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Project Management Examples: Success Stories Case Studies, and Examples

By Kate Eby | January 3, 2023

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The best real-world project management starts with meticulous planning and ends with achieving goals. Take charge of your next project with the techniques and tools that experts use to avoid failure and deliver stellar results.

In this article, learn about eight real-world project management examples , project success criteria , five famous project management failures , and how modern project management software supports success .

Successful Real-World Project Management Examples

Successful real-world project management examples have one thing in common: they support company strategy. Examples show how detailed research, planning, and organization of resources helped real-world project managers achieve a particular aim that moves the organization forward.

Successful project management examples reveal that, in order to reach the final goal, you must have and maintain a big-picture view. Other success factors include involving stakeholders, reviewing multiple frameworks and solutions, and keeping the lines of communication open.

Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital Case Study: Increased Outpatient Surgical Center Performance

Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital is a 357-bed not-for-profit community hospital and trauma center in Santa Clarita, California. Jay Arcilla, Director of the Performance Excellence Office, is charged with studying and adapting the functions and processes to increase the achievement of desired outcomes, better meet patients' needs, and assure quality. 

• Challenge: In every hospital, starting the day's first scheduled in-patient or out-patient surgery on time has a knock-on effect on subsequent surgery timelines. Meeting schedules can always be challenging. The pandemic created even more hurdles, from having the right supplies and equipment on hand to keeping up with documentation and ensuring the right personnel are available to cover every patient's needs. Arcilla focused on raising surgery on-time start times to 70 percent. 

• Work Sessions: A team work session helps frontline staff analyze the root cause and create a consensus-driven, interdisciplinary team.

•  Communication: Disseminating information and encouraging discussion for all stakeholder groups.
•  Accountability: The operating room executive leadership created and enforced an Outpatient Surgery Center First Case On-Time Start (OPSC FCOTS) Escalation Plan, holding all staff accountable for showing up to first cases on time.
• Takeaway: In complex, multi-layered project situations, there is often no single silver bullet. Instead, results manifest over time. In this case, within seven months, monthly performance went past the 70 percent target to 89 percent for April 2022.

Behr Process Corporation Case Study: Paving the Way for Road Show Marketing Achievement 

Behr is one of the largest purveyors of architectural paint and exterior wood care products in the United States and Canada. Lisa Kudukis, Director of Professional Products and Services for the Behr Process Corporation , oversees promotions, including a major road show.

• Challenge: Kudukis created the BehrPro Experience Tour to connect with U.S. contractors. The annual event employs five tour teams covering 75 markets and 500 Home Depot locations in 34 states. Initially, each manager used different tools and organizational tactics to run their activities. Supervising people and processes and collaborating to maximize efforts was challenging. The Behr marketing team needed a way to operate more efficiently and stay on task. 
• Solution: After an exhaustive review, Kudukis chose Smartsheet as the group's project management tool. Everyone on the team now uses a single, custom template. A master dashboard relays information about key initiatives and features a drill-down menu so anyone with access can check on small details.  
• Takeaway: For the team, it is a huge time and money saver since anyone can view the project status and provide assistance if necessary. It also helps the team identify new business development opportunities or obstacles to inform future promotions and projects.

Successful Software Project Examples

Software projects involve generating an overall plan, scheduling, allocating resources, executing, tracking, and delivering quality software and apps. These examples show that successful software projects deliver the product with the pre-agreed level of quality within the given time and cost. 

Software companies create, change or maintain valuable products. Software project management is one of the most complex and fastest-growing endeavors in business today.

Hyland Software: More Responsive Updates and Website Requests

Jacob Huston-Lowery manages web operations at Hyland Software , a content services platform and developer of Onbase, an enterprise content management (ECM) and process management software suite. Hyland cuts dozens of hours from the website request process while capturing data to drive ongoing improvement for its clients. Clients include insurance, manufacturing, higher education, and finance businesses that provide web-based services to their customers.

• Challenge: Providing efficiency and seamless services is paramount to maintaining Hyland's standards. Service requests from internal staff who noticed system issues, along with those on behalf of customers, created log jams and confusion. When Huston-Lowery came on board, there were five different contact forms, and some requesters were bypassing the process and sending emails. 
• Solution: Huston-Lowery turned to Smartsheet to find an easy-to-use solution for the critical challenges his team faced. Using project messaging and alerts within the app helped eliminate email delays. When users complete an online form with an alert for urgent projects, Smartsheet routes website requests to a sheet Huston-Lowery manages. As requests come in, all projects are prioritized, scheduled, and assigned to team members or third-party website management agencies.
• Takeaway: By replacing email trails with built-in alerts and update capabilities, the Smartsheet solution saves communication time and eliminates duplication. The ability to handle requests strategically helps the team implement a support program that runs 24 hours a day, 5 days a week – a process that was impossible before instituting the new project management process.

Examples of Successful IT Projects

Information technology (IT) projects ensure that software, devices, and systems work together to help people get things done. 

Managing IT projects and creating efficient IT project plans involve all aspects of planning, design, implementation, project management, and training.

Convergint: A Single System of Record Improves Processes and Customer Service

Jenn Hilber is the Business Architect, Operations for Convergint , the largest privately held security integrator in the United States. Convergint has more than 175 locations worldwide, providing a range of services, including installation and management of card readers and cameras, alarm systems, fire systems, building controls, and more.

•  Challenge: The company prides itself in creating an outstanding customer experience, but managing all the details seamlessly was difficult. Convergint relied on manual practices and printed playbooks, with no single unified process for most of its activities.
•  Solution: Convergint turned to Smartsheet to capture all of its data, best practices, and resources in a single place. As a result, teams can make strategic decisions and act on customer priorities with confidence knowing that they have the most current and accurate information at their fingertips.
• Takeaway: Convergint teams now enjoy better cross-team and global communication, a clearer insight into customers' needs and status, and greater accountability for internal processes. Customers also experience quicker turnaround time for requests.

Exoft: Shifting to Mixed Methodologies Rescue an IT Project Management Client Relationship

Bohuslava Zhyvko is Head of Marketing for Exoft , a software development services company located in Lviv, Ukraine. Exoft builds robust web and mobile solutions with a focus on increasing clients' efficiency and solving technology challenges. 

• Challenge: Zhyvko began a new assignment with an IT client previously managed by another project manager. Zhyvko learned the IT client didn't want to hear about Agile methodology or process at Exoft; he simply wanted to complete his project ASAP. 
• Solution: Zhyvko immediately requested a kick-off conference call. During the call, she discussed the goal and purpose of the project and clarified the main issues that were creating stress points. After the call, Zhyvko gathered the team and included Exoft's CTO. The weaknesses of the client's planning and reporting systems became apparent, and Zhyvko offered the solution: Agile, after all. The team used a mix of Scrum and Kanban to replace Waterfall , which wasn't the right approach for the nature and goals of the project. They divided the project's scope into milestones and sprints, then switched the look of the workboard in Jira. Zhyvko supplied the client with a process improvement proposal and SOW with all the features he wanted. Zhyvko explained how the project's formal change request procedure worked and shared the documentation, so the client could clearly understand the development process, which they accepted and signed.
• Takeaway: After three months, when two milestones were closed, the client was pleased with the deliveries and the Scrum working process. The project concluded after milestone 11 with a client who was pleased with the outcome. His startup is growing extremely fast, and the company and Zhyvko have an excellent relationship. Solid planning, reporting, and communication can turn around even the most complex project management challenge.

Examples of Successful Completed Business Projects

Efficiently reaching project objectives is a key element of project management success. Efficiency relates to how the project’s limited resources are managed to meet its goals while building good relationships with internal and external stakeholders.

Whirlpool: Regional Alignment for Smoother Operations

Thiago Zapparoli is a Senior Planning Engineer at Whirlpool Corporation . The global home appliance company relies on regional project managers to manage its extensive portfolio.

• Challenge: When you're responsible for managing a project portfolio of a global home appliance company — including approximately 400 individual projects across five worldwide regions — you need a comprehensive system to keep everything on track. That's why Zapparoli looked for a way to get project managers, leadership, and other stakeholders on the same page with the laundry and dryer portfolio he manages.
• Solution: Zapparoli knew he needed an effective and unique system for all project managers to aggregate the 400 projects that covered multiple regions around the globe. At a minimum, the project management system needed to identify responsibilities for each project and task; key performance indicators; and open, completed, and delayed tasks. Smartsheet offered an all-up view of an entire region, providing real-time visibility into the overall project status and numerous tasks. First deployed in Brazil, the holistic tracker transformed how the 10 project managers and cross-functional leaders in that region approach their daily work and stay in sync.
• Takeaway: After implementations in Brazil and the United States, Zapparoli’s Smartsheet trackers are used in all three remaining regions and assisted deployment in four other Whirlpool internal organizations. Project managers are engaged because they have control over projects. Cross-functional leaders are satisfied with the visibility, and senior leadership can now see how they can help.

Simplus: Improved Sales Process

Katherine Albiston is a Content Manager for Simplus , an Infosys company that provides a strategic, industry-focused digital transformation for customers in the Salesforce ecosystem. She shares how Simplus’ customer Ziehm Imaging needed to improve its sales process to garner maximum efficiency and profits, as well as the company’s solution for them.

