of the project. 

“List individuals or groups who will be impacted by the project,” says Yazdani. 

In addition to identifying who needs to be involved in the project, think about how they’ll need to be involved—and at what level. Use a tool like Confluence to run a virtual session to clarify roles and responsibilities, and find gaps that need to be filled. 

Let’s say you’re managing a cross-functional project to launch a new marketing campaign that includes team members from your marketing, design, and sales departments. 

When identifying your key stakeholders, you might create different lists based on the responsibility or level of involvement with the project:

• Decision-makers (who will need to provide input at each step of the project)
• Managers (who will be overseeing employees within their department) 
• Creative talent (who will be actually creating the project deliverables for the campaign) from each department. 

Give your project plan an edge by using a Confluence template like the one below to outline roles and responsibilities.

Define roles, discuss responsibilities, and clarify which tasks fall under each teammate’s purview using this Confluence template. 

Getting clarity on who needs to be involved in the project—and how they’re going to be involved—will help guide the rest of the project plan writing process (particularly when it comes to creating and assigning tasks).

3. Outline Deliverables

Now is the time to get granular.

Each project milestone comprises a series of smaller, tangible tasks that your teams need to produce. While a big-picture view keeps teams aligned, you need signposts along the way to guide them on a day-to-day or weekly basis. Create a list of deliverables that will help you achieve the greater vision of the project. 

“What will you create, build, design, produce, accomplish or deliver?” says Yazdani. “Clearly outline your project’s concrete and tangible deliverables or outcomes.” Centralize these deliverables in a Trello board with designated cards for each one, like in the example below, so you keep work moving forward.

Each card on a board represents tasks and ideas and you can move cards across lists to show progress.

Defining the concrete items you need your project to deliver will help you reverse-engineer the things that need to happen to bring those items to life—which is a must before moving on to the next step.

4. Develop Actionable Tasks

Task management is an important component of any project plan because they help employees see what exactly they need to accomplish. Drill down those deliverables into actionable tasks to assign to your team. 

You can use either Confluence or Jira for different task management needs. If you want to track tasks alongside your work, like action items from a meeting or small team projects, it’s best to use Confluence. But if a project has multiple teams and you need insight into workflows, task history, and reporting, Jira makes it easy.      

“Let your deliverables guide the work of the project,” says Yazdani. “Break down each deliverable into smaller and smaller components until you get to an actionable task.” If a major deliverable is a set of content pieces, the smaller actionable tasks would be to create topic ideas, conduct research, and create outlines for each topic.  

Once you’ve broken down all of your deliverables into manageable, assignable subtasks, analyze how each of those tasks interacts with each other. That way, you can plan, prioritize, assign, and add deadlines accordingly.  

“Highlight any dependencies between tasks, such as tasks that can’t be started until another task is complete,” says Yazdani. “List any resources you will need to accomplish these tasks.”

When a task has multiple assignees, you need to streamline the workflow in your project plan. Say the content pieces you outlined need to be edited or peer-reviewed. A couple of articles may need an interview with a subject matter expert. Lay down a stage-by-stage process of each piece of content and pinpoint when each team member comes into play so you prevent bottlenecks and adjust timeframes.     

5. Assign Tasks And Deadlines

Assign tasks to your team and collaborate with employees to set deadlines for each task. When you involve employees in setting workloads and deadlines , you increase ownership and boost the chances of delivering quality work on time.  

After all, you want to move projects forward at a steady pace, but you also want to make sure your teams stay motivated and engaged. So, when writing your project plan, make sure to “set realistic and achievable deadlines for completing tasks and deliverables,” says Yazdani. “Highlight dates that are inflexible and factor in task dependencies. Add in milestones or checkpoints to monitor progress and celebrate successes .”

Use Jira and Confluence to create tasks that live alongside your project plan or meeting agendas.

Once you map out all of your tasks and deadlines, you should have a clear picture of how and when your project is going to come together—and the initial writing process is just about finished.

But that doesn’t mean your project plan is complete! There’s one more key step to the process.

6. Share, Gather Feedback, And Adjust The Project Plan As Necessary

While steps 1 through 5 may make up your initial writing process, if you want your project plan to be as strong and complete as it can be, it’s important to share it with your team—and get their input on how they think it can be improved.

“Share the plan with your project team and key stakeholders, gathering feedback to make adjustments and improvements,” says Yazdani. 

A tool like Confluence helps knowledge flow freely within teams and departments, leading to better teamwork, higher collaboration, and a shared understanding of priorities. Coworkers can use comments, mentions, notifications, and co-editing capabilities to provide and discuss feedback. 

After you gather your team’s feedback —and make any necessary adjustments based on that feedback—you can consider your project plan complete. Hooray! 

But as your project progresses, things may change or evolve—so it’s important to stay flexible and make changes and adjustments as needed.

“Expect to update your plan as you gather more information, encounter changing requirements and delays, and learn from feedback and mistakes,” says Yazdani. “By using your project plan to guide your activities and measure progress, you’ll be able to refine and improve your plan as you move through the project, tweaking tasks and deadlines as deliverables are developed.”

Download a  template to create your project plan and customize it based on your needs.

Example of a simple project plan 

A project plan doesn’t have to be a complicated spreadsheet with multiple tabs and drop-down menus. It’s best to use a project planning tool like Confluence — or at least a project plan template — to make sure you cover every aspect of the project. A simple project plan includes these elements:

• Project name, brief summary, and objective.
• Project players or team members who will drive the project, along with their roles and responsibilities.
• Key outcomes and due dates.
• Project elements, ideally divided into must-have, nice-to-have and not-in-scope categories.
• Milestones, milestone owners, and a project end date.
• Reference material relevant to the project.

Best Practices For Writing Effective Project Plans

A project planning process can quickly turn into a mishmash of goals and tasks that end up in chaos but these best practices can give you a framework to create a project plan that leads to success.

Use Other Project Plans For Inspiration

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel for every new project! Instead, look to other successful project plans for inspiration—and use them as a guide when writing the plan for your project.

“Review templates and plans for similar projects, or for other projects within your organization or industry, to get ideas for structuring and drafting your own plan,” says Yazdani.

To get started, use a Trello project management template and customize it for your project plan by creating unique lists and adding cards under each list.

Build your team’s ideal workflow and mark each stage of the project plan as a list, with cards for each task. 

Get Your Team Involved In The Process

You may be in charge of spearheading the project. But that doesn’t mean that you have to—or even that you should—write the project plan alone. 

“Collaborate with your project team and key stakeholders on crafting a project plan,” says Yazdani. “Input into the project plan supports buy-in to project goals and encourages continued engagement throughout the project.”

With Confluence , you can organize project details in a centralized space and build a project plan collaboratively.

Don’t Let Perfect Be The Enemy Of The Good

You may be tempted to write (and rewrite) your project plan until you’ve got every detail mapped out perfectly. But spending too much time trying to get everything “perfect” can actually hold up the project. So don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good—and instead of getting caught up in getting everything perfect from the get-go, stay willing and flexible to adjust your project plan as you move forward.

“Focus on outcomes, not plan perfection,” says Yazdani. “While it would be awesome for the first draft of our plan to require no changes while also inspiring our team and ensuring project success, our goal shouldn’t be a perfect plan. Our goal is a plan that allows us to successfully deliver on project goals. Responsiveness to changing needs and a shifting environment is more important than plan perfection.”

Use the right tools to succeed with your project plan

Writing a project plan, especially if you’re new to the process, can feel overwhelming. But now that you know the exact steps to write one, make sure you have the tools you need to create a strong, cohesive plan from the ground up—and watch your project thrive as a result. 

Atlassian Together can help with project planning and management with a powerful combination of tools that make work flow across teams.

Guide your team to project success with Atlassian Together’s suite of products.

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Blog Marketing What is a Project Management Plan and How to Create One

What is a Project Management Plan and How to Create One

Written by: Midori Nediger Dec 11, 2023

Have you ever been part of a project that didn’t go as planned?

It doesn’t feel good.

Wasted time, wasted resources. It’s pretty frustrating for everyone involved.

That’s why it’s so important to create a comprehensive project management plan   before your project gets off the ground.

In this guide, we’ll explore how to create and design a successful project management plan.

We’ll also showcase easy-to-customize project plan templates you can create today with our user-friendly drag-and-drop editor. Let’s get started!

  Click to jump ahead:

What is a project management plan?

5 things you need to know before creating a project management plan, what should a project management plan include, how do you write a project plan, project plan best practices, project management plan templates and examples, common mistakes to avoid when creating a project management plan.

A project management plan is a formal document that defines how a project is going to be carried out by outlining the scope, goals, budget, timeline and deliverables of a project. Its crucial role lies in ensuring the project stays on course.

You write a project plan  during the project planning stage of the  project life cycle , and it must be approved by stakeholders before a project can move on the execution stage.

If some of these terms are new to you, you can get up to speed with this post on project management terms . 

This means your project plan must be engaging, organized, and thorough enough to gain the support of your stakeholders.

Further Reading : New to project management? Read our blog post on the 4 stages of the project life cycle .

The importance of a project management plan

A well-developed project management plan sets the foundation for a successful project by providing a roadmap that guides the project team toward successful project completion. A good project management plan can ensure that:

• Project objectives and goals are clearly defined and understood
• Project scope is effectively managed
• Resources are allocated efficiently to maximize productivity and minimize waste
• Risks are identified, assessed and mitigated
• Project tasks and activities are well-organized and executed in a timely manner.
• Communication among team members , stakeholders and project sponsors is effective and transparent
• Changes to the project are properly evaluated, approved and implemented
• Lessons learned and best practices are documented for future reference and improvement
• Stakeholders are engaged and satisfied with the project outcomes
• The project is delivered within the specified timeline, budget and quality standards

Before diving into creating a project management plan, it is crucial to have a clear understanding of the project objectives and the expectations of stakeholders involved.

Without a firm grasp of these fundamental elements, your project may face significant challenges or fail to deliver the desired outcomes.

Here are key points to consider when creating a project management plan:

• Project Objectives: Clearly understand the project objectives and what you want to achieve. Identify the desired outcomes, deliverables and the purpose of the project.
• Scope of the Project: Determine the boundaries and extent of the project. Define what is included and excluded to ensure clarity and prevent scope creep .
• Stakeholders: Identify all stakeholders who will be impacted by or have an interest in the project. Understand their needs, expectations and level of involvement.
• Resources: Assess the resources required to execute the project successfully. This includes human resources, budget, equipment and materials. Determine their availability and allocation.
• Risks and Constraints: Identify potential risks, uncertainties and constraints that may affect the project. Understand the challenges, limitations and potential obstacles that need to be addressed.

Now that you have these key areas identified, let’s get started with creating your project plan.

Before you start assembling your own plan, you should be familiar with the main components of a typical project plan .

A project management plan should include the following sections:

• Executive summary: A short description of the contents of the report
• Project scope & deliverables: An outline of the boundaries of the project, and a description of how the project will be broken down into measurable deliverables
• Project schedule: A high-level view of project tasks and milestones ( Gantt charts are handy for this)
• Project resources: The budget, personnel, and other resources required to meet project goals
• Risk and issue management plan: A list of factors that could derail the project and a plan for how issues will be identified, addressed, and controlled
• Communication management plan: A plan for how team and stakeholder communication will be handled over the course of the project
• Cost and quality management plan: This section encompasses the project’s budget, cost estimation,and cost control mechanisms. It also includes quality assurance and control measures as well as any testing or verification activities to be performed.

Basically, a project plan should tell stakeholders what needs to get done, how it will get done, and when it will get done.

That said, one size doesn’t fit all. Every project management plan must be tailored to the specific industry and circumstances of the project. You can use a project management app for smoother project planning.

For example, this marketing plan looks client facing. It is tailored to sell the client on the agency:

Whereas this commercial development plan focuses on specific objectives and a detailed timeline:

With those basics out of the way, let’s get into how to write a project management plan that’s as engaging as it is professional.

Further Reading : If you’re looking to create a proposal, read our in-depth business proposal guide. Then try our job proposal templates or business proposal templates .

To write a successful project plan, follow these 5 steps below to create an effective project plan that serves as a valuable tool for project management:

1. Highlight the key elements of your project plan in an executive summary  

An executive summary is a brief description of the key contents of a project plan .

I t’s usually the first thing stakeholders will read, and it should act like a Cliff’s-notes version of the whole plan.