• Challenge: Simplus customer Ziehm Imaging, Inc. was using a legacy configure, price, quote (CPQ) system process for defining new products or modifying bundles. As a result, it took up to a week to go to market. A Microsoft Excel-based process further complicated managing market-specific annual pricing updates, which required a manual price override to apply pricing for each segment. The manual work increased errors, eroded margins, and led to customer communications about pricing adjustments – not good for relationships. 
• Solution: Simplus simplified Ziehm's bundle configuration process and centralized compatibility management rules. It now uses a lookup-based rules setup for products that enforces business policies in real time as sales reps interact with the CPQ system. 
• Takeaway: Streamlining and installing coherent systems decreased Ziehm's quote creation time by 93 percent, troubleshooting time by 87 percent, and the time to add products by approximately 87 percent. The lesson is clear: A holistic approach to process improvement can reap impressive benefits.

designdough: A More Refined Recruitment Process

Molly Govus is the Marketing Manager of designdough , a full-service U.K. design firm. The company tightened its use of project and time management tools to run projects and realized it needed to do the same for managing internal projects.

• Challenge: designdough audited its recruitment process and discovered four key issues: Permanent and temporary staffing ebb and flow was always in flux depending on client project demands. There were no clear start-to-finish timescales, and they lacked transparency with staff regarding project timescales. Staff capacity related to assigned tasks was unclear. Finally, the firm lacked designated client communication points.  
• Solution: They started by planning and documenting every resource and task using a project management tool that provided visibility for all team members. They wanted to clarify the audit's issues and organize information and project processes around recruiting by implementing clearly delineated stages (Administration, Interview, Offer, Induction, and Confirmation). Now, they set start dates for each step and complete tasks before moving to the next stage. Additionally, they add relevant tags, such as meeting , to tasks so they can easily identify who is assigned the task assignment and dates attached to every job. 
• Takeaway: Thanks to a straightforward process and an efficient project management tool, the team met its recruitment project goals. They now encounter fewer bottlenecks and have an easier recruitment process that has improved staff and client satisfaction and relationships.

What Is the Measure of Project Success?

The measure of project success is meeting the initial criteria established by the internal or external client and the project team. Teams use these specs, milestones, and deliverables to evaluate a project after it closes. 

“Project managers are experts at helping people define problems,” notes J. Scott, CEO of 120VC and author of The Irreverent Guide to Project Management . “Data drives and measures success to control the outcome and move the project forward as aggressively as possible, leaving no time or money on the table.”

In its 2020 report, “Ahead of the Curve: Forging a Future Focused Culture,” the Project Management Institute (PMI) found that organizations that operated from mature ROI capabilities geared toward meeting strategic goals, working within predetermined budgets, delivered segments and the entire project on time with limited scope creep . High-maturity companies had 50 percent fewer project failures than low-maturity organizations.      

A success measurement framework includes:

• Buy-In: Worthy projects and outstanding ideas can fail if critical stakeholders aren't behind the effort. With buy-in, resources will be available, and you can move the project forward.
• Strategic Approach: One of the best ways to guarantee buy-in is to make a business case that shows how the project fits into overall company goals and will positively impact the organization’s future. According to an article on the six questions to ask before starting a big project in the Harvard Business Review, a good distribution of resources is 60 percent in support of the core business, 30 percent in the adjacent business area, and 10 percent unrelated to your core business.
• Meticulous Planning: Completing projects on budget and on schedule relies on thorough advanced planning. Professional planning includes defining the scope and objectives of the project and operating from an understanding of the resource and budget limitations that affect your project. 
• Continuous Monitoring: Once the project begins, it's essential to monitor all activities, resources, and expenditures almost constantly. You will likely find that you’ll need to make adjustments to some elements in every project. You will want to monitor the execution of tasks against milestones, keep an eye on quality, track whether you are on schedule, and verify money is spent according to plan. 
• Make Relationships a Priority: Stay in touch with clients, vendors, and internal team members to stay informed about project status and build relationships. Once the project concludes, check in with stakeholders to see what worked and what didn't so that you can apply winning strategies and tactics to subsequent projects.

Setting Success Metrics

For the best results, the only way to measure project failure or success is by collecting and tracking data from the first day until the project closes. "You can't manage what you don't measure" is Peter Drucker’s time-honored adage for setting project success metrics. 

Management consultant Drucker's gold standard in project management metrics is his specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound goals framework, known as SMART . To start setting those strategic types of project metrics, the Performance Management Institute (PMI) suggests asking three questions to inform the metrics you will use to measure the success of your project .

 The key questions to help set metrics are the following:

• Why is the project needed? Understand the purpose or goal of the project or work.
• What are the success factors? Determine what critical success factors are mandatory for you to succeed and achieve the goal.
• What are the metrics? Identify how you will measure the fulfillment for each critical success factor for the project or program, and collect and share data.

Common Project Management Success Metrics

Metrics for on-target project management track productivity, assess resource utilization, monitor the scope of work changes, and measure quality. Assuring a low number of defects throughout the project and providing a quality deliverable at its end should be a metric for any project. 

Examples of crucial project metrics include the following:

• Resource Utilization: This metric assesses how individual team members or the project team spend their time against the total number of hours allocated for the project. Periodically checking time spent on the project can help assess how human energy is being used. For organizations that bill hours, this is an important metric to monitor and review at the end of a project.
• Schedule Variance: This metric helps project managers determine if projects are running according to the planned budget or ahead of it. A negative schedule variance means the project is behind schedule.
• Cost Performance: This metric measures efficiency. Divide the work performed or earned value by how much money it took to accomplish tasks. Accurate budget estimates rely on forecasting cost performance. 
• Cost Variance: This metric pinpoints how you are operating within a planned budget. The purpose is to see if you are running below or within budget. If cost variance is negative, the project is over budget. If it’s under budget, that means you are achieving budget and project success.
• Gross Margin: A strategically planned project aims to contribute to the company by increasing profits. The gross margin is the difference between the total income and total project spend. It’s best to establish the gross target margin before a project begins and measure it on an ongoing basis. Achieving or exceeding a gross margin is the primary mark of project management excellence.

With project metrics in place and the right tools to track that data, it is easier to crunch the numbers on previous projects to see what went right and what task ended up causing a significant delay.

What Skills and Tools Support Project Management Success?

You need various tools and skills to guide projects to the desired goal. Soft skills are people skills or emotional intelligence. Hard skills are specific to project managers and can be learned through formal training or on the job. 

The exact project management techniques and tools you need depend on your industry, company, and team preferences. The vital foundation for success is to create your project plan and lean into best practices that focus on organization, communication, and team leadership. "There are many methodologies project managers employ," says 120VC’s J. Scott. "Waterfall, Agile, Lean, and more – but the most important skill to have is leadership and a people-centric framework since it is people that get [expletive] done.”

Project management skills and tools to help you meet project management challenges – and win –  include the following:

• Soft Skills: Soft skills are interpersonal skills such as communication, flexibility, leadership, teamwork, and time management.
• Project Management Tools: Tools is another word for software. Purpose-built project management software supports teams in the planning, tracking, and managing of projects to meet stated goals on time and within budget. These also serve as a repository for data that will inform the post-project analysis.
• Project Management Methodologies and Frameworks: The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) Guide describes all the PM methodologies and techniques available to manage projects. Project managers choose frameworks such as Critical Chain Project Management, Lean, Scrum, and Waterfall for their projects.

Reasons Projects Fail and How Modern Project Software Supports Success

Projects fail for many reasons. Those include inadequate preparation, poor documentation and tracking, and poor communication. Modern project software can help solve those problems and support success. 

"Project management, particularly at the enterprise scale, is about getting to desired outcomes as efficiently as possible under any conditions," says 120VC's Scott. "You must be agile (with a lowercase a) to get things done to reach those outcomes." Modern software is the way forward.

“IT projects have an exceptionally high failure rate of 44 percent,” says Scott. “These projects fail due to a lack of alignment between business and project objectives. As software project failure statistics show, the lack of alignment of projects with the business objectives is why nearly half of the strategic initiatives fail.”

5 Famous Project Management Failures and How They Could Have Been Solved

Project management failures are part of most projects. The key is to learn from past failures and track projects closely to get back on track when things go awry. 

1. Citibank Interest Payment Failure Citibank intended to make a $7.8 million interest payment to creditors of its client Revlon. Instead, the company paid $900 million because of errors due to aging software. Citibank's employees set up a transaction as if they were paying off the entire loan to calculate the interest correctly, then check numerous boxes to deliver the majority of the sum to an internal Citibank account. Three different people signed off on this transaction, most of which wasn't due to creditors until 2023, but the Citibank employees didn’t check all the proper boxes. Creditors kept more than $500 million of the payment. A judge ruled that they didn't have to return the money because he said it was not believable that one of the largest and most sophisticated financial institutions on earth could make such a mistake. 

• Takeaway: The big lesson is to modernize your software and user interfaces, so employees can perform their duties in a streamlined, logical fashion. Remember: You might suffer less when you make mistakes if people aren't angry enough to take advantage of those errors.

2. J.C. Penney Rebrand Failure Ron Johnson, who has a successful branding track record, took over as J.C. Penney's CEO in 2011. Johnson's "cheap chic" rebranding for Target was enormously successful, as was his previous work with Apple to generate its outstanding and consistent brand experience. Defying expectations, Johnson's rebrand for Penney's was a dismal failure. His goal was to revitalize the chain by making "hip" changes. He wanted to shake things up at the company by doing away with sales and coupons, nixing some of the legacy merchandise, and modernizing the store’s physical layout. It failed miserably. Revenues dropped from an already low level, and after 17 months, Johnson was out.