It might touch on a project’s value proposition, goals, deliverables, and important milestones, but it has to be concise (it is a summary, after all). First, make sure you develop a proof of concept .

In this example, an executive summary can be broken into columns to contrast the existing problem with the project solution:

The two-column format with clear headers helps break up the information, making it extremely easy to read at a glance.

Here’s another example of a project management plan executive summary. This one visually highlights key takeaways with big fonts and helpful icons:

In this case, the highlighted facts and figures are particularly easy to scan (which is sure to make your stakeholders happy).

But your executive summary won’t always be so simple.

For larger projects, your executive summary will be longer and more detailed.

This project management plan template has a text-heavy executive summary, though the bold headers and different background colors keep it from looking overwhelming:

It’s also a good idea to divide it up into sections, with a dedicated header for each section:

Regardless of how you organize your executive summary, it should give your stakeholders a preview of what’s to come in the rest of the project management plan.

2. Plot your project schedule visually with a Gantt chart

A carefully planned project schedule is key to the success of any project. Without one, your project will likely crumble into a mess of missed deadlines, poor team management, and scope creep.

Luckily, project planning tools like Gantt charts and project timelines make creating your project schedule easy. You can visually plot each project task, add major milestones, then look for any dependencies or conflicts that you haven’t accounted for.

For example, this Gantt chart template outlines high-level project activities over the course of an entire quarter, with tasks color-coded by team:

A high-level roadmap like the one above is probably sufficient for your project management plan. Every team will be able to refer back to this timeline throughout the project to make sure they’re on track.

But before project kickoff, you’ll need to dig in and break down project responsibilities by individual team member, like in this Gantt chart example:

In the later execution and monitoring phases of the project, you’ll thank yourself for creating a detailed visual roadmap that you can track and adjust as things change.

You can also use a project management tool to keep your team organized.

Further Reading:   Our post featuring  Gantt chart examples  and more tips on how to use them for project management.

3. Clarify the structure of your project team with a team org chart

One of the hardest aspects of project planning is assembling a team and aligning them to the project vision.

And aligning your team is all about communication–communicating the project goals, communicating stakeholder requests, communicating the rationale behind big decisions…the list goes on.

This is where good project documentation is crucial! You need to create documents that your team and your stakeholders can access when they have questions or need guidance.

One easy thing to document visually is the structure of your team, with an organizational chart like this one:

In an organizational chart you should include some basic information like team hierarchy and team member contact information. That way your stakeholders have all of the information they need at their fingertips.

But in addition to that, you can indicate the high-level responsibilities of each team member and the channels of communication within the team (so your team knows exactly what they’re accountable for).

Here’s another simple organizational structure template that you can use as a starting point:

Create an organizational chart with our organizational chart maker .

4. Organize project risk factors in a risk breakdown structure

A big part of project planning is identifying the factors that are likely to derail your project, and coming up with plans and process to deal with those factors. This is generally referred to as risk management .

The first step in coming up with a risk management plan is to list all of the factors at play, which is where a risk breakdown structure comes in handy. A risk breakdown structure is a hierarchical representation of project risks, organized by category.

This risk breakdown structure template, for example, shows project risk broken down into technical risk, management risk, and external risk:

Once you’ve constructed your risk breakdown structure, you’ll be ready to do a deep dive into each risk (to assess and plan for any triggers and outcomes).

Streamline your workflow with business process management software .

5. Plan ahead: create project status reports to communicate progress to stakeholders

As I mentioned earlier, communication is fundamental in any project.

But even so, something that’s often overlooked by project managers is a communication management plan–a plan for how the project team is going to communicate with project stakeholders . Too often, project communication defaults to ad-hoc emails or last-minute meetings.

You can avoid this by planning ahead. Start with a project kickoff meeting and include a project status report template as part of your communication plan.

Here’s an example of a simple project status report that you might send to stakeholders on a weekly basis:

This type of report is invaluable for communicating updates on project progress. It shows what you’ve accomplished in a clear, consistent format, which can help flag issues before they arise, build trust with your stakeholders , and makes it easy to reflect on project performance once you’ve reached your goals.

You might also want to include a broader status report for bigger updates on a monthly or quarterly basis, like this one:

The above template allows you to inform stakeholders of more major updates like new budget requirements, revised completion dates, and project performance ratings.

You can even include visualization of up-to-date project milestones, like this example below:

Want more tips on creating visuals to enhance your communications? Read our visual communication guide for businesses . 

Before you dive in, remember: a clear and adaptable plan is crucial for project success. Here are some best practices to keep your project plan on track:

• Use headers, columns and highlights to make your executive summary easy to read
• Plot your project schedule with a Gantt chart (with tasks color-coded by department or team member)
• Use visuals like organizational charts and risk breakdown structures to communicate across your team and with stakeholders
• Pick a flexible template that you can update to align with stakeholder requests

A project management plan is probably the most important deliverable your stakeholders will receive from you (besides the project itself).

It holds all of the information that stakeholders will use to determine whether your project moves forward or gets kicked to the curb.

That’s why it’s a good idea to start with a project management plan template. Using a template can help you organize your information logically and ensure it’s engaging enough to hold your stakeholders’ attention.

Construction project management plan template

Time is money, especially with construction projects. Having a construction plan template brings order to the chaos.

Instead of staring at a messy pile of construction stuff, you’ve got a plan that breaks everything down into bite-sized pieces.

And let’s not forget the paperwork. Construction projects have rules and regulations to follow. Your project plan helps you stay on the right side of the law with all the necessary documentation and compliance measures.

Start with a meticulous project overview, like in the second page of this template:

Though you may think this project will be similar to others you’ve done in the past, it’s important to nail the details.

This will also help you understand the scope of work so you can estimate costs properly and arrive at a quote that’s neither too high or low. Ontario Construction News has great advice on this process.

Simple project management plan template

This simple project management plan template that clearly lays out all of the information your stakeholders will need:

Simple project management communication plan template

A key part of project management is making sure everyone’s in the loop. A project communication plan ensures everyone knows how, where, who and when the team will communicate during the course of the project. Also construction scheduling is a critical aspect of the project management plan as it helps to ensure that all necessary tasks are completed within the allocated time frame and budget.

The key is to figure out what kind of communications is valuable to stakeholders and what is simply overwhelming and won’t lead to better decisions.

This template clearly outlines all of these factors to help manage expectations and eliminate confusion about what will get communicated and when:

Commercial development project plan template

The below project management plan template is simple and minimal, but still uses a unique layout and simple visuals to create an easy-to-read, scannable project overview.

This template is perfect for building or construction management , or any technical projects:

When picking a project plan template, look for one that’s flexible enough to accommodate any changes your stakeholders might request before they’ll approve the project. You never know what might change in the early planning stages of the project! You can also use project management tools to help you with your planning !

Creating a solid project management plan is crucial for setting your project up for success. Here are some common mistakes to avoid:

• Lack of clear goals: Don’t just have a vague idea of what you want to achieve. Define clear, SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound) for your project. That way, everyone will be on the same page and it’ll be easier to measure progress effectively.
• Unrealistic timelines: Be optimistic, but also realistic. Don’t underestimate the time required for tasks. Factor in potential delays and buffer time when creating your project schedule.
• Scope creep: New requirements mid-project can affect deadlines and budgets. Plan the project clearly upfront, and take into consideration any changes that might come up.
• Poor communication: Communication is key throughout the project lifecycle. Regularly update stakeholders, team members and clients on progress, roadblocks and changes.
• Ignoring risks: Things don’t always go according to plan. Identify potential risks upfront and have a mitigation strategy in place for each one.
• Not involving stakeholders: Get key stakeholders involved early on. This helps manage everyone’s expectations and that you have the buy-in you need for success.
• Neglecting resource constraints: Don’t overload your team or underestimate the resources needed. Carefully consider the skills, time and budget available when planning your project.
• Micromanaging: Trust your team! Delegate tasks effectively and give them the autonomy they need to do their jobs.
• Failing to document: Keep good records. Document project decisions, plans and communication. This helps maintain transparency and ensures everyone has access to the latest information.
• Not adapting to change: Be prepared to adapt your plan as needed. Projects are rarely static, so be flexible and willing to adjust your approach based on new information or developments.

So, that’s the scoop on project management plans! I hope this piece will help you to avoid confusion, keep expectations in check and be ready to tackle any bumps for your upcoming projects.

If you ever need a revision, just follow the steps we talked about, use those best practices and you’ll have a plan that sets your project up for a win. Just remember, even the best plans need some tweaking sometimes. Be flexible and adjust as needed and you’re good to go!

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How to Create a Realistic Project Plan with Templates & Examples

As a project manager, a huge part of your role is to write project plans that help you keep projects on track. But that’s not all a project plan should do. 

A project plan is arguably the most important document you’ll create for a project. At its core, a plan should communicate your project approach and the process your team will use to manage the project according to scope.

Let’s take a closer look at how you can develop a rock-solid planning process that guides your team and projects to success.

What is a project plan?

Project plan example: what to include, why you should always write a project plan, 5 steps to an effective project planning process, how to create a project plan in teamgantt, free project plan templates.

A project plan is a document that maps out the tasks, effort, timing, and resources needed to meet project goals within a predefined scope. It’s often presented in the form of a gantt chart because it’s easy to visualize the project timeline and ensure work stays on track.

Any solid project management plan should answer the following questions:

• What are the major deliverables?
• How will we get to those deliverables and the deadline?
• Who’s on the project team, and what role will they play in those deliverables?
• Which stakeholders need to provide feedback on deliverables, and when?
• When will the team meet milestones?

A project plan communicates this information in a simple, straightforward way so everyone clearly understands the objectives and how they contribute to project success. It may also be accompanied by other planning documents, such as a project charter , risk assessment , or communication plan .

While no two project plans are alike, they all share the same common building blocks. Be sure to include the following components in any project plan you create:

• Project tasks : A detailed list of work to be done organized by project phase, process step, or work group
• Project schedule : A visual timeline of task start dates, durations, and deadlines, with clear progress indicators
• Key milestones : Major events, dates, decisions, and deliverables used for tracking forward progress
• Dependencies : A line connecting tasks that need to happen in a certain order
• Resources : Assignments that indicate the person or team responsible for completing a task

Here’s a simple example of what a project plan looks like with these basic elements highlighted:

Some people don’t understand the power of a good project plan. If you feel pressured to skip the plan and jump right into the work, remind your team and stakeholders that having a plan benefits everyone by making it easier to:

• Build consensus before work begins : A detailed project plan ensures everyone has a clear understanding of—and agrees on—the overall process, scope, staffing, and even communications from the outset. That goes a long way in keeping project confusion and pop-up requests from gumming up the works.
• Avoid scheduling conflicts : Project plans enable you to organize tasks so it’s clear who's responsible for what and when. If your team is juggling multiple projects, you can cross-reference other plans to see who’s available to take on new work before committing to a timeline.
• Monitor project goals and scope : When new tasks creep in, it’s easy to lose sight of the original objectives. Spelling out the work you need to complete in a time-based plan keeps project goals front and center so you can ensure project scope stays intact.  ‍
• Hold your team and stakeholders accountable : A good project plan sets expectations around the process and pacing you'll follow each step of the way. When plans are shared with teams and stakeholders, it keeps folks honest about what is—or isn’t—happening and forces you to resolve issues in a timely way.

Easy drag and drop features with templates for faster scheduling. Plan a project in minutes, collaborate easily as a team, and switch to calendar and list views in a single click.

Poor planning can lead to some pretty ugly consequences—from missed deadlines and budget overages to team burnout and client frustration. That’s why it’s important to establish a solid process you can use to plan any project. 

Planning a project doesn’t have to be difficult. These basic project planning steps can help you write a plan that’s both realistic and on target.

• Start with project discovery & definition
• Draft a rough outline of your plan
• Formalize your project management plan
• Present & confirm your plan
• Execute your plan & adjust as needed

Step 1: Start with project discovery and definition

A project plan is more than a dry document with dates. It’s the story of your project, and you don’t want it to be a tall tale! So make sure you know all the facts before you start creating a project plan.

Understand the project scope and value

Understanding the ins and outs of the project will help you determine the best process and identify any snags that might get in the way of success. Conduct your own research to dig deeper on:

• Project goals and outcomes
• Partnerships and outlying dependencies
• Potential issues and risks

Review the scope of work , and dive into any documents or communications relevant to the project (maybe an RFP or notes from sales calls or client meetings). Be thorough in your research to uncover critical project details, and ask thoughtful questions before you commit to anything. 