• Takeaway: No matter how cool or innovative a new brand concept seems, robust market research is mandatory. J.C. Penney's poor financial state forced Johnson to act too quickly. As such, he failed to align the likes and dislikes of J.C. Penney's loyal existing customer base with new tactics. That's not to say the change involved in rebranding has to be totally at the mercy of your customers' extant preferences. When a brand has long-standing customer favorite factors such as discounts and coupons, it may be best to roll out changes slowly rather than all at once to acclimate existing customers to a new direction.

3. McDonald's Arch Deluxe Burger The fast food giant put an unprecedented $150 million into advertising for the Arch Deluxe Burger, only to discover its customers weren't interested in the sophisticated, ”gourmet” menu option. Mistakes include marketing to a new, disinterested Gen X demographic while neglecting the brand's core audience, overpricing the burger to cover the additional costs it took to create, and franchisee disinterest. 

• Takeaway: The message is to never ignore your buying base and pick the right metrics when you start and run a project. If McDonald's had a more accurate picture of what its customers wanted and conducted more testing with existing customers, the company could have saved its money, resources, and reputation. 

4. Dyson Electric Car James Dyson spent a small fortune – more than $600 million – on a seven-seat electric car with a 600-mile range. Then Dyson scrapped it before the prototype ever hit the road. Electric vehicles are costly, and the battery, battery management, electronics, and cooling system are much more expensive than an internal combustion engine. Tesla — hailed as a success by many — has burned through $19 billion of investor cash and is still not profitable. It turned out that each Dyson would have had to fetch roughly $183 million to break even. 

• Takeaway: The British government wants to ban sales of all fossil-fuel cars by 2035, so Dyson shifted its focus. The company continues to work on solid-state battery manufacturing. Solid-state batteries are the key to making electric vehicles functional and desirable. Highly efficient, as well as smaller and lighter than ion batteries, solid-state batteries generate less heat and are easier to recycle. Dyson says he could return to electric vehicle production when commercial and financial circumstances change.

5. Coca-Cola and New Coke The company tested New Coke with 200,000 consumers. Most people who tried it preferred New Coke over the traditional product. Based on that information, Coca-Cola launched New Coke in 1985. But the new product did not sell, and product loyalty and people’s old-fashioned habits got in the way. The cost to the company was $30 million in unsellable backstock and $4 million lost to development. New Coke remains one of the most famous failures in marketing history.

• Takeaway: While Coca-Cola researched the market, it missed the mark when assessing the power of brand loyalty. Understanding customers is imperative in product development. Ensure your information is comprehensive and those insights are realistic and accurate.

How Modern Project Management Software Cures Common Project Woes

Modern project management software provides real-time visibility into work conducted across projects, programs, and processes. Store, track, manage, and automatically report on all work, so you can save time and help your team focus on the work that matters most.

Take Charge of Your Next Project with Real-Time Work Management in Smartsheet

From simple task management and project planning to complex resource and portfolio management, Smartsheet helps you improve collaboration and increase work velocity -- empowering you to get more done. 

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.

Discover a better way to streamline workflows and eliminate silos for good.

• Jul 14, 2022

How to Answer “Describe a Project You Worked On” (Examples)

Worried this question will come up in your interview? We’ve got you covered!

Megan O'Neil

HR and Career Writer

Reviewed by Chris Leitch

One of the most common interview formats is the competency-based interview, which involves enquiring candidates about past experiences. As many professional roles require some degree of project management experience, it’s a good idea to prepare for commonly asked competency-based interview questions — like “Describe a project you have worked on”.

To help you out, we’ve put together this handy guide, which walks you through the process of crafting an effective response, what hiring managers hope to glean from your answer, plus useful examples for inspiration.

Let’s get started.

Why hiring managers ask this question

Even if you’re not applying for a project management position, a wide variety of other roles also require skills in project management. However, hiring managers don’t only ask this question to assess your ability to manage projects, but also to learn about your general working style .

Through describing a project that you’ve worked on in the past, you’re also revealing how well you work with others , how you respond to challenges, and whether you’re organized and can meet deadlines.

Steps to crafting a response

As “describe a project you have worked on” is such a common interview question, it’s a good idea to ensure you’re ready and prepared to respond effectively. Below are five steps to crafting the perfect response.

1. Prepare ahead of time

When you’re in the hot seat during an interview, it can be challenging to recall the details of past experiences and tell a concise and compelling story. So, this is why it’s best practice to prepare for interview questions in advance. Prior to the interview, think back in detail on previous projects you had worked on, and write down key information and points you want to address in your response.

2. Use the STAR method

The most effective way to answer competency-based interview questions is through the STAR method . This interview technique involves responding to the question with a structure comprised of four elements: Situation, Task, Action and Result.

When answering this question, begin by describing the situation, such as the scope and objectives of the project. Then, describe your specific task in the project. Next, you’ll share what action you took that made an impact. Finally, you’ll share the result of the project, which was achieved by your action.

3. Stay positive

When you get asked during an interview about your project management skills, the interviewers aren’t only assessing your technical skills, but also your attitude. So, even if you worked on a project with difficult coworkers who didn’t pull their weight, it’s best to keep a positive attitude and focus on your strengths and ability to learn from challenges and mistakes. After all, an interview is not the place to air grievances about former employers or coworkers.

4. Be concise

One of the fastest ways to lose the attention of your interviewers is to ramble. So, if you want to keep your interviewers engaged, ensure your response is concise and to the point. If the project you worked on was complicated, try to think of a way to remove any information that isn’t necessary. Since the ideal length of your response should be 2–3 minutes long, it’s a good idea to practice your response in advance while timing yourself.

5. Quantify your success

One of the most effective ways to make your response more impactful and memorable is to quantify your success. As opposed to just stating the project you worked on was successful, provide specific stats or figures. For example, you could say: “The project led to a 15% reduction in client churn”. This will paint a clearer picture in the interviewers’ minds and, ultimately, make for a more compelling response.

Example answers

Want some inspiration? Check out these example answers to guide you in preparing your own response:

Sales development representative

While I was working as a sales development representative in my last role, we were in the process of launching a new product. During this time, my manager approached me and three of my colleagues and asked us to work on a project researching prospective clients that we could target for the new product.

My role in this project was to determine the outreach strategy we would use to approach these prospects. In order to accomplish this, I collaborated closely with the product development team to better understand how the product could add value to prospective clients. I then created several email templates and outreaches tailored to the new product and shared them with my team.

My manager and team implemented the strategy, and it led to a 15% increase in new business during that quarter. Shortly after, I was promoted to senior sales development representative.

Office manager

While I was working in my last job as office manager , my company relocated to a new office space. As I was responsible for all office logistics, I was also responsible for managing the relocation. In order to ensure the move went as smoothly and efficiently as possible, I started planning two months in advance.

The first step was creating a plan to make sure all boxes were ticked. I planned out the employee communications regarding the move, the logistics, and the finances. Since we would have to close the office for two days, I also collaborated closely with the department heads to ensure that the planned dates of the move would not impact any crucial business functions.

Following the move, I was formally recognized with the quarterly Star Performer award for my role in smoothly facilitating the relocation.

Marketing coordinator

In my last role as marketing coordinator, I was responsible for managing a lead-generating webinar. My tasks in this project included recruiting internal speakers, creating the slide deck, managing the promotion, and setting up the webinar broadcasting technology.

In order to stay organized , I used an Excel spreadsheet with a list of the tasks and their respective deadlines. I used my advanced Excel skills to set the deadlines to automatically turn red when they were getting close. This way, I didn’t miss any important tasks.

The webinar was a success, with the attendance rate being 30% higher than initially expected. Due to this outcome, my team decided to begin broadcasting two webinars per quarter, for which I was responsible for project managing.

Key takeaways

When you’re in an interview and asked to describe a project that you worked on, this is a great opportunity to display your competencies for the role. When responding it’s important to remember to:

• Prepare your response in advance, as it may be challenging to think of past experiences on the spot during the interview.
• Use the STAR technique to strengthen your response. It can be effective in ensuring you stay organized and concise.
• Keep your answer positive. Even if the project included difficult coworkers, it’s best to not speak poorly about others and instead highlight your resiliency to challenges.
• Respond concisely by keeping your answer between 2 and 3 minutes in length.
• Utilize stats and figures to quantify your success so that your response is more memorable and relatable to the interviewers.

By following the above steps, you can ensure you’re prepared to nail this interview question — and wow your prospective employer.

Got a question about crafting a response for “describe a project you have worked on” or want to share your own tips? Let us know in the comments section below.

Originally published on June 21, 2014.

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How to write a project report (with steps & templates).

March 21, 2024

Juggling all the different components of a project can be quite a challenge. If that weren’t enough, you also have to write a project status report to update key stakeholders on the project’s progress. The struggle is real.

So where do you start? Fortunately, we have the answer. And that’s precisely why we put together this guide—to walk you through the process so you have a clear path from start to finish.

Learn more about creating project reports and different types of project status reports. Plus, you’ll walk away with five free project report templates, carefully crafted to streamline your project management workflow, save you time, and impress your stakeholders. 🤩

What is a Project Report?

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A project report is a document offering a comprehensive overview of a project’s objectives, progress, team performance, and milestone accomplishments. It also gives an account of the challenges faced during a project’s execution , solutions devised to tackle them, and the lessons learned during the process. 

Project managers create these reports to communicate with other project stakeholders—including team members, sponsors, clients, and other interested parties—to ensure everyone’s on the same page. The document also serves as a foundation for further evaluation and analysis to ensure the project says on track and achieves its goals. 🎯

Creating a project report doesn’t have to be a daunting task. Follow these three simple steps to create your first project report with ease.