Interview key stakeholders

If you want to dazzle stakeholders with a stellar project delivery, you’ve got to know how they work and what they expect. Schedule time with your main project contact, and ask them some tough questions about process, organizational politics, and general risks before creating a project plan. 

This will give project stakeholders confidence that your team has the experience to handle any difficult personality or situation. It also shows you care about the success of the project from the start.

Be sure to discuss these things with your stakeholders:

• Product ownership and the decision-making process
• Stakeholder interest/involvement levels
• Key outages, meetings, deadlines, and driving factors
• Related or similar projects, goals, and outcomes
• The best way to communicate with partners and stakeholders

See a list of sample interview questions to ask stakeholders so you can develop better project plans.

Get to know your team

The last step in the research phase is to take time to learn more about the people who’ll be responsible for the work. Sit down with your team and get to know their:

• Collaboration and communication styles
• Availability and workload

Understanding these basics about your team will help you craft a thoughtful plan that takes their work styles and bandwidth into consideration. After all, a happy team delivers better projects.

Step 2: Draft a rough outline of your plan

Now that you’ve gathered the basic project details, the next step is to knock out a rough draft of your plan. Take some time to think about the discussions you had in the pre-planning phase and the approach your team might take to meet the project goals.

Sketch out the main components of your project plan

Sit down with a pen and paper (or a whiteboard), and outline how the project should work at a high level. Be sure you have a calendar close by to check dates.

If you’re at a loss for where to begin, start with the who, what, when, and how of the project. A first outline can be very rough and might look something like a work breakdown structure . Make sure your project outline includes the following components:

• Deliverables and the tasks required to create them
• Your client’s approval process
• Timeframes associated with tasks/deliverables
• Ideas on resources needed for tasks/deliverables
• A list of the assumptions you’re making in the plan
• A list of absolutes as they relate to the project budget and/or deadlines

Considering these elements will help you avoid surprises—or at least minimize them. And remember, you’re doing this as a draft so you can use it as a conversation-starter for your team. It’s not final yet!

Get input from your team on process, effort, and timing

You don’t want to put yourself or your team in an awkward position by not coming to a consensus on the approach before presenting it to your client. That's why a project manager can’t be the only one writing a project plan.

Once you’ve created a basic project outline, take those rough ideas and considerations to your team. This enables you to invite discussion about what might work rather than simply dictating a process. After all, every project must begin with clear communication of the project goals and the effort required to meet them. 

Be sure to get input from your team on how they can complete the tasks at hand without killing the budget and the team’s morale. As a project manager, you can decide on Agile vs. Waterfall approaches , but when it comes down to it, you need to know that the team can realistically execute the plan.

You can also use this review time to question your own thinking and push the team to take a new approach to the work. For example, if you’re working on a digital product, could designers start creating visual concepts while the wireframes are being developed? Or can you have two resources working on the same task at once?

Running ideas by the team and having an open dialogue about the approach not only helps you build a more accurate project plan. It gets everyone thinking about the project in the same terms. This type of buy-in and communication builds trust and gets people excited about working together to solve a goal. It can work wonders for the greater good of your team and project.

Step 3: Formalize your project management plan

You should feel comfortable enough at this point to put together a rock-solid project schedule using whatever tool works for you. 

Build out a detailed project schedule that’s easy to read

Any good online project planning tool will help you formalize your thoughts and lay them out in a consistent, visual format that’s easy to follow and track. (Ahem, TeamGantt works nicely for a lot of happy customers. ) 

Make sure tasks have clear start and end dates so there’s no question when work needs to happen to hit project deadlines. Organize work into phases, and use labels and/or color-coding to improve scannability. The easier your project plan is to understand at a glance, the better!

See how to create a project plan in TeamGantt

Consider how your team likes to work

Be as flexible as possible when it comes to how your project plan is presented. There's no absolute when it comes to how to format your plan as long as you and your team understand what goes into one.

Remember, people absorb information differently. While you might be partial to a gantt chart, others might prefer to view tasks in a list, calendar, or even a kanban board. You can make all of those variations work if you’ve taken the steps to create a solid plan.

For example, here’s an Agile project plan we built that lists each sprint as its own task group with milestones for sprint planning and deployment.

And here’s what that same project plan looks like if you turn it into a kanban board in TeamGantt. Simply click the Board tab and set up your columns so your team can manage their daily workflows more easily.

If your team currently prefers spreadsheets and isn’t quite ready to use TeamGantt yet, try our free Excel gantt chart template .

Step 4: Present and confirm your plan

You’re almost finished! Now it’s time to do your due diligence. It’s easy to throw stuff in a plan, but you have to make sure you get it right.

Run your final plan by your internal team

Your team needs to know the reality of your plan as it stands after you’ve built it out in TeamGantt. And you want to be sure they’re comfortable committing to the details. If they don’t, things will quickly fall apart!

Always review your final plan with your team before delivering it to stakeholders. Why? Because things like dates and tasks—and even assignments—will shift as you formalize the rough sketch of your plan. 

Here are a few things you’ll want to discuss with your team as you review the final plan together:

• Review times
• Team work times
• Dependencies
• Time off, meetings, and milestones
• The final deadline
• Any assumptions you’ve made
• Major changes since your last talk

There’s nothing more embarrassing than delivering a plan with an error or a promise you can’t keep. Taking a few minutes to get buy-in from your team will give everyone peace of mind about your plan.

Review your project plan with stakeholders

Once you’ve confirmed the plan with your team and have their full sign-off, you’re ready to share your project plan with stakeholders . 

When delivering your project plan, make sure you provide an executive summary. This might come in the form of a project brief . A short recap of the overall methodology, resources, assumptions, deadlines, and related review times will help you convey what the plan means to the project and everyone involved.

Project plans can be daunting, so schedule time to present your project plan to stakeholders at a high level. Here are some things you’ll want to point out about your plan during this review:

• Overall process and pacing
• Major deliverables and timing
• The time they’ll have to review deliverables
• Overall timing for task groups or phases
• How far off you are from the deadline
• Wiggle room on the final deadline

If a stakeholder is interested in the day-to-day details, feel free to walk them through the plan line by line. Otherwise, start by explaining overall sections or phases, and be sure to come back to your plan at intervals throughout the project to remind them of tasks, next steps, and overall progress.

Step 5: Execute your plan and adjust as needed

Some projects are smooth and easy to manage, and others are a complete nightmare that wake you up at 3 a.m. every other night. Thankfully, having a solid project plan is your best defense against project chaos once work gets underway.

Keep in mind that project plans are living documents. Projects change constantly, and someone has to stay on top of—and document—that change. Remember to:

• Update your plan regularly as work progresses and things change
• Communicate changes to your team, partners, and stakeholders
• Monitor and communicate risks as your project evolves

Ready to plan your project in TeamGantt? Follow these easy steps to build a plan that’s structured well and includes the elements you need for project success.

1. Enter your basic project details.

To create a new project plan in TeamGantt, click the New Project button in the upper right corner of the My Projects screen. Then enter your project name and start date, and select the days of the week you want to include in your plan. Click Create New Project to move on to the next step.

2. List out your project tasks and milestones.

Now the real planning fun begins! Enter all the different tasks it will take to get the job done. If there are any key meetings, deliverable deadlines, or approvals, add those as milestones in your project plan.

3. Organize tasks into subgroups. 

Scrolling through one long list of tasks can be mind-numbing, even to the best of us. Break tasks down into phases or sections to ensure your project plan is easy to read and understand. 

4. Add task durations and milestone dates to the project timeline.

A visual project plan makes it easy to see exactly what needs to get done by when. Make sure every task has a start and end date so nothing falls through the cracks. TeamGantt’s drag and drop feature makes this planning step quick and easy.

5. Connect related tasks with dependencies.

Adding dependencies between tasks ensures work gets done in the right order and also helps you plan for delay risks. If your plan shifts and you need to move tasks around, dependencies speed up the process.

6. Assign responsible team members to tasks.

That way there’s no confusion about who’s doing what, and your team can update and manage their daily tasks . Don’t forget to check team availability along the way to avoid overloading anyone with too much work.

7. Use the RACI chart to define task roles more clearly.

This feature takes accountability one step further by letting you assign more specific roles to each task: Responsible , Accountable , Consulted , and Informed . Learn how RACI charts work and what each role means.

8. Add hourly estimates and/or points to each task. 

This makes it easy to see the lift each task involves at a glance. Including hourly estimates in your project plan also enables you to manage workloads and track overages more accurately.

9. Color-code tasks for better scannability.

You can use colors to categorize tasks by project phase, priority, department, or team member—whatever makes visual sense to you and your team.

10. Add notes to clarify tasks or spell out important details.

There’s no such thing as too much information if it means your team has what they need to deliver quality work on time. Use the Notes section of your Discussion tab to enter any pertinent details your team will find helpful.

11. Upload important documents to the project.

This ensures project files are accessible to everyone in a centralized hub.  For example, you might attach your creative brief to the project so your content and design teams have clear direction for completing their deliverables.

If you’re planning a project for the first time or taking on a totally new type of project, you might be struggling to get your plan off the ground. We created a simple project management plan template to help you get started.

TeamGantt gives you the ability to quickly and easily build and adjust your plan using drag and drop scheduling. Plus, it comes with customizable views to fit every team member’s work style. 

Try our basic project plan template for free!

Looking for more specific project plan examples to jumpstart your process? Use these project planning templates to generate ideas and save time building out your plan:

• Construction project plan template
• Event planning template
• Strategic marketing plan template
• Tactical marketing plan template
• Software development plan template
• Video production schedule template
• Website project plan template

Plan your next project in minutes

Discover just how easy project planning can be with TeamGantt. Create your first gantt chart for free!

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Project Management

Free project management templates.

Haillie Parker

April 29, 2024

Looking for new project management templates?

Whether you’re tracking multiple projects or need more insight into the project plan ning process, details are essential. That’s why project management templates save managers and teams alike a ton of time when jumpstarting the latest concept or project plan.

Project management templates prevent teams from starting from scratch with every new project, streamline existing processes, and help members think more proactively about how they’re carrying out their daily tasks.

Plus, they’re loaded with features to manage the heavy lifting for you. Whether it be through workflow automations, pre-built workflows, plug-and-play process documents , or tracking project deliverables, organizing tasks and documents will always create a more manageable system.

There are hundreds of templates out there to complement virtually any project management software —but not every free template will suit every project! In this article, we’ll cover everything project management templates can do for your team, the must-have features, and 15 customizable templates to enhance your project management process in ClickUp!

What is a Project Management Template?

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Project management templates are designed to help teams save time and work more efficiently with pre-built workflows, project views, and tasks to expedite the early stages of your project through to completion.

Kind of like the most complicated Mad Lib you’ll ever find, project management templates make it easy to plug your information into tailored project management structures so your team can simply start .

The best templates are also customizable, align seamlessly with your current processes and tech stack, and help create a standardized approach to all of your projects going forward.

These templates are also rather complex with ready-made frameworks for creating tasks, project schedules , and proper documentation. You’ll reap a laundry list of benefits to continue streamlining and scaling your project management best practices including:

• Increased efficiency through better organization
• Effective time management to stay on track
• Consistent documentation to align teams on current projects and make sense of past work
• Improved collaboration between members, managers, and stakeholders

But what does this pre-packaged project plan framework look like?

There may be a plethora of project management templates to choose from, but not all pack the same punch! There are several key features to keep an eye out for to ensure your template will lead your team to success.

These features are critical for creating a proper project plan, project prioritization , tracking, and task management—and they can come in many forms!

When searching for your next project management template, invest in the template that provides the following features (and more!):

• Project scope and objectives to document the key goals, deliverables, and overall process
• Multiple project views including Gantt charts, Kanban boards, project timelines , interactive checklists , calendars, and more to manage projects from every angle
• Resource management and allocation to stay on top of your project budget and materials
• Task prioritization and management to organize your workflows and keep track of your project progress all the way to completion
• Clear project controls and reporting to ensure the project team is on track to hit your project management KPIs and that stakeholders stay informed
• Team collaboration tools to help project members stay connected, improve team relationships, and boost the overall quality of work
• Tons of integrations to bring all of your other work tools into your project template for more informed updates and easy access toward a successful project

These features lay the groundwork for a high-quality project management template, but there may be additional features that suit your team’s unique processes for better planning and project execution . Keep these features in mind as you browse through 15 of the best project management templates for the only productivity tool that can really do it all—ClickUp!

15 Free Project Management Templates for Project Managers

Use the features above to consider your team’s needs and typical project requirements to determine the project management template that serves you best! With the 15 customizable and free project management templates listed below, you’re guaranteed to find the perfect template for any use case.

Failing to plan equals planning to fail in project management, but the Project Management Template by ClickUp simplifies this hefty challenge with a designated and pre-built Space to manage your work in organized Folders broken up by project phase . If you’re brand new to project management, this template might feel a bit overwhelming, but we’re here to break down this comprehensive resource so you can:

• Visualize and track your project resources
• Assign, manage, and prioritize your tasks with multiple workflow views
• Sync with stakeholders and work with the team without breaking a sweat

And more! This free project management template is your all-in-one solution with a flexible List and Kanban-like Board view to plug in your task information for immediate progress tracking. Plus, there are six custom task statuses to convey whether any action items are in progress, open, or done.

Productivity really comes into play with this template’s additional ClickApps ! Access seven key functionalities by viewing or opening tasks including:

• Time tracking
• Custom Fields
• Dependency warnings
• Multiple assignees

And more—no matter what pricing plan you use!

The High-Level Project Management Plan Template by ClickUp is designed to define and track your team’s long-term goals, KPIs, and final product from a bird’s-eye view.

This beginner-friendly project management template keeps things a bit simpler than the first project management template but still packs a major punch with its List view. With three custom statuses and five pre-set Custom Fields for stages, approvals, and progress toward completion, managers can visualize a comprehensive pulse-check on the project status , even from a single glance.

The five flexible views are where this high level project management template really shines—including a ready-to-use Deliverables List view, multiple Kanban board s, a detailed project timeline, and of course, a Getting Started Guide to expedite your set-up process.

And for all of our visual-first project managers, the Project Timeline Whiteboard Template by ClickUp will be your new go-to! Whiteboard project management is all the rage—and for good reason! Using this highly visual and collaborative tool, you can quickly plot your project’s major activities by stage and by week to help the team stay on track.

Plus, ClickUp Whiteboards are the only digital whiteboard software with the ability to take any text, shape, or note, and convert it directly into an actionable task. That means you can act on your workflow from your whiteboard without ever having to re-update statuses or click away from your work.

And since the work is already so neatly organized on your whiteboard, this project timeline template is the ideal resource to have on hand for stakeholder meetings and presentations so you avoid any project risks.

As valuable as the previous project management templates are, you need a solid understanding of project management best practices and fundamentals before you can use them to their fullest extent. The Project Manager Template by ClickUp is here to help you achieve that knowledge.

This ClickUp Doc template provides the framework for a Statement of Purpose (SOP) essay for those in pursuit of higher education degrees like an MBA or MSc. These programs are critical for covering the basics and the nitty-gritty of project management, and this free template is the perfect stepping stone for highlighting the qualifications, unique skills, and experience you already possess to help you succeed in such programs.

Designing your team’s project schedule can be a daunting task—especially for more complex projects and cross-functional team s. The Project Management Schedule Template by ClickUp simplifies this task with a formatted List to break down everything from your project phase to potential bottlenecks.

While this is a List template, that’s not the only project view you’ll find applied to your Workspace. You’ll also see a pre-built Table view to assess project risks or issues, a project schedule using Timeline and Gantt view, and a Kanban board to visualize individual task statuses.

Using that Kanban board with ClickUp’s Board view, you’ll also have immediate access to key information through Custom Fields so you know the exact project status just how you designed it. So as you look at the big picture of your tasks, you can also quickly grab details like contributors, the risk level, progress rate, and more.

A project charter is a short formal document that describes your entire project and is created as you build your project plan. It plays a major role in defining your project scope , deliverables, key players, budget, and the work to be done.

This Project Charter Template by ClickUp makes this easy with a detailed outline applied directly to a ClickUp Doc. In the pre-formatted sections and tables, you’ll be prompted to fill in all of the information you need to get your project off the ground and set in motion.

As a project manager, you need easy but functional strategies to keep track of your project status and timeline so you know what task each team member needs to work on and the allotted time left to stay on schedule. One of the best ways to achieve this is by time-blocking!

Use this Schedule Blocking Template by ClickUp to assist you in monitoring your past, current, and upcoming events. By applying this List template to your Workspace, you’ll instantly have access to four custom statuses, five Custom Fields, and a whopping seven project views including:

• List view for upcoming activities
• Form view for scheduling requests
• Monthly, Daily, and Weekly Calendar views for optimal time management

The Project Management Status Report Template by ClickUp will keep your stakeholders well-informed and your executive projects on track through its seven flexible work views, 11 Custom Fields, four custom statuses, and more.

This beginner-friendly project status report template was created to help you better oversee multiple projects at a time, so you can quickly grab the key takeaways of any project from any view. And with so many Custom Fields to attach important information to every task, you can quickly filter, sort, and locate action items or things like resource allocation and project budgeting across everything with ease.

Sometimes it can feel like Agile teams are working around the clock to iterate, iterate, and iterate again. It requires a ton of strategic planning, a powerful project management tool, and the Agile Scrum Management Template by ClickUp to ensure everything goes off without a hitch every time!

This monster of a template applies a designated Space for Agile Scrum teams to find solutions and standardize the delivery of their products—including backlogging, sprint planning, standups, reviews, and retrospectives so you nail all project phases.

This project planning template starts you off on a structured ClickUp Whiteboard to map your user flows and team workflows. From there, you can begin creating, delegating, and tracking tasks using 30 loaded task statuses! Not to mention, you’ll also have access to 13 ClickApps for sprint points, time tracking, priorities, work-in-progress limits, time estimates, dependencies, Custom Fields, and much more.

Meeting minutes are extremely helpful for remembering your next steps and key takeaways, but tracking your meetings in a flexible list ensures a smoother planning and preparation phase when managing any project requests. The Project Management Meeting Tracker Template by ClickUp is perfect for staying on top of important check-ins like quarterly reviews, weekly 1-1’s, project kick-off meetings, and more.

Creative and design project management is where things start to get a bit dicey!

Project details pivot and design or creative teams face multiple rounds of feedback to ensure stakeholders are pleased with the results. And since design requests can be interpreted a thousand different ways—the edits can get a bit extreme at times.

The Creative & Design Template by ClickUp is a must-have Folder for all creative teams.

This creative and design template starts with a collaborative ClickUp Whiteboard and guides you through the entire creative process with pre-built end-to-end workflows to document and execute requests of any kind.

In project management, determining the project budget is crucial for any project’s success.

Project budget templates can help a project manager analyze expenses, make strategic resource allocation decisions, and identify risks when managing multiple projects! That’s why it’s so important to have a resource like the Budgeted Project Management Template by ClickUp handy for every new concept.

Think of this template as the best-kept secret for numbers project management. This user-friendly and intuitive tool is ideal for tracking project schedules and multiple activities so you stay within the pre-defined resources and requirements for any project.

We’ve seen plenty of List and Space project plan templates already, but the Project Management Playbook Template by ClickUp has a bit of a different approach to handling project plans! With a pre-made Folder for your Workspace, this beginner-friendly plan template will be your project manager’s new best friend for standardizing the preparation process for any type of project.

It hinges on aligning your project goals with your company’s overall objectives and traditional operations, so all team members feel ready and qualified to tackle their tasks at hand. This is especially true for cross-functional team members who must accommodate a range of daily processes.

The simple project playbook template works like a playbook and will set consistent expectations and bring some much-needed predictability to everyone’s daily schedule.

Like any software team, construction project management professionals have a ton on their plates, all the time. The Construction Project Management Template by ClickUp was designed for all construction site managers to oversee complex builds, updates, dependencies, and schedules.

But that’s not the only person who’d benefit from this template! This Space-level template brings an advanced set of features like 30 task statuses, 14 Custom Fields, 11 ClickApps, and five project views to help contract admins, draftsmen, and contractors streamline their planning and scheduling processes.

The Planning a Project Template by ClickUp uses your Workspace to its fullest potential by creating tasks in any List and then easily moving them to other Lists.

Project planning templates help teams achieve their goals within the given scope, schedule, budget, and resources. It enables stakeholders to easily track project status through visually appealing and easy-to-understand project schedules so they best plan around changes while proactively managing risks.

ClickUp’s free project plan template helps project managers keep their project on track from start to finish. Use this template to ensure everyone on your team has access to the same information, expectations, decisions, and assumptions.

Any one of these 15 templates will get your project where it needs to go—because they were all designed by ClickUp !

ClickUp is the only productivity platform powerful enough to centralize all of your work across apps into one, collaborative workspace. With dozens of free project management features, an ever-growing Template Library , and more than 1,000 integrations , ClickUp can create solutions for teams of any use case.

Get started with any of the templates to tackle your next project plan or to take control of your project timeline when you sign up for ClickUp today !

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Project Planning: How to Make a Project Plan

This guide is brought to you by projectmanager, the project planning software trusted by 35,000+ users worldwide. make a project plan in minutes.

What Is a Project Plan?

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A project plan is a series of formal documents that define the execution and control stages of a project. The plan includes considerations for risk management, resource management and communications, while also addressing scope, cost and schedule baselines. Project planning software is used by project managers to ensure that their plans are thorough and robust.

ProjectManager allows you to make detailed project plans with online Gantt charts that have task dependencies, resource hours, labor costs, milestones, the critical path and more. Plus, your team can execute the plan in any of our five project views, while you track progress along the way with dashboards. Start today for free.

The project plan, also called project management plan, answers the who, what, where, why, how and when of the project—it’s more than a Gantt chart with tasks and due dates. The purpose of a project plan is to guide the execution and control project phases.

As mentioned above, a project plan consists of the following documents:

• Project Charter : Provides a general overview of the project. It describes the project’s reasons, goals, objectives, constraints, stakeholders, among other aspects.
• Statement of Work : A statement of work (SOW) defines the project’s scope, schedule, deliverables, milestones, and tasks.
• Work Breakdown Structure : Breaks down the project scope into the project phases, subprojects, deliverables, and work packages that lead to your final deliverable.
• Project Plan : The project plan document is divided in sections to cover the following: scope management, quality management, risk assessment, resource management, stakeholder management, schedule management and the change management plan.

This guide aims to give you all the information and resources you need to create a project plan and get it approved by your customers and stakeholders. Let’s start with the basics of writing a project plan.

Get your free

Project Plan Template

Use this free Project Plan Template for Word to manage your projects better.

Your project plan is essential to the success of any project. Without one, your project may be susceptible to common project management issues such as missed deadlines, scope creep and cost overrun. While writing a project plan is somewhat labor intensive up front, the effort will pay dividends throughout the project life cycle.

The basic outline of any project plan can be summarized in these five steps:

• Define your project’s stakeholders, scope, quality baseline, deliverables, milestones, success criteria and requirements. Create a project charter, work breakdown structure (WBS) and a statement of work (SOW) .
• Identify risks and assign deliverables to your team members, who will perform the tasks required and monitor the risks associated with them.
• Organize your project team (customers, stakeholders, teams, ad hoc members, and so on), and define their roles and responsibilities.
• List the necessary project resources , such as personnel, equipment, salaries, and materials, then estimate their cost.
• Develop change management procedures and forms.
• Create a communication plan , schedule, budget and other guiding documents for the project.

Each of the steps to write a project plan explained above correspond to the 5 project phases, which we will outline in the next section.

What Are the 5 Phases of the Project Life Cycle?

Any project , whether big or small, has the potential to be very complex. It’s much easier to break down all the necessary inclusions for a project plan by viewing your project in terms of phases. The Project Management Institute , within the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK), have identified the following 5 phases of a project:

• Initiation: The start of a project, in which goals and objectives are defined through a business case and the practicality of the project is determined by a feasibility study.
• Planning: During the project planning phase, the scope of the project is defined by a work breakdown structure (WBS) and the project methodology to manage the project is decided on. Costs, quality and resources are estimated, and a project schedule with milestones and task dependencies is identified. The main deliverable of this phase is your project plan.
• Execution: The project deliverables are completed during this phase. Usually, this phase begins with a kick-off meeting and is followed by regular team meetings and status reports while the project is being worked on.
• Monitoring & Controlling: This phase is performed in tandem with the project execution phase. Progress and performance metrics are measured to keep progress on the project aligned with the project plan.
• Closure: The project is completed when the stakeholder receives the final deliverable. Resources are released, contracts are signed off on and, ideally, there will be an evaluation of the successes and failures.