Understand the purpose of the report

Before you create a project report, you need to understand the purpose of the report (the “why”) and know your target audience (the “who”). This will guide the content, structure, and tone of your project report.

Gather and organize the relevant information

At this point, you need to gather project information relevant to your project report. Make sure your data is accurate, reliable, and up-to-date. Organize the gathered information in a logical and structured manner.

• Executive summary : As its name suggests, this project summary gives readers a quick overview of the whole report. It’s a snapshot that highlights the most important parts of the project. While it’s placed at the start of the report, it’s often written last. It covers the project’s objectives, methodology, major outcomes, and conclusions. 
• Introduction: This sets the context and expectations of the entire report. It includes the project’s purpose and scope, project schedule, the problems it aims to address, and the methodologies to get there. It also outlines the structure and organization of the rest of the report. 
• Body: Typically, this is the longest part of project management reports because it dives into in-depth details, including project progress, data collection, analysis reports, constraints, and limitations. Remember that whatever you include here should reflect the purpose of your project report and the preferences of your target audience. 
• Conclusions & Recommendations: Based on your findings and analysis, identify opportunities for improvement, suggest strategies for addressing them, or propose avenues for future research. 

Format and proofread the report

Ensure that your project report follows a consistent formatting style—headings, subheadings, and bullet points will make it easier to read. In addition, scan your report for spelling or grammar errors and typos.

Types of Project Reports

Project reports come in diverse formats, with each serving different use cases. Here are nine of the most commonly used types of project reports.

A project status report is a document that gives a snapshot of where your project stands at any given moment. It’s like answering the question, “How’s the project doing?”

But instead of just saying “The project is fine,” you actually dive into the project goals, tasks completed, milestones achieved, challenges faced, lessons learned, potential roadblocks, and next steps. 

Whether it’s a weekly project status report or a monthly status report, this documentation eliminates the need for status meetings while giving stakeholders the most recent status of the project.

A project progress report is slightly similar to a status update report, as they both discuss task progress. However, the progress report is more quantitative and zooms in on individual tasks and project milestones . 

It’s like taking a magnifying glass and examining the progress of each task, one by one. For example, it could include in-depth information on the percentage of completion and current status of each task (completed, on track, delayed, etc.). 

The cost-benefit analysis report is usually prepared before a project is put into motion. Of the various project reports, this one aims to answer a simple question: “Is it worth pursuing this project?”

To answer this question, the report first assesses all project costs like operational expenses, materials, salaries, equipment, and potential risks. 

It then considers the projected benefits, such as increased profit margins, cost savings, improved efficiency, or happier customers. Finally, the report compares the costs to the benefits to determine if it’s time to move forward or explore other options.

A project time-tracking report is a document that records and summarizes time spent on project activities. Each project team member contributes to writing this report—they track and record the amount of time they’ve spent on tasks and submit it to the project manager. ⏰

Thankfully, the rise of project management tools has eliminated the need for paper-based time-tracking submissions. They make it easy for team members to submit accurate and detailed time reports to the project manager—while reducing the administrative burden of manual report compilation. 

Project managers can see how time is spent and the overall productivity of team members. As a result, they’re able to make informed decisions, such as redistributing workload (aka workload management ), reassigning tasks, and providing feedback and support to team members. 

A project resource dashboard offers a bird’s-eye view of how resources (e.g., labor, equipment, materials, budget, etc.) are allocated in a project. Think of it as a comprehensive resource inventory, listing every project task, the responsible party, and the resources being used. 

Project reports like this help project managers keep track of resource availability, identify potential resource constraints or shortages, and make informed decisions about resource allocation and optimization.

A project risk report offers a comprehensive analysis of potential risks, their likelihood of occurrence, their potential impact on the project, and recommended mitigation strategies. 

Rather than waiting for future events to derail the project, project reports like this one allow project managers to take a more proactive approach to risk management—thereby boosting the chances of overall project success.

A project variance report reveals the gaps or deviations between project plans and the actual performance or results achieved. It compares various factors—like budget, time, resources, and scope—and their planned values with their actual values, then computes the differences (or variances). 

By analyzing these variances, project managers and stakeholders can discuss the possible reasons behind them, identify areas that need attention, and take corrective actions where necessary.

A project performance report evaluates the overall performance and achievements of a project against predetermined metrics and objectives. It includes information on project deliverables, key performance indicators (KPIs) , and stakeholder satisfaction.

This report helps project managers assess project success, identify areas for improvement, and communicate the project’s performance to stakeholders.

A project completion report marks the end of a project journey. It summarizes the entire project lifecycle, from initiation to closure. This report contains an overview of the project’s objectives, deliverables, milestones, challenges, and recommendations for future projects.

Writing project reports may initially seem redundant and time-consuming. However, it plays a crucial role in achieving project success. While a few benefits were hinted at earlier, let’s get a better picture of why project reports should not be overlooked.

More clarity

Creating a project report allows you to step back and reflect on the project’s progress. As you record the milestones, successes, and challenges, a wealth of insights begin to unfold—strengths, weaknesses, and areas that need attention.

This holistic view of the project’s health helps you steer it toward the desired outcomes and ensure it stays on track.

Encourages evaluation and analysis

Project reports allow you to evaluate and analyze the different aspects of a project in a systematic way—gathering relevant data, analyzing them, and evaluating their significance. By giving your project a critical analysis, you can uncover valuable insights, identify patterns, draw meaningful conclusions, and take strategic action. 🛠️

Enhances communication and collaboration

Creating a project report challenges you to present the project’s progress and results to stakeholders in a clear and coherent manner. A well-written report promotes project transparency and ensures everyone is on the same page.

It also facilitates collaboration by providing a common reference point for discussions, feedback, and decision-making.

Boosts professionalism and credibility

When you present a comprehensive and well-structured report, it shows that you have conducted thorough research, followed a methodical approach, and can effectively communicate complex information. This, in turn, boosts your reputation, enhances your credibility, and showcases your expertise among peers, colleagues, and potential employers.

Knowledge preservation

A project report serves as a valuable reference for future research or projects. By documenting your process, methodologies, challenges, lessons, and results, you create a resource that can be consulted and built upon by others.

This contributes to the cumulative knowledge in your field and fosters a culture of collaboration and innovation.

Improves Team Alignment

Project reports are instrumental in enhancing team alignment. They provide a clear, concise snapshot of progress, identifying accomplishments, challenges, and next steps. This enables all team members to understand the project’s current status and their respective roles in achieving the overall objectives.

Check out these project report templates for teams:

• Nonprofit Organizations Project Report
• Operations Teams Project Report
• Finance Teams Project Report
• DevOps Teams Project Report
• Agile Teams Project Report
• Sales Teams Project Report

5 Project Report Examples & Templates

Sure, you could write project reports from scratch and spend countless hours formatting and structuring them. But why would you when you can use free project report templates? They provide a structure and format for your report so you can simply plug in your data and customize the design to fit your needs. Not only do project report templates speed up the report creation process, but they also enhance the overall quality of your reports. 

Let’s jump right in to explore our top five project report templates. 📈

A final project report is the perfect finishing touch to conclude a project and highlight its achievements. ClickUp’s Final Project Report Template provides a solid structure to help you put it together with the following key sections:

• Planned vs. Actual: A quantitative breakdown of how the project deviated from the original plan with regard to its start date, completion date, duration, and budget
• Management Effectiveness: A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis evaluating how the project was managed
• Project Learnings : Share the important project lessons learned by the team throughout the lifespan of the project
• Contract Terms Checklist : A simple table listing the various contract terms, whether they were completed, and any remarks you have 
• Overall Performance rating: A 1 out of 5 rating of the different aspects of the project, from planning and execution to leadership and communication

This template is built in ClickUp Docs , which means you have unlimited flexibility for customization—add extra sections and tweak the appearance to suit your taste. And guess what? The table of content updates in real-time as you add, edit, or delete multiple headers.

If you want to wow your team and clients, this project status report template will help you get the job done. 

Writing a project status report is fairly straightforward. But staring at a blank document and worrying about crafting perfectly manicured sentences can make this process last a lot longer than it should. 

Thankfully, ClickUp’s Project Status Report Template is here to save the day! Built inside ClickUp Whiteboards, this template provides a hassle-free method to quickly capture key project details in a visually engaging way.

• General information: Cover general project details (e.g., project name, objectives, project timeline , reporting period, etc.) which you’ll need to fill in only once
• Progress details: Use color-coding to share in-progress, at-risk, delayed, and completed tasks
• Support and resources: List out assets (e.g., labor, money, etc.) needed for a smooth operation 
• Highlights and takeaways: Share key lessons learned and other noteworthy highlights
• What went well/What needs improvement: Use this opportunity to reflect on the project’s progress and share the areas that performed well and what needs attention
• Next steps: Highlight the key action items that need to get done to keep the project on track

Enter the details under each of these sections onto sticky notes, which’ll help you quickly pour down your thoughts without worrying about writing perfect sentences. It’s also very helpful for stakeholders as the information on sticky notes is short and straight to the point. 

This template removes the pressure of creating a status report and saves valuable time—all while keeping key stakeholders informed and up to date.

After running a digital marketing campaign project, you need to gather key metrics from the campaign and present it to key stakeholders for evaluation, performance analysis, and notes for future improvements. 