Free Project Plan Template

Address all aspects of your project plan with this free project plan template for Word . This in-depth template will guide you through every phase of the project, as well as all the elements you need to outline for a proper document. Download your template today.

We’ve created also created other project planning templates to help you create all the different documents that make up a project plan, like the project schedule, project budget or resource plan.

Now that we’ve learned how to make a project plan, and identified the stages of the project management life cycle, we need to emphasize on the importance of the project planning phase.

The project planning process is critical for any kind of project because this is where you create all the documents that will guide how you’ll execute your project plan and how you’ll control risks and any issues that might occur. These documents, which are part of the project management plan, cover all the details of your project without exception.

There are project plan templates out there that can help you organize your tasks and begin the project planning process—but we here at ProjectManager recommend the use of project planning software. The feature set is far more robust and integrated with every project phase compared to an Excel project plan template, and is a great way to ensure your actual progress stays aligned with your planned progress.

Once you write a project plan, it’s time for implementation . Watch the video below to see how project planning software helps organize a project’s tasks, resources and costs.

Project planning tools has become an invaluable tool for project managers in recent years, as it provides them the ability to maintain and automate the components we outlined above. Project planning software is a great tool to facilitate project management processes such as schedule development, team management, cost estimation, resource allocation and risk monitoring.

Beyond that, planning software also allows managers to monitor and track their plan as it moves through the execution phase of the project. These features include dashboards, for a high-level view of the project’s progress and performance, and in-depth reports that can be used to communicate with stakeholders.

Project planning software comes in all different sizes and shapes. There are some that focus on a single aspect, and others that offer a suite of planning features that can be used in each one of the project planning steps. What’s right for your project depends on your specific needs, but in general terms, project planning software is a much more powerful tool than project planning templates .

Related: 20 Must-Have Project Management Excel Templates

Online project planning software is highly flexible and adaptable to your team’s style of work. It has features that are designed to assist you throughout your project planning process.

Before the rise of planning software, project managers would typically have to keep up with a disjointed collection of documents, excel spreadsheets and so on. Savvy managers, however, make use of the project management tools available to them to automate what they can, and streamline what they can’t.

Some of the time-saving benefits of project planning software include the following.

• Organize, prioritize and assign tasks
• Plan and schedule milestones and task dependencies
• Monitor progress, costs and resources
• Collaborate with team
• Share project plans with team and stakeholders
• Generate reports on plans

Gantt Charts for Superior Planning

A Gantt chart is the most essential tool for the project planning process. Organize tasks, add their duration and they automatically populate a project timeline . Set milestones to break the larger project into manageable phases, and link task dependencies to avoid bottlenecks later in the project.

Get More Than a To-Do List

When planning a project, you need more than a to-do list. Seek out a planning software with a task list feature that lets you set priority levels, filters and collaborate. It’s a big plus if you can also make personal task lists that are private to manage your own work.

Use Kanban for Workflows

Workflows ensure proper execution of your plan, and no feature does this better than kanban boards. Customize boards to match your workflow and drag and drop cards as teams get their work done. See what work needs to be done and keep the focus on productivity with this feature.

Be Able to Track Progress

A dashboard can keep your project plan on track. Try and find a dashboard that’s synced with your planning tools, so everything updates automatically. It will make reporting easier too.

Get Transparency Into Teams

For a plan to go smoothly, you have to know what your team is working on. Find a way to balance your team’s availability with the project schedule. Workload features that map out resource allocation and holidays can be a big help here.

Be Able to Manage Multiple Projects

Rarely do you need to only focus on one project at a time. Give yourself the flexibility to manage multiple projects at once in the same tool. A roadmap feature that maps all of your projects on one timeline can be a lifesaver.

Before we dive into how to create a project plan, it helps to be familiar with some of the terms that you’ll run across. Here is a list of general terms you’ll encounter in this guide.

• Deliverable: The results of a project, such as a product, service, report, etc.
• Stakeholder: Anyone with a vested interest in the project—project manager, project sponsor, team members, customers, etc.
• Tasks: Small jobs that lead to the final deliverable.
• Milestone: The end of one project phase, and the beginning of the next.
• Resources: Anything you need to complete the project, such as personnel, supplies, materials, tools, people and more.
• Budget: Estimate of total cost related to completing a project.
• Tracking & Monitoring: Collecting project data, and making sure it reflects the results you planned for.

The project planning process is critical for the success of your project, and as a project manager, you have to think about all the elements that make up your project management plan such as work, time, resources and risks.

Now, we’re going to take you through the main project planning steps :

• Outline the business case
• Meet with key stakeholders
• Define project scope
• Assemble a project team
• Determine a project budget
• Set project goals & objectives
• Outline project deliverables
• Create a project schedule
• Assign tasks to your team members
• Do a risk analysis
• Create your project plan
• Report your progress

By following these project planning steps, you’ll clarify what you need to achieve, work out the processes you need to get there and develop an action plan for how you are going to take this project plan outline forward.

1. Outline the Business Case

If you have a project, there’s a reason for it—that’s your business case . The business case outlines reasons why the project is being initiated, its benefits and the return on investment. If there’s a problem that is being solved, then that problem is outlined here. The business case will be presented to those who make decisions at your organization, explaining what has to be done, and how, along with a feasibility study to assess the practicality of the project. If approved, you have a project.

2. Meet with Key Stakeholders

Every project has stakeholders , those who have a vested interest in the project. From the ones who profit from it, to the project team members who are responsible for its success. Therefore, any project manager must identify who these key stakeholders are during the project planning process, from customers to regulators. Meeting with them is crucial to get a better picture of what the project management plan should include and what is expected from the final deliverable.

3. Define Project Scope

It refers to the work required to accomplish the project objectives and generate the required deliverables. The project scope should be defined and organized by a work breakdown structure (WBS). Therefore, the project scope includes what you must do in the project (deliverables, sub deliverables, work packages, action items ), but also what is nonessential. The latter is important for the project plan, because knowing what isn’t high priority helps to avoid scope creep ; that is, using valuable resources for something that isn’t key to your project’s success.

4. Assemble a Project Team

You’ll need a capable project team to help you create your project plan and execute it successfully. It’s advisable to gather a diverse group of experienced professionals to build a multi-disciplinary team that sees your project management plan from different perspectives.

5. Determine a Project Budget

Once you define your project scope, you’ll have a task list that must be completed to deliver your project successfully. To do so, you’ll need resources such as equipment, materials, human capital, and of course, money. Your project budget will pay for all this. The first step to create a project budget is to estimate the costs associated with each task. Once you have those estimated costs, you can establish a cost baseline , which is the base for your project budget.

6. Set Project Goals & Objectives

Goals and objectives are different things when it comes to planning a project. Goals are the results you want to achieve, and are usually broad. Objectives , on the other hand, are more specific; measurable actions that must be taken to reach your goal. When creating a project plan, the goals and objectives naturally spring from the business case, but in this stage, you go into further detail. In a sense, you’re fine-tuning the goals set forth in the business case and creating tasks that are clearly defined. These goals and objectives are collected in a project charter , which you’ll use throughout the project life cycle.

7. Outline Project Deliverables

A project can have numerous deliverables. A deliverable can be a good, service or result that is needed to complete a task, process, phase, subproject or project. For example, the final deliverable is the reason for the project, and once this deliverable is produced, the project is completed. As defined in the project scope, a project consists of subprojects, phases, work packages, activities and tasks, and each of these components can have a deliverable. The first thing to do is determine what the final deliverable is, and how you will know that the quality meets your stakeholder’s expectations. As for the other deliverables in the project, they must also be identified and someone on the team must be accountable for their successful completion.

8. Create a Project Schedule

The project schedule is what everything hangs on. From your tasks to your budget , it’s all defined by time. Schedules are made up by collecting all the tasks needed to reach your final deliverable, and setting them on a project timeline that ends at your deadline. This can make for an unruly job ahead, which is why schedules are broken into phases, indicated by milestones , which mark the end of one project phase and the beginning of the next.

9. Assign Tasks to Your Team Members

The plan is set, but it still exists in the abstract until you take the tasks on your schedule and begin assigning them out to your team members. Their roles and responsibilities must be clearly defined, so they know what to do. Then, when you assign them tasks from your plan, they should be clear, with directions and any related documentation they will need to execute the tasks.

10. Do a Risk Analysis

Every project has some level of risk . There are several types of risk such as scope risk, technical risks and schedule risk, among others. Even if your project plan is thorough, internal and external factors can impact your project’s time, cost and scope (triple constraint). Therefore, you need to regard your planning as flexible. There are many ways to prepare for risk, such as developing a change management plan, but for now, the most important thing to do is to track your progress throughout the execution phase by using project status reports and/or project planning software to monitor risk.

11. Create your Project Plan

As discussed above, a project management plan is a document that’s made of several elements. Before we get into a detailed explanation of each of them, it’s important to understand that you should include them all to have a solid project plan. The components that you’ll need might vary depending on your project, but in general terms, you’ll need these main documents to create your project management plan:

• Project charter
• Project schedule
• Project budget
• Project scope statement
• Risk management plan
• Change management plan
• Cost management plan
• Resource management plan
• Stakeholder management plan

12. Report Your Progress

Your ultimate goal is to ensure a successful project for your stakeholders. They’re invested, and will not be satisfied twiddling their thumbs without looking at project status reports to track progress. By constructing a work breakdown structure (WBS) during the project planning phase you can break down the project for them so that they understand how your project plan will be executed. Keeping stakeholders informed is important to manage their expectations and ensure that they’re satisfied. Having regular planning meetings where you present progress reports are a great way to show them that everything is moving forward as planned and to field any questions or concerns they might have. Your stakeholder management plan will specify how you’ll engage stakeholders in the project.

Project planning software is a tool that helps to plan, organize and manage the schedule and resources needed to complete a project. ProjectManager is an award-winning project management software that organizes projects from planning to completion. Sign up for a free 30-day trial and follow along to build a thorough project plan that covers every detail.

1. List Your Tasks for the Plan

Tasks are the building blocks of any project and the start of any plan is identifying all the tasks that lead to your final deliverable.

Open the tool to add your tasks on the Gantt chart or one of the other multiple project views. You can import a task list from any spreadsheet or use one of our templates to get started.

2. Add Duration and Costs to Tasks

Every task has an estimated duration, which is the time it will take to complete it. They will also require a certain amount of funding, which needs to be collected to formulate your plan.

Add the start and end dates for each task in the Gantt and they populate a project timeline, so you can see the whole project laid out in one place. There’s also a column for task costs.

3. Link Dependent Tasks

Tasks are not always separate from one another. Often one cannot start or stop until another has started or stopped. That’s called a task dependency and needs to be noted in your plan.

Link dependent tasks by dragging one to the other. A dotted line indicates that they’re linked, so you stay aware of the fact and can avoid bottlenecks later in the project.

4. Set Milestones & Baseline

A milestone indicates the end of one phase and the beginning of another, which helps with tracking and morale. The baseline sets your plan so you can compare it to actual progress.

There is a filter on the Gantt that automatically sets the baseline, so you can use it to track your actual progress against the plan. The baseline can also be locked with a click.

5. Onboard Team & Assign

Getting the team and the tool together is how a project plan becomes actualized. The easier and seamless this transition, the faster you’ll get to work on the project.

Invite your team from the software and it generates an email with a link. Once they follow that link, they’re in and have access to the tools they need to manage their tasks.

6. Monitor Progress & Report to Stakeholders

Keeping track of your progress and then updating stakeholders is both how you stay on track and manage your stakeholders’ expectations.

See progress as it happens on our real-time dashboard, which calculates data and displays it over six project metrics. Reports can be filtered and shared for a deep dive into those numbers.

7. Adjust Plan As Needed

No plan remains the same throughout a project. Things happen and changes are demanded. Therefore, being able to edit your plan easily is key to the project planning process.

Edit your plan on the Gantt by a simple drag and drop. Move the old date to the new date and not only is that task fixed, but any impacted tasks are also updated automatically.