Sharing this info across multiple digital channels can get overwhelming but there’s no need to worry. ClickUp’s Digital Marketing Report Template has you covered with everything you need. Plus, it’s neatly broken down into the following sections:

• Digital Marketing Performance: This section lets you summarize the overall performance of your campaign by capturing key details like project budget allocations, actual expenses, cost per acquisition, total impressions, and total clicks across multiple campaigns
• Web Analytics Report: This section analyzes website performance during and after the project’s completion. It captures metrics like page views, bounce rate, traffic sources, and overall conversion rate
• Social Media Campaign Performance: This section analyzes social media performance by measuring metrics like impressions, followers, and engagement rate—all in a simple table for each social media platform 

Use this template to present the performance of your digital marketing project in a simple and visually engaging way. This makes it easy to identify trends, analyze the impact of your campaign, and make informed decisions regarding future marketing initiatives.

A key way to stay on track and guarantee overall project success is to engage team members in the process.

The Employee Daily Activity Report Template by ClickUp has a simple tabular layout that makes it easy for team members to record and keep track of: 

• Completed tasks and the time spent on each
• Ongoing tasks and their due dates
• Upcoming tasks and any support they’ll need

This template encourages each team member to get work done and ask for support when needed—while allowing you to keep the project on track by providing support and maximizing team performance.

Remember the Digital Marketing Report Template we looked at earlier? You can choose to further analyze the marketing performance section, with elements from this Campaign Report Template by ClickUp . 

Dive deeper into how each marketing channel contributed to overall ad cost, ad revenue, and ad conversion rate. You can further break down each channel’s performance by analyzing the metrics from each individual campaign on that channel.

There you have it—your secret sauce for creating an effective project report in a fraction of the time. And that’s only scratching the surface … working inside ClickUp unlocks a lot more perks. 

Not only does ClickUp make project reporting easy and quick, but it also gives you access to free project management templates to enhance your workflow. Quickly assign tasks to your team, keep track of progress, discuss updates, and collaborate on documents and whiteboards—all in one place. ✨

Did we mention the integrations? ClickUp plays nicely with other apps, allowing you to seamlessly connect your favorite tools to supercharge your team’s productivity. And let’s not forget about the time you’ll save using ClickUp’s automations—a feature that lets you breeze through repetitive tasks that used to eat up valuable time across project management reports.

Just imagine what you can do with those extra hours—maybe enjoy a cup of coffee or catch up with your team about how best you can support them. Make project reporting a blast with ClickUp and boost your chances of a successful project. 

Get started by signing up for free on ClickUp today … Ready? Set? Report!

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The ultimate project completion checklist (with free templates)

September 26, 2023

The end of a project life cycle often indicates that the project has been completed and the project completion report has been submitted. 

The project completion report is detailed documentation that gives an overview of the project’s progress, accomplishments, milestones, roadblocks, budgets, and the team’s performance during the project. It’s a vital part of project management.

Besides being used to assess the success of a project, the report also serves as an important tool for identifying best practices , and challenges to improve project management processes for the future. 

In this article, I’ll walk you through how to perform your project completion successfully, and provide a guide on how to write a comprehensive project completion report. 

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What is successful project completion?

In project management, delivering what you agreed on in the scope of the project means that you’ve accomplished your project completion successfully.

In project management, successful completion of the project means you have delivered what you agreed on in the scope of the project. On top of that, you have to make sure you’re meeting all acceptance criteria, satisfying the stakeholders, and fulfilling business objectives. 

The completion report offers a great opportunity to analyze the performance of a project, taking stock of what went well and what could be done differently next time.

What is a project completion plan? – Free project completion checklist to guide your every step 

A project lifecycle can’t end unless everyone meets all the project completion criteria. This is why it’s essential for project managers to always have a project completion checklist to keep the team on the same page and guide them through to the final phase of the project. 

Plus, the project completion checklist ensures that your team is doing meaningful tasks in the project completion stage.

Let’s go through the key stages of the project completion checklist one by one.

1. Compare objectives and reality

At the beginning of every project, a project manager sets objectives and goals for the project team members, which they should achieve by the end of the project. When assessing your project completion plan, the first thing you should evaluate is how reality measures up to the objectives that you laid out at the beginning of the project. 

Have you been able to achieve all your objectives? Did you tweak some objectives to accommodate the reality of undertaking the project? Comparing “what you planned to do” with “what you did” will give you a better understanding of how successful your project was.

2. Confirm project completion with stakeholders

Stakeholders and clients are a vital part of every project, and their input is invaluable. Their opinions are so crucial to the project that it can’t be successfully completed unless the stakeholders are satisfied. 

Project stakeholders need to sign off on any project, to mark its completion. So, ensure they are in the loop and aligned on how your project is progressing. Ask for their input or feedback, and follow through accordingly to get their sign-off. 

Filestage makes it easy to collect feedback from stakeholders on any asset that is created during the project. With this review and approval platform, you can share files within seconds with all relevant stakeholders. 

All your reviewers can leave comments directly on the file, discuss feedback with each other, and approve the final version. This allows project managers and creatives to manage the entire process in one place. 

3. Confirm if project is within scope 

In the beginning you’ll probably create a detailed project scope and a formal process, which you’ll then use to guide you to the completion of the project. 

Has the project scope statement been met entirely? If not, is that an issue? This period of reflection can be useful for every stakeholder involved in the project. 

Changes to the scope of the project during the project are quite common. However, as a project manager, you must ensure that change requests to the project scope are well documented, communicated with all team members, and implemented. 

This step is also necessary, as it helps project managers prevent scope creep, which often results in the features and specifications of the final product not meeting the project’s expectations.

4. Clear pending contracts and invoices 

It’s important that all of the relevant costs associated with your project are charged to it. This helps tidy up loose ends, ensures that your organization gets its money, and avoids any potential confusion in the future. Plus it prevents you from dealing with late invoices or bills. 

Additionally, stakeholders will want to know if the project is within budget or not. Starting the contract closure process by clearing all pending contractors and invoices before the project is completed will give you a clear overview of expenses. 

This will also highlight where you underused or exceeded the budget. Also, as a project manager, this will make gathering project records easier and help explain where there may be notable differences in the budget management.

5. Write a post-project report 

A post-project report is a document where you specify details of the overall process and present your results. This report can help you to take key lessons from the project and also identify areas that can be improved for the next round. You should make an effort to share the report within your organization for maximum effectiveness. 

Here are all elements that you should include in your post-project report to make it comprehensive: 

• A project overview with a summary statement
• A description of the results and outcomes of the project
• A comparison of the target vs. actual accomplishments
• Project milestones and timelines, stating the project duration and schedule variance, if any 
• A list of risks and issues identified and analyzed, while executing the project
• Details on how many changes were requested, describing those that were approved and implemented and how they impacted the overall project
• Details on the project cost, showing the total expenditure for the project’s completion, the difference between the projected budget and the final payments
• A summary of the essential feedback collected and lessons learned during implementation

6. Archive all documentation

Throughout the project, you probably created a lot of files and versions of deliverables. While they might seem useless at the moment, it’s vital that you properly catalog them in case you or your colleagues need them in the future. 

Archiving all your project documentation ensures that the project manager has credible and extensive resources they can always reference or consult in the future. 

For instance, based on the data collected from past projects, a project manager can make predictions to proactively reduce risks in new projects. This will ensure they get the best project results on time and on budget.

How can you reduce the stress of completing a project? 

The closing phase of a project lifecycle isn’t typically any less tedious than any of the earlier stages. 

Here are some steps that a project manager can take to prioritize their work and reduce stress for themselves and their team members, as they approach a project’s completion.

1. Make the review process simple

Your deliverables are almost ready, but last-minute changes may be requested. You can’t afford to inject confusion into the project at this stage, so it’s essential that the official process for your review is incredibly transparent and clear. 

To make sure that this is the case, you’ll want to provide formal notice of updates to the project team and streamline your review and approval process, with a tool like Filestage .

2. Take your time

Now that the finish line is in sight, it can be very tempting to rush toward it, with arms outstretched in victory. But now is the time to be methodical and cautious with great quality management practices. 

Slowly work your way through your project completion template and resist the temptation for premature celebration. The project will be wrapped up before you know it!

3. Share feedback

With the project wrapping up, this is the perfect time to share feedback on performance with the rest of your team. This can galvanize and motivate them, making sure that they give this last final push to the project. You can also take this opportunity to excite them for the future and the next big project.

4. Keep your team mentally engaged

Your team knows that the project has almost been completed and they’re ready to breathe a large collective sigh of relief. As the project manager, it’s your job to make sure that every member of your team remains engaged. 

Making the final tweaks and the delivery of materials is a very delicate stage of the project, so you want your team at their best.

5. Enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done

At the end of the project, you should take the time to look back at the project and admire the work that you and your team have accomplished. This can keep you motivated and show you just how far you’ve come which is an important fuel to keep you rocketing through amazing digital projects.

You can even consider sending out a project completion email to your entire team where you’ll congratulate everyone on their efforts and accomplishments and highlight some important aspects of the project.

Free project completion template for reporting

If you need help with writing a project completion report, below are three free templates, designed to keep you organized and save time when creating project reports.

Get Filestage’s free project completion template 

After you’ve completed the project, you’ll want to produce a report for your superiors and the rest of the team. This can help you to assess the positives and negatives that appeared along the way and refine your approach for future projects. 

Here’s a sample completion report template that you can use.

Project completion report template by Template.net

Writing a comprehensive project report for a new business and in a way that will be presentable to your stakeholders doesn’t have to be difficult thanks to this template by Template.net . 

This template has been designed by business gurus, specifically for project reports for new businesses. It’s fully customizable and can be downloaded and edited in both Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

Project closure report template by Smartsheet 

If you’re drafting your finished project report, then we recommend checking out the free templates for project closeout reports by Smartsheet . 

The templates provide sections for the project summary, roles and responsibilities, deliverables, project costs, schedule, and lessons learned. You can download, edit, and share the templates in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PDF. 

Project completion example 

Writing a report on a completed project is not as difficult as it seems. However, including all steps and details is usually not a walk in the park for project managers. 

Here’s an example of a project completion report, so you have an idea of how to start when drafting your report. 

• Compare objectives and reality: Does the reality of the final website delivery match the objective?  
• Get confirmation from stakeholders: Do the stakeholders approve of the completed website? Are there any notes? 
• Confirm project is within scope: Has the scope of the project been fully met? Were all the resources earmarked for the website creation duly utilized?
• Clear pending invoices: Have all pending invoices for procurement contracts like web designing and copywriting been cleared? And did all signed contracts end?
• Post project from and evaluations: This gives details of all the processes that you followed during the project, and all the results your team achieved at different stages of the process. 
• Archiving all documentation: All documentation related to the project should be stored in an archive, for future reference. 

Important tips while writing a project completion report 

So, how do you go about writing a comprehensive project completion report? 

Here are some tips to get you started. 

Remove ambiguity

Ensure that your report is as clear and concise as possible. Stay honest and factual throughout your report. Tailor your language to suit your target audience, so that there is no ambiguity in your documentation. 

Your project results should be written in such a way that they’re easily understood, leaving no room for guesses, assumptions, or misunderstandings.

Consult with team members and stakeholders

As a project manager, it’s important to work hand in hand with your team members and stakeholders, throughout the project lifecycle. The contract closure process determines how well your team will work together on other projects. 

So, seek out the input of your team members and stakeholders, when you’re performing project closure and writing the final project report. 

It’s critical that the report provides both accurate and complete information, and achieving this could be difficult if the project manager begins closing the contract and writing the report without sending contract closure updates and considering the feedback of other collaborators.

Review all deliverables to make sure nothing is outstanding

Before you begin writing your project completion report, you should review the project goals and objectives that were stated in the project proposal. Did you produce all project deliverables? Are there any outstanding tasks you couldn’t complete within the project timeline? 

Reviewing and sharing project deliverables with stakeholders is critical for the success of a project. Only when all deliverables and assets have been reviewed and approved by stakeholders will your project be completed. 

Follow the process and tips we’ve provided above, to guide your project completion plan. We have also provided a variety of project completion report templates you can use to create your report, including our free template. 

It’s okay if the first draft of the report is not perfect. Remember, the completion report is a summary of all efforts related to the project. You can edit and revise the content as much as you like, until you have a copy that sufficiently describes the life cycle of the completed project.

Muriel Skusa

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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!

Twproject: project management software,resource management, time tracking, planning, Gantt, kanban

Twproject is a full featured web based project management software that gives you full visibility and control over your projects.Twproject is also a time tracking software, a bug tracking software, a project planning software.

Successfully completing a project

Successfully completing a project is no piece of cake, even for the most experienced project managers .

Successfully complete a project: Clearly define the project scope

Successfully complete a project: choose team members wisely, successfully complete a project: outline goals and keep them smart, successfully complete a project: manage data, successfully complete a project: track progress every day, successfully complete a project: keep everyone informed, successfully complete a project: motivate your team.

Planning, execution and completion, as well as aggregating and separating activities by teams and employees into a cohesive entity are just a part of what this involves.

In this article, we would like to share 7 tips for successfully completing a project .

We know that a problem – or, in this case, the project scope – well put forward is half solved.

No matter what, you have to be clear about the project goals , budget and methodology from the very start.

Too often it still is the case that when joining an organization and asking a project manager why they are working on a particular project, the answer is “Because that guy told me to do this.”

The power to understand why a project is critical to the organization and how it fits into the overall strategic plan is a core component of its success.

Being able to relate the success of the project to all organizational goals and strategies is an easy way to increase the dedication, morale, and sense of importance of team members, but also of the project manager themselves.

After defining the scope of the project clearly, it becomes easier to determine the talent required to achieve the intended goal.

The project manager must carefully select the people who will make up the team , so that they can be confident in delegating tasks and activities to the people best suited for each. he experience of the Project Team is critical.

Appropriate task delegation can be a sign of confidence in your team members’ capabilities, which in turn boosts morale and becomes instrumental in achieving the best possible project outcomes; a sort of domino effect.

To successfully complete a project , you must first have a clear picture of what to expect for a final output. This allows you to create intermediate and short-term goals and corresponding milestones .

After delegating the right activities to team members , the project manager can ask each of them to list the secondary activities that will act as milestones toward their final goal, then let them set their own deadlines for each milestone.

Naturally, the project manager can – and should – support team members in planning their work and identifying goals and milestones.

These deadlines, of course, must coincide with the overall time objectives of the project.

How many levels of detail are needed in the work structure will depend on the size and project complexity .

Storing data is becoming increasingly convenient and accessible, especially when using a good project management software .

However, with increased accessibility, security issues may arise.

Although most data management solutions do have data security at heart, sometimes things can slip through the cracks.

To be twice as safe, it’s imperative to manage file permissions, document properties, and monitor data versions on a consistent basis.

Being informed of deadlines , project, and team is a absolute must for successfully carrying out a project.

Sending regular status updates via face-to-face or virtual meetings, or through a centralized communication tool, ensures everyone has an overview of the project’s progress and how each individual’s contribution fits into the whole.

It is also wise to set up alerts for items that are approaching their planned completion date, as well as those that are behind schedule.

This is where a gantt like the one from Twproject comes in very handy.

Keep all stakeholders updated on progress throughout the project lifecycle .

Also, it is important to make sure that all team members understand what others are doing.

Particularly when changes are made, it is important to inform the team as soon as possible.

Many effective project teams hold short daily meetings; it is not enough to send occasional emails or wait to communicate when an issue arises.

Communication with the Project Team is key to the success of the project itself and keeping the flow of a project moving in the right direction.

Communication is even more important with employees working from remote .

When it comes to team motivation , rewarding team members for good performance definitely goes a long way rather than “punishing” those who underperform.

When a team member reaches a milestone, it’s important for the project manager to reward their accomplishments or give them recognition in front of the entire team.

This way, knowing that contributions are appreciated by the company makes people more motivated, focused and willing to put themselves out there.

With multiple moving parts and several people involved in the success of the project, it’s critical that project managers keep one step ahead of the game.

The ability to keep the scope, people and schedules on track can make or break a project.

Managing successful projects requires not only learning the tips included in this article, but also implementing them on the job.

Successfully complete your projects.

Related posts.

• Project Management

| Reading Time: 7 minutes

Project Completion: Everything You Need To Know

A successful project completion process is more than simply handing a project over to the client or business.

It’s an opportunity to strengthen the reputation of your brand and consolidate your relationship with each client by providing a thorough overview of your hard work. 

Despite this, project completion serves as one of the most misunderstood and poorly navigated areas for SMEs, agencies, and solopreneurs alike, spelling disaster for the longevity of their client relationships. 

Having seen thousands of projects completed through our work collaboration platform , we’ve assembled this all-encompassing guide to project completion to help you better navigate the project handover process and strengthen your client relationships. 

Ready? Let’s get started! 

Pre-Production

One of the most common misconceptions about project completion is that it’s the final stage of a project. 

In reality, project completion is an ongoing process that starts from the moment a project goes into the initial preparation stage. 

Here’s a short list of everything you’ll need to do to get the project completion process off to the right start:

Establish your Deadlines

Without establishing a set of realistic deadlines for each phase of the project, it’s difficult to establish a clear timeline for the project (and near-impossible to know how and when to wrap things up). 

The best way to devise a realistic set of deadlines is to split the project into sprints of work: 

A sprint refers to a period of time (usually between one and four weeks) in which certain tasks must be completed and prepared for review. 

By taking a sprint-focused approach, you’ll gain full control over the project’s progress and streamline the revision stage with the client, allowing for a much smoother project completion process. 

The best way to plan your project into sprints is by using a virtual Kanban board , which allows for an easy, agile and effective sprint-planning process. 

Implement Risk Management 

As we’re sure you’ll agree:

A client project rarely goes exactly as planned. 

Despite this being common knowledge amongst team leaders, few project managers account for disruptions and setbacks when planning a project. 

To ensure your project completion process won’t be disrupted by unforeseen circumstances, it’s important to:

• Conduct a risk assessment: This will highlight any risks the project is likely to encounter, as well as the probable consequences of each risk. 
• Devise a risk management plan: This should encompass a step-by-step process for managing project risks, detailing how the project completion process will be kept on track in the event of a setback. 

The easiest way to do this is by using a project risk management tool to audit a project’s level of risk and streamline the disruption management process. 

Establish Transparency with the Client

One of the most common causes for a dispute over the project completion process is this: 

The client hasn’t been provided with transparent information on the size, scope, and budget for the project. 

One of the best ways to ensure a smooth project completion process is to establish transparency with the client from the very beginning.

In other words, you must remain honest, realistic, and open at all times when relaying information back to the client. 

By offering transparency from the get-go, you establish clear expectations for the project’s completion and mitigate the risk of a dispute during the final stages of completion. 

Now that you’ve set your project completion process up for success, it’s important to not let things fall by the wayside once the project gets underway. 

Here are a few key tips on how to keep the project completion process on track during the implementation phase:

Create a Dependency Map

Now that the project is split into measurable sprints of work, there are two potential threats to the project completion stage:

• Individual sprints may become disconnected from the wider aim of the project
• Team members may not fulfill certain criteria for the project to progress to the next stage

The best way to circumvent these two issues is to create a dependency map .