ProjectManager is an award-winning software that helps managers plan and helps teams get organized. Gantt charts control all aspects of your project plan from scheduling to assigning tasks and even monitoring progress. Multiple project views provide transparency into workflow and give everyone the tools they need to be at their best.

Ready to make your plan? Try ProjectManager today with this free 30-day trial.

The project manager is responsible for producing the project plan, and while you can’t make up all the content yourself, you’ll be the one banging the keys to type it all out. Use templates where you can to save time. Download our free project plan template and write your plan in double-quick time!

The purpose of a project management plan is to serve as a guide for the execution and control phases. The project plan provides all the information necessary for the execution phase such as the project’s goals, objectives, scope of work, milestones, risks and resources. Then, this information helps project managers monitor and control the progress of the project.

We plan at the beginning to save time later. A good project plan means that you don’t have to worry about whether the project participants are going to be available on the right dates—because you’ve planned for them to be. You don’t have to worry about how to pay those invoices—you’ve planned your financial process. You don’t have to worry about whether everyone agrees on what a quality outcome looks like—you’ve already planned what quality measures you are going to use.

A good project plan sets out the processes that everyone is expected to follow, so it avoids a lot of headaches later. For example, if you specify that estimates are going to be worked out by subject matter experts based on their judgement, and that’s approved, later no one can complain that they wanted you to use a different estimating technique. They’ve known the deal since the start.

Project plans are also really helpful for monitoring progress. You can go back to them and check what you said you were going to do and how, comparing it to what you are actually doing. This gives you a good reality check and enables you to change course if you need to, bringing the project back on track.

Tools like dashboards can help you make sure that your project is proceeding according to plan. ProjectManager has a real-time dashboard that updates automatically whenever tasks are updated.

The project planning process already discussed only scratches the surface of what is a deep well of practices created to control your project. They start with dialogue — speaking to stakeholders, teams, et al.

The deliverable for your planning phase is a document called the project plan. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) – Fifth Edition says that the project plan is made up of lots of subsidiary plans. These include:

• A project scope statement to define all the tasks and deliverables that are needed to complete the project
• A risk management plan for dealing with project risk including the processes for logging and tracking risks
• A change management plan to manage any changes that will be made to the project plan
• A cost management plan for managing costs and the budgeting elements of the project including any procurements or supplier engagements you might have
• A resource management plan for managing the material resources such as equipment and the human resources on the team both in terms of availability and skills
• A stakeholder management plan setting out who is going to receive messages about the project, when and in what format
• A quality plan that specifies the quality targets for the project

That’s a lot of documentation.

In reality, it’s rare that you’ll produce these as individual documents. What you need is a project plan that talks about the important elements of each of these. There’s no point creating a big document that sets out exactly how your business works anyway. If you already have a structured risk management process , then don’t waste time writing it all down again in your project plan.

Your project management plan needs to include enough information to make sure that you know exactly what processes and procedures need to be followed and who needs to be involved. Get your project plan approved by your stakeholders, your project sponsor and your team so there are no surprises later. As explained above, project planning charts and techniques such as Gantt charts, CPM, WBS or PERT can help you create your project plan.

This is hard to answer. It’s going to take longer to plan the moon landing than a new dating app.

The best way to estimate how long your project planning phase will take is to look at similar projects that have happened before, and see how long it took them to plan. Talk to the project manager as well, if you can, because they’ll have a view on whether that length of time was enough or not!

It’s easy to see how long other projects took if you have a project management tool that archives your old project schedules and makes the data available to everyone who needs it. You can then search for similar projects and study their schedules in detail.

A project plan is all about working out what to do and how to do it, so you need to get a lot of people involved. There are several good tools and project planning techniques for getting information from other people including:

• One-to-one meetings or interviews
• Surveys or customer focus groups to gather and validate requirements.

You should also arm yourself with a task management tool , like a list or a kanban board. They are incredibly useful for noting down important things that should be in your project plan. Kanban board software can help structure your plan by writing down the key headings and then moving them around as required until you have a flow that looks right.

Finally, you’ll need an online project management system to store your project management plan in. Make sure that everyone in the team can access the latest version of the project plan.

Your project plan is not a document written in stone. You should be referring back to it and making changes to it as often as you need to. Parts of it, like your project schedule, will change almost daily. Other parts, like your procurement plans and cost management processes, won’t change at all during the life of your project.

The important thing to remember is that if your project management plan isn’t working for you, think about what you can do to change it. It’s there to guide your project management, not restrict you from doing the right thing. If you need to review how you manage work and project resources, then go back and review it. Make the changes you need, get the plan approved again and share it with the team.

How To Make a Project Plan When You Don’t Have All the Answers

Yes, this happens–most of the time! It’s rare to have all the information at the beginning of a project. Most managers want you to dive in and get started, but you might not have the luxury of knowing all the details.

That’s OK; we have techniques to help deal with uncertainty.

First is the project assumption. You use these to put caveats on your plan and to document the things that you assume to be true at this point in time. For example:

• We assume that the resources will be available.
• We assume that the required funding is available.
• We assume that the colors requested will be in line with the company brand and that Marketing sign off is not required.

You get the picture. Then, if the design team comes back and says that they want the product to be a totally new palette of colors and that Marketing has to approve that, you are justified in saying that you’ll have to change the timescales on the schedule to make that possible.

You planned based on an assumption (that everyone agreed to, because you got the document approved) and that assumption turned out not to be true.

Next Steps for Project Planning

The most important thing to remember is that you shouldn’t rush the project planning process. Done properly, project planning takes time. And it’s worth doing it properly because if you don’t, we guarantee that you will hit problems later on as people won’t understand what they are supposed to do and why.

Great planning sets you up for success. It gives you the confidence of knowing that you’ve got all your processes, tools and systems in place to deliver the perfect result.

Now that you’ve learned all about project planning, it’s time to take action. Sign up for a free 30-day trial of ProjectManager and start planning your project today!

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Project Planning Resources

• Best Project Planner Tools: Apps, Software & Templates
• Best Project Planning Software of 2024 (Free & Paid)
• 25 of the Best Planning Quotes
• 3 Best Planner Apps for Mac in 2024
• 3 Best Project Management Charts for Project Planning
• Project Management Trends
• How to Create a Project Roadmap (Example Included)
• What Is Aggregate Planning? Strategies & Tips
• What Is Rolling Wave Planning?
• How to Create a Project Execution Plan (PEP) – Free Template Included
• Sample Project Plan For Your Next Project
• Operational Planning: How to Make an Operations Plan
• Project Planning Software
• Gantt Chart Software
• Project Scheduling Software
• Work Breakdown Structure Software
• Project Timeline Software
• Resource Planning Software
• Free Project Planning Templates
• Free Project Management Templates
• Project Proposal Template
• Project Charter Template
• Project Timeline Template
• Implementation Plan Template
• Work Plan Template
• Action Plan Template

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Free Project Task List Templates for Project Management

By Kate Eby | September 22, 2022

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We’ve compiled the most useful project task list templates for project managers, project team members and stakeholders, IT teams, and construction personnel.  

On this page, you’ll find six essential project task list templates, including a simple project task list template , a project task list with Gantt chart , a project task checklist template , an IT project task list template , and a construction project task list template . Plus, find tips on creating a successful project task list template .

Simple Project Task List Template

Download a Sample Simple Project Task List Template for  Excel | Microsoft Word | Adobe PDF | Google Docs | Google Sheets

Download a Blank Simple Project Task List Template for Excel | Microsoft Word | Adobe PDF | Google Docs | Google Sheets

Use this simple project task list template to list each project task and set its status, deadline, assignee, and priority. The template includes columns that help you track the percentage done, fixed cost, estimated cost, and actual hours for each task. You can also use the template to list tasks for several projects and to track their real-time progress. This template is the perfect solution for project teams looking to clarify task ownership, as well as create and accurately track tasks. Download the blank version to begin tracking tasks for your project, or review the template with sample data to help you get started.

For more project task list template resources, read this comprehensive article on free task list and checklist templates .

Project Task List with Gantt Chart Template

Download a Project Task List with Gantt Chart Template for  Excel | Google Sheets  

Clarify project tasks for team members by using this project task list with Gantt chart template. The template enables you to list each task, the team member responsible for completing it, its due date, and its status. As you populate the template with your project data, the Gantt chart section creates a visual representation of your project’s tasks so that you, your team, or project sponsors can get up-to-date information on project progress.

Project Task Checklist Template

Download a Project Task Checklist Template for  Excel | Google Sheets

Improve your project delivery success rate with this easy-to-use project task checklist template. Enter individual tasks along with their status and priority, assignee, due date, and any relevant notes. This fully customizable template lets you edit column titles to suit your project team’s needs and ensures that you successfully check each project task off your to-do list. 

For more resources and templates for tracking project tasks, see this helpful list of free project checklist templates .

Project Task Tracker Template

Download a Project Task Tracker Template for  Excel | Google Sheets

This template provides color-coded Status and Priority columns where you can easily track important project tasks. Designed to help you monitor tasks across multiple projects, this template indicates whether a task is at risk of not being completed. The Cost / Hours section tabulates fixed costs, estimated hours, and actual hours for each task. Regardless of your industry or type of work, this customizable project task tracker template will help ensure that you are able to account for and successfully complete every project task. 

Check out this comprehensive project task list template to ensure that you’re optimizing your project to-do list and keeping it in a single, shareable location.

IT Project Task List Template

Download an IT Project Task List Template for  Excel | Microsoft Word | Google Sheets  

Keep all IT project team members and stakeholders informed of task statuses with this comprehensive IT project task list template. The template includes space to enter your project name, project manager, key IT project deliverables, scope statement, start and end dates, and percentage of overall progress. This completely customizable template enables you to list each task, who it’s assigned to, start and end dates, and statuses. This template can help you and your IT team optimize your project delivery standards and increase your IT project success rate.

Construction Project Task List Template

Download a Construction Project Task List Template for  Excel | Google Sheets

Use this construction project task list template to ensure that your team completes all construction tasks in a timely manner. The template comes pre-filled with construction-specific task sections ( Sitework, Concrete, Masonry, Doors and Windows, etc . ), under which you can list each specific task, assign team members, select a due date, and add key details. The template also doubles as a construction punch list and includes a Punch ID column to identify key construction project tasks and contract specifications.

How Do I Create a Project Task List?

A project task list includes every task required for successful project completion. To create a project task list, use an application such as Excel or Google Sheets. Task lists also include such information as statuses, timelines, and team member information. 

A project task list typically includes the name of each project task, which team member is responsible for completing it, and its due date, status, priority, and any relevant notes. This document helps project managers, team members, and other stakeholders ensure that every required task is accounted for, assigned, and completed on time. By creating a project task list, you can help make sure that everyone involved in the project understands the status of each individual task and the project as a whole. 

In an application such as Excel, you can create a simple task list table by inserting rows such as Task Name, Status, Priority, Due Date, Assignee, and Notes . A simple task list like this can help ensure that you account for all of your project’s to-do items. 

You can also use a project task list template, which includes the primary elements to ensure that your team completes each task by project’s end. Project task list templates are designed to help you capture and track your project’s tasks so that you complete high-quality deliverables on time. 

Though project task list templates vary, they typically include the following universal elements:

• Task: Enter the name of each task so that it’s clear to every team member and stakeholder what needs to be accomplished. 
• Due Date: Provide a date by which each task must be completed so that the project can be delivered on time. 
• Status: Set a status for each task (e.g., Not Started, In Progress, On Hold, or Complete ) so that everyone can track project progress. 
• Priority: Select a priority for each project task. 
• Assignee: List the name of the team member responsible for completing each task. 
• Notes: Provide any additional notes that are relevant to the task. 

Depending on their function and their industry, project task list templates might also include the following column components: 

• At Risk: Select this check box if the individual task is in jeopardy of not being completed by the project’s due date.  
• Description: Provide a detailed description for each task so that, in addition to the task title, every project team member and stakeholder understands what the task requires for completion. 
• Deliverable: Specify the primary project deliverable, or feature, that the task is related to. 
• Percentage Complete: Provide a percentage completed for each project task. 
• Cost / Hours: Enter fixed costs, estimated hours, and actual hours for each task so you can track expenses and effort. 
• Duration: Review the duration between each project task’s start and end dates to ensure that teams have adequate time to complete each task.

Stay on Track of Project Tasks with Real-Time Work Management in Smartsheet

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The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed. 