A dependency map allows you to track the cross-sprint dependencies within the project. For example, a new product must be completed and rigorously tested before the advertising team can start working on a launch campaign. 

An effective dependency map will not only ensure the smooth running of a project but also that individual sprints within the project are fully completed before progressing to the next stage. 

Simplify your Progress Tracking

We get it, progress tracking isn’t the most exciting (or easy) aspect of executing a project. 

However, it’s by far one of the most important parts of ensuring a successful project completion process. 

The client will want a detailed overview of the work that’s been done, as well as how long it’s likely to receive the final set of deliverables. 

Without effectively tracking a project’s progress, you run the risk of:

• Not having a clear understanding of how the project is progressing
• Misreporting your progress when it comes to the project completion stage

The best way to streamline your progress tracking is to keep it as high-level and simple as possible. 

To simplify the process, you’ll want to:

• Collate the deadlines, milestones, risks, and sprints that make up the project
• Organise everything into workflows and timelines
• Consolidate the data into a Gantt chart to track the overall progress

By using a Gantt chart tool , you’ll be able to streamline your workflows and track your project progress in a high-level manner. 

When your attention turns to the project completion aspect of the process, the Gantt chart serves as an excellent source of data for all aspects of the project’s progress. 

Organise your Project Infrastructure

As already established, simplifying your progress tracking can keep everything in one place and steer the project towards a successful completion. 

However, when it comes to actually completing and delivering the project, you’ll need quick access to your project infrastructure, which typically includes:

• Emails and instant messages (both between team members and to the client)
• Project documents
• Deliverables

By not organising your project infrastructure, the handover process will be much more inefficient than it needs to be.

A great idea is to keep your project infrastructure in an interactive project dashboard , which structures all systems & applications into a centralised project hub. 

Project Handover

Once the hard work has been done, it’s time to collate and complete the project completion process in earnest. 

If you’ve followed the tips in this guide so far, this stage of the process should be a breeze:

Create a Project Completion Report

A project completion report is a document that outlines the progress and success of a project upon completion. It serves two main purposes: 

• To present an all-encompassing summary of the completed project to the client (as well as any relevant stakeholders)
• To serve as a future reference for those who delivered the project

When compiling a project completion report, be sure to include: 

• Detailed information on the planning & execution of the project
• A breakdown of the project’s budget (and how it was spent)
• Any risks or setbacks encountered (and how you overcame them)
• Lessons learned & plans for development

With the project completion report serving as the backbone of your project completion strategy, you’ll want to make sure it leaves a good impression on the client: 

High-quality reporting software will ensure your project completion reports are visually appealing and rich in data, making the project completion process even easier. 

Once you’ve generated your report, it’s time to collate the rest of your deliverables and move on to the final stage of the process: 

Inform the Client

Now that the project completion process has been wrapped up, it’s time to inform the client of the good news! 

To inform the client of the project’s completion, it’s worth doing it in two separate stages:

• Verbally: If possible, it’s best to inform the client of the good news in person. If this isn’t possible, a video call or phone call are also excellent options. 
• In writing: Next, it’s important to document the project completion in writing (and subsequently transfer the final deliverables).

Wrapping Up

And there you have it! An all-encompassing guide to effective project completion. 

If you’re looking to streamline your project completion process, why not use Verto. Our partnership with Microsoft Teams comes packed with a range of tools that will allow you and your team to work in unison. Instead of running two separate systems, and having to constantly change between the two, Verto gives you the power and tools of both, under one roof.  The result? A more streamlined workflow and seamless integration. Start your free trial today and see what Verto can do for you.

About the author – Laura Watts

Laura is the Marketing Manager at TMI Systems Ltd., working predominantly on Verto 365 and closely on the Microsoft partnership enabling the platform to be used in its entirety from Microsoft Teams. Laura and her family moved from London in 2021 and now live and work in Gloucestershire.

Further reading

Setting Strategic Goals: Everything You Need To Know

How to Solve Data Management Challenges

Cross Team Collaboration: The Complete Guide

Project Management in an Agile Environment

Fostering a Collaborative Culture for your Employees

The Critical Success Factors of Project Management

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How to Complete a Project on Time

Last Updated: May 1, 2023

This article was co-authored by Jennifer Landis-Santos, PCC, NBHWC . Jennifer Landis-Santos is a Certified Career Counselor & Wellness Coach and the Founder of Career Wellness, LLC. With 20 years of experience, she specializes in helping others identify and move towards a satisfying life and work balance. Jennifer is a graduate of Georgetown University’s Institute for Transformational Leadership, where she is on the faculty of the Health and Wellness Coaching Program. She's a Professional Certified Coach through the International Coach Federation and a Certified Career Counselor through the National Career Development Association. This article has been viewed 80,640 times.

Completing a project on time never seems to happen. You're always working down to the last minute, things break at the worst moment, and people you depend on forget to do their job. But completing a project on time is easier than you think, as long as you are willing to take the time in advance to prepare like a pro.

Organizing for Success

• When possible, get this information in writing so you can turn back to it if you forget.
• Get the contact information of your teacher, product manager, or client right from the beginning and ask if there is a good way to get in touch if you have later questions. [1] X Research source

• Use this time to make sure your plan is realistic for your time frame -- a big part of finishing on time is picking a project you can actually finish.
• If you don't know quite where you're going yet, that's okay. For example, if you haven't decided the topic of a presentation yet you can still sketch out goals. You might not know the topic yet, for example, but you know you must go to the library and start researching one.
• Your "final project" may change between now and the end -- the goal isn't to get a perfect project idea now, it's to create a blueprint that you can work off of. [2] X Research source

• Quantity needed
• Date needed
• Location/store to buy
• Any special considerations (color, size, etc.)

• Make your goals measurable. Instead of "find out what my boss wants for the warehouse," make specific goals to learn the right location, budget, size, and essential amenities.
• You may have no idea how long it takes to buy a warehouse, but you know that talking to your boss takes one day, finding a realtor 2-3 days, inspection 1-2 weeks, etc. It's much easier to budget time for smaller goals than big ones.

• In general, people are most effective working on one task at a time, not 10 at once. Check off each goal one at a time instead of working on all of them at once for maximum efficiency.
• Most projects have work that can't be finished until other work is done. You can't, for example, write a book report until you've read the book. Figure out what work has to get done ahead of others and prioritize that.

• No one was ever upset to finish a project ahead of schedule. If you plan for extra days and don't need them you simply get a few days off.

Staying on Schedule

• If you're designing a new logo for work, you don't need the total idea to sketch and draft out some prototypes. Even if you don't use them, start throwing out the ideas and get the ball rolling.
• If you have a class project, finish all the books and homework for that class as soon as possible. Get the little stuff out of the way so you can focus on the bigger project.

• If you get sick, is there any work you can do from bed? Is there someone you trust who can help take notes or run errands?
• If the book you need is checked out, can your library order another? Can you reserve the book in advance?
• If your project is fragile, what can you do to ensure it is perfectly safe. If it did break, how long would it take to build another? Can you build spare or alternate parts?
• If supplies run out, is there anything else you can use in there place? Can you buy an extra 1-2 parts of essential or hard to find objects to eliminate the issue?

• Set expectations early -- let people know exactly what is wanted from them.
• Give deadlines to ensure that everything is actually done when it needs to be.
• Let everyone know the end goal of the project, helping everyone work towards the same thing.
• Post everyone's contact information in case of issues or questions.

• While deep research is good, does it all match your final goal? Is there enough information on food to make a project, or should you pivot towards something like medicine, weapons, etc?
• When making the slideshow, does it fit the research? Is it short enough to fit in your presentation, or will you be pushed for time?
• Are you going to have to make Civil War food? Based on your research, is this still possible, or would it be smarter to do a different type of demonstration?

• A little bit of work each day is generally more effective than enormous chunks occasionally. If you only plan to work on Saturdays, but there is a family emergency or issue Saturday morning, you just lost a whole week of work time.
• If it is possible, consider saying no to additional tasks or family commitments.

Finishing on Time

• Does your model need replica stained-glass windows, or can you do something simpler?
• If you're writing a long paper, is there a section that can be cut or summarized without compromising your overall point?
• When working on a business deal, is there a way to extend the deadlines? If not, can you get a coworker to help you complete some section in time?

• If you're down to the wire trying to finish in time, you should still set aside an hour at the very end for review. Don't let weeks of hard work appear sloppy because of a few missed typo. [4] X Research source

• Return to your original draft, plans, and materials list. Is everything covered?

• There is no need to review right after you finish. Take 2-3 days to relax and then look back on the project with fresh eyes.
• If you worked with a team, ask them what they think you could all improve on next time.
• If you have questions on your grade, review, etc. ask politely "what could I do to be better next time?" [5] X Research source

Expert Q&A

• If you're doing a partner project divide the tasks so each partner knows what they are supposed to do. Don't do everything by yourself. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• There will always be unexpected complications and issues -- the best you can do is think and prepare in advance as much as possible. Thanks Helpful 4 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://www.vandelaydesign.com/guide-to-completing-projects-on-time/
• ↑ http://designinstruct.com/articles/project-management/how-to-complete-your-project-on-time-and-under-budget/
• ↑ http://www.elementool.com/ebook/CompleteProjectsOnTime.pdf

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10-step project checklist for successful projects

Before every airline flight, a pilot reviews a pre-flight checklist. Before publishing a blog post — like this one — someone reviews a pre-publish checklist.