When teams have clarity into the work getting done, there’s no telling how much more they can accomplish in the same amount of time.  Try Smartsheet for free, today.

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• Project planning |

3 elements every project charter needs

Getting started on a new project or initiative can be an exciting feeling. But what about the step right before that, when you need to get your project approved?

The project pitching and approval process can feel like a black box if you’ve never done it before. From gathering the right information to presenting it in a way that works for your project stakeholders, you want to make sure you have the materials you need to succeed. One way to do that is with a project charter.

What is a project charter?

A project charter is an elevator pitch of your project objectives, project scope, and project responsibilities in order to get approval from key project stakeholders. In the charter, you should provide a short, succinct explanation of the main elements of your project before you get started. By creating a project charter before getting started on other, more in-depth project planning documents, you can get approval or course-correct if necessary.

A project charter is one of many project planning materials you can create. Here’s how it compares to other project planning elements:

Project charters vs. project plans

A project charter should only include three elements: your project objectives, scope, and responsibilities. Once your charter has been approved, you should then create a project plan. Your project plan builds on your project charter to provide a more in-depth blueprint of the key elements of your project.

There are seven key elements in a project plan:

Success metrics

Stakeholders and roles

Scope and budget

Milestones and deliverables

Timeline and schedule

Project charters vs. project briefs

A  project brief  is a short document that you should create after your project has been officially approved. The brief is a condensed version of your project plan that your project team and stakeholders can refer back to frequently. Your brief, like the charter, provides context about why this project is a good idea, in addition to what you’ll be doing during the project.

A project brief has four parts:

Background information

Project objectives and success criteria

Project timeline

Target audience

Project charter vs. business case

A project charter and  business case  have the same fundamentals: these are both tools to pitch a project to the appropriate stakeholders. The main difference between a project charter and a business case is scope.

A business case is a formal document that explains the benefits and risks of a significant business investment. For example, if you’re pitching a large-scale investment with an external agency, a significant increase in current business practices, or a new product line or service, you’d want to create a business case. Alternatively, if your project needs approval but it’s smaller in scope—for example, a campaign that’s similar to past campaigns or a product launch that fits within your current go-to-market strategy—create a project charter instead.

Do you need a project charter?

There are a variety of project planning tools, and a project charter isn’t always the best one for the job. Here’s when to create one—and when you might be better off creating something else.

Create a project charter  to pitch and get approval for a project. A project charter gives stakeholders a clear sense of your project objectives, scope, and responsibilities. Key stakeholders can use the project charter to approve a project or suggest changes.

Create a business case  if your project represents a significant business investment. A business case includes additional information and documentation, including the project’s return on investment and any  relevant project risks .

Create a project plan  if your project has been approved. A project plan will build on your project charter to provide additional information, like the project timeline or  key project milestones .

Create a project brief  if you want to create a document that summarizes the key high-level details of your project plan.

Create an  executive summary  if you want to provide a summary of your document to executive stakeholders.

Create a  project roadmap  if you want to view a high-level timeline of your project in a  Gantt chart .

How to create a project charter

In a project charter, you’ll share project details with key stakeholders in order to get approval to kick off your project. There are three main project charter elements:

To begin your project charter, share your  project objectives  and project purpose. In this section, you should outline why this project is important and what the key objectives are for the end of the project. Make sure your project purpose clearly explains why it’s important to work on this project and how this project will support your company goals.

In addition to your project purpose, you should also clarify your project objectives. These are the things you plan to achieve by the end of the project, like deliverables or assets. To create good project objectives, follow the  SMART method . Make sure your objectives are:

The second key element in your project charter is the project scope. Your project scope statement defines exactly what is and isn’t part of the project. When you draft a project scope, you’re setting boundaries and, more importantly, outlining what you won’t do during the project timeline.

As you create your project charter, the most important part of explaining scope is outlining the ideal project budget. Remember, you will use your project charter document to pitch this project to stakeholders—so you need to clearly show what the budget is and where that money will go.

In the final section of your project charter, you should explain who will be working on the project. This includes any key project stakeholders, executive stakeholders, project sponsors , and the general project team. If you haven’t already, draft up a brief resource management plan to illustrate how various resources will be allocated during the project.

Project charter examples

Project charter template

When you’re ready to get started, follow this easy-to-use template to create your next project charter.

Project name

Name your project. Make sure this is descriptive enough that most people will understand what you’re working on.

Project manager

Who is the point of contact for this project?

Last revision date

Your project charter is a living document. Including the last revision date can be helpful for team members who are frequently checking back on the charter.

Project purpose

Why are you working on this project?

Project objectives

What deliverables and assets do you plan to achieve by the end of the project?

Project scope

What are the boundaries of your project deliverables? Which initiatives are not included in the project?

Project team and resources

Who is working on this project? Which resources (e.g. people, tools, and budget) are available for this work.

Stakeholders and approvers

Who are the project stakeholders? Who needs to approve the project charter or any project deliverables?

From project charter to project success

Once your project charter has been approved, you can move forward with project planning. As you create additional project planning documents and get started with project management, make sure you are storing all of your project details in a centralized tool that everyone can access.

Naturally, we think Asana is the best tool for the job. With Asana, you can manage team projects and tasks to stay in sync and hit your deadlines. Learn more about the  benefits of project management .

Related resources

How to use a feasibility study in project management

How to track utilization rate and drive team profitability

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Smooth product launches are simpler than you think

Difference Between Assignment and Project

It’s important to know the difference between these two terms. According to Answers.com , assignments are focused on specific, and predefined tasks whereas projects involve a variety of interrelated tasks which are performed to achieve a particular aim.

With the change happening over the world, and the advancement we see in our educational sector, learning has taken a whole new shape and what was once done within the confines of a place called the classroom has evolved to the point where the teachers are no longer the only source of learning.

Unlike the days of reading from a textbook in a classroom and doing classwork, education has now taken a more solid approach. Academics have now set sail to project-based work in schools worldwide. Students can now learn in a fun and exciting way.

Projects, despite their many varieties, can be research-based , at the same time, assignments are a series of essays, questions, and answers. As much as both can help a student learn, their execution sets them apart, giving one a higher significance over the other.

• 1.1 Assignments are textbook focused while Project encourages hands-on learning
• 2 Conclusion

Main Differences Between Assignment and Project

Assignments are textbook focused while Project encourages hands-on learning

One could relate a project to simply designing a model to explain a scientific phenomenon, or watching a movie to ascertain its relevance. The freedom it brings, and the lessons learned from its processes are thrilling. Imagine the feeling a student gets from building a science model of real-life outcomes. Assignment, on the other hand, is all cut and dry. Everything is textbook-focused, which in turn makes learning less fun.

• Evaluation carried out on Assignment can be easily accessed

Just as it’s easy to judge a student’s performance and ability from a given assignment, the opposite is the case for projects. When an assignment is given, the student’s capability is accessed by the report submitted.

The project, on the other hand, is dependent on the performance of others, your team, and a collective effort. As such, it is not a good judge of a student’s capabilities. Unlike a project, an assignment is also a significant pointer to a student’s weakness and a guide in correcting it.

A lot of students struggle to find the best writing services to assist with their projects or assignments. Lets Grade It provides accurate reviews of the best writing services you can find.

• Assignments are majorly within the curriculum, while Projects can be out of the box.

Consider a given assignment on World War I. Everything done on the questionnaire would be aimed at answering the questions asked. The teacher might even permit the students to consult several textbooks to help them properly frame their responses. Everything is being tailored in line with the curriculum, including the research done on the assignment.

A project on the same topic would mean the students thinking outside the box, like writing a report on the technologies used in fighting the war. The goal is to stretch the student’s minds outside the curriculum but within the context of history. This, in turn, makes research fun with a positive outlook as compared to that carried out when an assignment is given.

• Assignments are individualistic, while Projects are a group task

Assignments are usually given on an individual basis. It helps a student be self-reliant and confident in his ability to accomplish a task. This method helps to personally improve assignment writing skills of students while projects encourage students to interact and work together to come up with a solution. This gives rise to teamwork and the ability to delegate, which are vital for life.

For a college or a university, engaging students with both assignments and projects would help create balanced progress and exposure thereby ensuring an ideal learning experience.

• English Difference Between
• Difference Between Project and Assignment

Difference between Project and Assignment | Assignment vs Project

It is paramount that we use good English grammar, regardless of whether it is for academics or business. Inaccurate grammar usage could lead to misinterpretation of concepts and in some cases, it can be considered a lack of professionalism.

What is the Difference between Project and Assignment?

Project and assignment are two words that are often used interchangeably. However, they have their differences.

Table of Content

• Table Summarising the Difference between Project and Assignment
• The Meanings of Assignment and Project
• Examples for Project and Assignment
• Assignment vs. Project – Conclusion

Mastering English grammar is not easy. One of the biggest reasons is that there are many rules in English grammar as well as countless exceptions in the way that words are used. Moreover, the English language has a vocabulary of over 170,000 words, and therefore, learning English grammar can quickly become daunting. Regardless, adding a few words to your vocabulary each day can make a big difference. In this article, we shall explore the difference between project and assignment, their meanings and usage.

Table Summarising the Difference between Project and Assignment:

The meanings of project and assignment.

As already summarised above, the meanings of ‘project’ and ‘assignment’ are quite different, and they vary according to their usage.

• ‘Project’ meaning – The word project can be used either as a verb or a noun. Its meaning varies accordingly.
• Give an estimate or a projection based on current data

A specific plan or design

• Assignment meaning – The word assignment can only be used as a noun, and it refers to allocation of work or individuals.

Examples for Assignment and Project:

We shall explore some examples:

• Global average temperatures are projected to reach 25 degrees celsius by the year 2030.
• I noticed scaly growths projecting from his skin after exposure to the chemical.
• The image was projected on the wall.

She was captivated by the findings of the project .

• Assignment – The deadline for the assignment is next week.

Project vs. Assignment – Conclusion

As a verb, the word assignment refers to something that you are given to do by someone else. Alternatively, it could also refer to the assignment of individuals to work. A project, on the other hand, can be used as a verb as well as a noun and its meaning varies accordingly. As a verb, the word refers to the process of giving an estimate or a projection. Alternatively, it can also mean ‘to protrude’. As a noun, the word ‘project’ refers to a specific plan or design. To explore more differences between ‘project’ and ‘assignment’, register at BYJU’S. You can also find other important concepts in grammar, as well as resources for your studies here.

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Assignment fields

The Assignment fields indicate whether the row is an assignment row, rather than a task or resource row.

There are several categories of Assignment fields.

Data Type     Yes/No

Assignment (task field)

Entry Type     Calculated

How Calculated     If the row is an assignment row, the Assignment field contains Yes. If not, the Assignment field contains No. The Assignment field for tasks always contains No.

Best Uses     The Task Usage view displays assignment rows, which indicate which resources are assigned to the task. Add the Assignment field to the sheet portion of the Task Usage view when you want to display whether the field is an assignment row. Filter for the Assignment field when you want to see only assignment rows (Assignment = Yes), or when you want to exclude assignment rows (Assignment = No).

Example     In the Task Usage view, you want to see only assignment rows for assignments that have more than 80 hours of work. In the Filter Definition dialog box, you filter for all Assignment fields equal to Yes together with Work fields that have values greater than 80 hours.

Assignment (resource field)

How Calculated     If the row is an assignment row, the Assignment field contains Yes. If not, the Assignment field contains No. The Assignment field for resources always contains No.

Best Uses     The Resource Usage view displays assignment rows, which indicate which tasks are assigned to the resource. Add the Assignment field to the sheet portion of the Resource Usage view when you want to display whether the field is an assignment row. Filter for the Assignment field when you want to see only assignment rows (Assignment = Yes), or when you want to exclude assignment rows (Assignment = No).

Example     In the Resource Usage view, you want to see only assignment rows for assignments that have more than 80 hours of work. In the Filter Definition dialog box, you filter for all Assignment fields equal to Yes together with Work fields that have values greater than 80 hours.

Assignment (assignment field)

How Calculated     If the row is an assignment row, the Assignment field contains Yes. If not, the Assignment field contains No. The Assignment field for assignments always contains Yes.

Best Uses     The Task Usage and Resource Usage views display assignment rows. In the Task Usage view, the assignment rows indicate which resources are assigned to the task. In the Resource Usage view, the assignment rows indicate which tasks are assigned to the resource. Add the Assignment field to the sheet portion of the Task Usage or Resource Usage view when you want to display whether the row is an assignment row. Filter for the Assignment field when you want to see only assignment rows (Assignment = Yes), or when you want to exclude assignment rows (Assignment = No).

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IT Services

8 types of IT projects and their business impact

If IT is the lifeblood of your business — and it is — then IT projects play a vital role in keeping your organization healthy and thriving.

These projects can range from small localized projects (first aid) to systemwide enhancements (blood transfusions) to complete digital transformations (something akin to a heart and brain transplant all in one!).

IT projects can be proactive or reactive, small or large, quick or years-long. It’s important to understand these projects based on their business impact.

Below, you’ll learn all about IT projects — why they matter, how a program or project manager helps, and 8 of the most common IT project categories.

Why do businesses take on IT projects?  

Businesses take on IT projects for the same reason as any other project: to improve capabilities and/or gain a competitive advantage.

More specifically, businesses take on IT projects because IT is the backbone of business in the 21st century. Even your ability to read this article relies on multiple IT projects — at your business and ours. Executing IT projects is the only way to keep moving forward.

Often, when a company hits a roadblock to growth, IT is involved, either as the problem itself (an IT solution that needs fixing or upgrading) or as the solution to the problem (using technology to solve other business problems).

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What does an IT project or program manager do?  

IT project managers do what project managers do — that is, plan, schedule, manage, and otherwise oversee one or more projects, steering them toward defined goals throughout the project lifecycle — just in an information technology context. They build project plans, define project scope, set milestones, and coordinate team members. 

Depending on the organization's structure, IT project managers may also take the lead on risk management for the project. In larger companies, a risk management office will likely handle this function.

Because IT projects involve a high degree of specialization and technical language, IT project managers (and IT program managers in larger enterprise operations) must possess a level of technical ability in the types of IT projects they manage. Of course, all of this is in addition to any other project management experience or certifications the PM possesses.

That doesn’t mean an IT project manager needs to be as skilled as the people they manage, but the IT PM should be able to understand the nature of what’s happening and knowledgeably discuss it with project team members.

Writing for Harvard Business Review, Sophia Matveeva encourages organizational leaders not to fret about specific skill gaps , and the advice is good for IT program managers, too: 

“Most leaders don’t need to learn to code. Instead, they need to learn how to work with people who code. This means becoming a digital collaborator and learning how to work with developers, data scientists, user experience designers, and product managers — not completely retraining.”

IT project managers contribute to technology project success by serving as dedicated resources. With the reassurance that someone else is planning, monitoring the schedule, and looking out for bottlenecks and roadblocks, technical team members can focus on their work with greater confidence.

What are the most common types of IT projects?  

IT projects can cover a wide range of disciplines, sizes, and scopes. These are the eight most common categories of IT projects most businesses encounter.

1. Software development

First up is software development. Companies sometimes need to develop software (or to have software developed for them) for various internal and external reasons. 

This software might be designed for customers or be a company's primary product. Other software development projects are for internal tools that will never be customer-facing. 

There are unique considerations for software development project management . Traditional project management methodologies often don’t work well for these projects because software development teams typically have to work without knowing precisely what the deliverables will look like in the final form. There can also be differences in software development team structure : you may have multiple specialists whose skills may overlap significantly or hardly at all, and it’s up to the project manager to keep everyone on the right task at the right time.

Software development projects also may not have a defined length. Designing a simple internal tool might take weeks, while a complex enterprise application may take years (or even be on a perpetual iteration cycle, as would be the case for major products from Microsoft, Adobe, and the like).

Quick note: We’re using the term “software development” fairly generously here by lumping in web development (including web design workflow and app development), testing, software QA, and Software as a Service (SaaS) interfaces. While these all have unique challenges, they have more in common with software development than the following categories.

2. Infrastructure improvements

The only downside to continuous technology improvements? Your older tech looks worse and worse as it ages.

Infrastructure improvements are inevitable in IT. From the laptops and desktops employees use to get work done to the servers and network infrastructure keeping your digital assets running, everything has to be upgraded eventually.

Infrastructure improvement rollouts can take hours or months, depending on how involved the upgrades and replacements are. There’s also no set cycle unless you create it, which is why we recommend building an IT roadmap and structuring your IT budget accordingly.

3. Cyber security projects

We live in an era when data breaches and ransomware attacks are so commonplace that we've grown numb to their reports.

…At least until one hits us where it hurts.

Businesses undertake cyber security projects to improve their security posture. Sometimes these occur in response to an incident or breach, while other cyber security projects are more proactive than reactive.

Businesses should regularly audit their cyber security practices and threat readiness. Where vulnerabilities are found, it could be time for a new system (and, therefore, a new IT project). 

4. Cloud projects

Cloud projects are any IT project that is primarily about the cloud. A cloud migration is the best example here, where a business moves an application from running on on-premises servers to cloud-hosted ones. 

This is a loose category because the cloud touches practically every business, yet that doesn't make every project a cloud project. Businesses typically undertake cloud projects when a cloud service provides more business value than the current solution.

Full cloud migrations can be yearlong or even multi-year projects. On the other hand, moving a single application or function to the cloud usually means a shorter project duration.

5. Data management and analytics

Big data may be the future, but first, we have to figure out what to do with all that data.

Data management and analytics projects help companies do just that. Businesses often collect large volumes of data without knowing how to use or manage it effectively. This data needs to be processed, and processes need to be established for collecting and managing future data, so it stops piling up in unstructured databases, warehouses, lakes, and so on. Analytics projects then take processed data and turn it into digestible insights.

Businesses implement these types of projects when they desire to learn from their data or improve the way they collect it. Analytics projects can be time-limited or ongoing.

6. Enterprise resource planning (ERP)

ERP projects usually involve implementing ERP software, which helps large businesses (enterprises) run more efficiently. ERPs automate data entry and certain types of analysis and bring numerous functions under one software umbrella (including inventory, human resources, finance, and operations).

Businesses implement ERP software to gain efficiency and better understand where their resources are being spent. Implementing an ERP solution is a complex affair because it tends to span departments and take over functions that used to be spread across multiple software systems.

7. Digital transformation

Digital transformation projects involve taking a business or organization from its current state and approach to technology and methodically rebuilding it from a digital-first standpoint.

These massive projects should significantly reshape not just behaviors or technology use but the entire wiring of an organization. They span years and may have components that run continually and indefinitely.

Why might a business take on a digital transformation project? Because doing so is necessary for survival in many cases. Today’s digital landscape offers businesses an overwhelming number of technology choices. Sporadically implementing one tool or another will lead to localized improvements, but eventually, these one-off improvements will start to compete with and contradict one another. 

Digital transformation reimagines the way business gets done, including how businesses improve their processes and outcomes. 

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8. Legacy systems

Legacy systems are those systems you’ve been using for some time, have come to rely on, and don’t intend to upgrade or replace in the next cycle.

They’re a two-edged sword: on one hand, they must work well. Otherwise, you would’ve moved on from them by now. On the other hand, legacy systems can create significant challenges moving forward.

It’s not uncommon to encounter a legacy system that isn’t supported by a more modern solution. You’re ready to upgrade to a cloud-based ERP, for example, but you can’t find a way to harmonize that one legacy system with it.

Another challenge is legacy systems that the manufacturer has stopped supporting (or where the manufacturer no longer exists!). These can create security concerns over time as no one is left to patch vulnerabilities if they are discovered.

A legacy systems project is designed either to replace a legacy system or to find a way to integrate it with another new technology 

• Common considerations with IT projects

IT projects are prone to specific challenges. We’ll highlight three of those here. 

Constant change: There is no IT crystal ball. The next big thing might turn out to be the next big flop, or that game-changing new software company might get acquired and put out to pasture by a large firm with no intentions of duplicating the capabilities. Even when you do the research and pick proven solutions, IT will continue to evolve.

Unclear definition of success: Some IT projects, especially software projects, must begin before the end is defined. Iterative development is good, but at some point, the definition of success must be nailed down. If this can’t be done upfront, schedule it for the project timeline.

Clarity in communication: IT projects come with technical complexities that stakeholders may not innately understand. Plus, various key personnel on an IT project may struggle to communicate details in everyday nontechnical language, leading to confusion among team members and stakeholders alike.

Manage your IT projects effectively to scale your business with Teamwork.com

IT projects are critical for business growth. To remain competitive, your business must maintain its current IT capabilities and explore new ways of using new tools and technologies.

But every single IT project requires planning, scheduling, and efficient project management. There are so many details, steps, dependencies, and possible points of failure with any IT project. Organizations need a project management software solution that empowers them to manage and track IT projects so they can keep growing and scaling.

Teamwork.com is project management software done right. Designed for the needs of teams like yours, Teamwork.com adds project visibility and provides powerful scheduling and planning tools that keep your team informed and on track.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Why do businesses take on IT projects?
• What does an IT project or program manager do?
• What are the most common types of IT projects?
• Software development
• Infrastructure improvements
• Cyber security projects
• Cloud projects
• Data management and analytics
• Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
• Digital transformation
• Legacy systems

Ben is a Senior Content Marketing Specialist at Teamwork.com. Having held content roles at agencies and SaaS companies for the past 8 years, Ben loves writing about the latest tech trends and work hacks in the agency space.

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Project Assignments is a multidisciplinary project engineering company, offering design, procurement, construction and project management services to a broad range of industries. Based in Cape Town, South Africa, we operate specifically in the food, pharmaceutical, chemical, water & wastewater sectors. Founded in 1993, we have an established track record and a solid client base, working both nationally and abroad. Professionalism, communication, respect and the best possible people and technology practices are cornerstones of our business.

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Participation Project L03: Tables

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Submissions.

You must submit your completed file(s) through the CS101 Submit Assignments tool .

This assignment is due on Thursday, May 16, 2024. For on-campus sections, it is due by the end of class. For online sections, it is due by 11:59:59 PM Eastern Time. Late work will not be accepted.

This assignment is worth 8 points. A grading rubric is provided at the end of the assignment instructions. Over the entire semester, students must complete at least 20 Participation Projects to earn a maximum of 160 points.

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This video is also available on YouTube [1] .

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This assignment covers the following course and unit learning objectives:

• B. M. Powell, Excel: Tables Participation Project . West Virginia University, 2021. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ztW0nhTv7Q .
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Variable Hours Assignment for Resource Requests

If you don't need the resource to work on the project full-time, you can request or assign one or more resources for variable hours on a project.

You can assign the resource to work various hours some or all days of the week (including non-working days) or request for number of hours per week with flexible days to meet the schedule requirements. This helps you schedule resources better.

Specify variable hours in the requested hours to create or update a resource request, assign resources for weekly pattern that's repeated for the duration of the assignment or the request. You can also adjust resource assignment schedule to add variable hours or weekly hours.

If you request for a particular number of hours per week, the resource managers can review available capacity based on the resource's total weekly hours available. For example, if a request is for 25 hours each week, they can assign any resource that has 25 hours of remaining capacity for each week to fulfill the request.

Available capacity calculation is based on the requested hours. If the request is for weekly hours, the available capacity is based on the total remaining available hours a resource has each week of the requested duration. If the requested hours specifies using the project calendar hours, hours per day, or variable hours, the available capacity is based on the resource's available hours each day of the requested duration.

If you want to update the requests or assignments in group, you could adjust the hours by calendar or by working days in case the hours of the variable hours fall on non-working days.

Consider these examples:

Within a single assignment, a resource may work Mondays and Tuesdays for 8 hours each day, Thursdays and Fridays for 4 hours each day and not work any hours on Wednesdays. A project manager can request for such a resource assignment.

A project needs a system administrator to work once each week on Tuesday or Thursday to handle weekly builds. The project manager requests a resource for Thursdays 4 hours per day for the duration of the project. The resource manager adjusts the daily hours to Tuesday and assigns the resource.

A project manager raises a request for a DBA analyst for 5 hours every week. The resource manager knows that there is a flexibility of days and assigns resource whose availability score is at least 5 hours every week.

A resource manager created several assignments for a project where the work is scheduled to start on a Saturday, which is a non-working day on the project calendar. The project gets delayed by two weeks. To adjust these assignments, she can select all the impacted assignments on the Change Assignment Schedule page and adjust the start and finish dates by 14 calendar days to ensure the assignments start on the Saturday again but 2 weeks later than originally planned.