Checklists are everywhere in our lives because they  work , and projects are no exception. In this blog, we’re giving you a cheat sheet for a stellar project checklist and process, plus a quick overview of how you can create and manage one with monday.com.

What is a project checklist?

When we think about checklists here at monday.com, we are primarily referring to checklists for projects, also known as project checklists. A project checklist is a “Read-do” type of checklist as it “outlines the steps required for accomplishing a specific outcome.”

This isn’t exactly the same as a project charter, which you can read more about here in our blog about project charter examples .

The steps in a project checklist usually are activities and tasks. The specific outcome is the end goal of the project. For example, the project of “writing a blog post.”

The steps of a project management checklist for this could include:

• Creating an outline
• Researching various key points
• Writing the first draft
• Reviewing with stakeholders
• Uploading to blogging software
• Promoting and sharing via email and social media
• The outcome is a live, published blog post with an actual end goal of generating more leads for your company.

You can manage this process and many more on monday.com, but more on this later.

Why use a project checklist?

Generically speaking, a checklist is a way of formatting necessary activities or requirements to accomplish something.

Checklists can be used to:

• Create a summary of tasks, activities, stakeholders, and resources
• Check that all requirements have been met
• Ensure tasks and activities are completed in the proper order

There are any different types of project checklists:

• Daily checklists, monthly checklists, annual checklists
• Checklists for work, for school, for personal use
• Checklist apps, checklist software, checklist (physical) notepads — some with hilarious sayings on them

But according to this Forbes article , there are only two types of checklists: Read-Do and Do-Confirm.

A Read-Do checklist “outlines the steps required for accomplishing a specific outcome”.

A Do-Confirm checklist “covers tasks you complete from memory”.

When it comes to project checklists — the main topic of this blog post — we are talking about a Read-Do checklist.

How to plan a successful project in 10 steps

Project planning is no small task. And not always straightforward. Using project management software helps .

(more on that later)

Here is your 10-step project checklist. Use this to ensure your project is successful from start to finish.

Step 1. Set the vision

Setting your vision should (almost) always be your starting point. If you don’t know where you are going, it can be pretty challenging to get there.

When creating your project vision, ask big picture questions such as:

• What do the end results look like?
• This project will be successful if …
• What are the main project deliverables?
• What resources will we need to ensure success?

Your vision is your guidepost to the entire project. This happens during project initiation , the first phase of the project management life cycle. This is when you’re first gathering your most important information like scope and other documents needed to get project approval, so naturally creating a project checklist happens in this step.

Step 2. Create SMART goals and objectives

A project without goals is bound to fail. Similar to a vision, goals (and objectives) help to guide everything you do. If a task is not tied to a goal or objective, it’s worth questioning whether or not that task is necessary.

But you can’t just create any goals. You need SMART goals that take into consideration project constraints .

A SMART goal is a well-defined, trackable, and measurable goal. These goals help pinpoint what you want to achieve, how you plan to do it, and when it needs to be completed.

One of the main advantages of creating SMART goals is clarity. There is little, if any, room for interpretation. SMART goals help to get all stakeholders on the same page, working toward the same purpose.

Read our complete guide to SMART goals for a detailed look into everything SMART goals-related.

Step 3. Build a work breakdown structure (WBS)

Work breakdown structure (WBS) is an organizationational system for project management and project planning.

A good WBS is often visual — something we pride ourselves on at monday.com. For example, here is the start of a WBS for a project called “Find a new apartment.”

Note: A WBS is an optional project checklist item.

For a more detailed take on WBS, check out our quick-start guide to Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) .

Step 4. Meet with stakeholders

Getting feedback and securing buy-in from all stakeholders — everyone involved in the project — is critical.

Stakeholder meetings should not be limited to the early stages of a project. Be sure your team is meeting with all parties at various checkpoints during the project.

Step 5. Do research and gather requirements

All projects, small and large, require some level of research some amount or a lot of requirement gathering. Do the work upfront in order to minimize surprises later in the project.

You can even use our Research Power Tools Template to get started.

Step 6. Allocate resources

Very few companies — if any — have an infinite supply of resources.

Determining how to optimize what you have to allocate each resource effectively without running out is essential to ensuring a successful project.

Resource allocation is the process of strategically planning and managing your project resources so that you can complete tasks based on their availability and capability.

High-level questions to consider include:

What kinds of resources do you have? Who’s responsible for resource allocation?

And of course, you can build it all out on monday.com.

Step 7. Create a project schedule

This probably goes without saying, but we’ll say it anyway — a well-planned project schedule helps teams stay on track throughout the project lifecycle and avoid potential issues.

In this blog post, we outline three project schedule management methodologies that actually work.

And monday.com can really make creating a project schedule so much easier and more visual:

The monday.com board views help teams to visualize any project from all different perspectives and angles in just a few clicks so you can analyze the data that’s most relevant to your specific project.

Step 8. Understand risks and manage dependencies

Whether they are causal, logical, resource-based, or preferential, dependencies can bog down any project’s timeline and quality unless they are accounted for and factored into your project management plan.

Projects that fail to be completed on time can result in overworked employees, wasted money, and other priorities and opportunities being squandered.

Identifying and effectively managing dependencies ultimately lowers project risk and accurate estimation of task duration and logical scheduling increases the likelihood of delivering on time.

monday.com provides tons of options to understand risk better and manage dependencies.

A digital Kanban board is one such solution.

This type of board helps to optimize compiling and reordering of tasks. A visual board means your team can easily see project schedule tasks, key milestones, dependencies, and the expected start and finish date of the task.

Step 9. Incorporate a communications plan

As we stated here, effective communication is the cornerstone of any sustainable relationship. communication is built directly into everything we do and offer at monday.com.

With our Work OS, apps, and integrations, you can build out custom process diagrams, flow charts, presentations, mind maps, roadmaps, timelines, Kanban boards , Gantt charts , and calendar views.

You can also use notifications and the Updates section to keep communication timely and organized. For larger projects, you can create monday docs.

When building out your communications plan, consider the following:

• Who is in charge of communicating the overall project plan?
• How often will updates be provided?
• What format will you use?

Step 10. Monitor progress along the way

While this step is technically #10 in the project checklist, it’s really a step that should be incorporated throughout any project management process.

Reporting and advanced reporting are integral to ensuring the project moves forward and is on the right track. Ensuring stakeholders are informed about progress as well as hiccups and setbacks will cause a lot less headache than missed deadlines and last-minute surprises.

monday.com has you covered when it comes to reporting and analytics with easy to customize dashboards.

monday.com project checklist templates

In case you were curious, here are some of your favorite templates in one place that you can use throughout your project checklist process!

Single Project Template

You’ll see this as a recommended project checklist template across our blogs, and for good reason. Bring together deadlines, people, files, and more.

Project Dynamite (Elevate conference exclusive) Template

This template was created to help you link important boards and dependencies for sophisticated project management workflows.

Project Requests and Approvals Template

Take advantage of monday WorkForms to create a streamlined intake form for project approvals that automatically populate a board and can be assigned to relevant team members.

Project Portfolio Management Template

Manage and monitor multiple complex projects, timelines, and activities from one useful and automated template.

Create custom project checklists in less time

The takeaway here? Even though project checklists have been around for ages, there are always ways to improve them, whether it’s through time-saving features like automations or curated project checklist templates.

Explore the project checklist possibilities of monday.com.

Send this article to someone who’d like it.

Project Management Plan: Samples, Examples & Free Template

Learn how to create a project management plan that actually works and ensures you get your project over the line on time and on budget, with samples and examples

Table of Contents

What is a project management plan, what is a project management plan used for, what are the main elements of a project plan, how to write a project management plan, sample project management plan outline, using our project management plan template to build your project plan, project management plan: faq's.

A project management plan is a comprehensive document that outlines how a project will be executed, monitored, controlled and closed. For project managers and their teams, it's the ultimate toolkit for achieving their objectives while managing day-to-day pressures such as time, cost, scope, resourcing and risk. This guide outlines what a project management plan is used for, why it's important , and offers a step-by-step guide on how to make one that actually works.

Your project plan document is where you go deep on the ins, outs, overs, and unders of your project. It's where you break this vision down into the day-to-day execution of your project, covering everything you need to do to reach your project goals.

A detailed project plan will plot out everything from timelines to budget, resourcing to deliverables, and more, giving you a blueprint of what needs to be done (and when) that you can use to guide — and assess — your project.

The key components of a project management plan are:

Project Objectives

Scope Statement

Schedule Management

Cost Management

Resource Management

Communication Plan

Stakeholder Management

Procurement Management

Closure Criteria

Project Organization

Ready to get down to business? Here are 5 key things you need to do when writing a project plan.

1. Identify the baselines for your project

Before you begin writing a project plan, you need to make sure you have the basics down. Start by identifying the baselines for the project’s scope, schedule and cost, as the rest of your project planning will need to fit in around those constraints.

As mentioned above, these baselines should already be roughly outlined in your project charter — but here’s where you really start to map them out and create accurate estimates. And the more detailed, the better, because these are what you’ll be using for comparison to measure how your project performs.

2. Identify your project dependencies

Or in other words, ask yourself: what needs to happen before this other thing can happen? Identifying your project dependencies at the outset of your project means you can plan your timelines more efficiently, spot potential blockers, and ensure that you avoid unnecessary delays.

3. Identify project stakeholders

You’ll already have done the groundwork for this in your stakeholder analysis, but as you flesh out your project management plan and think through the phases of your project in more detail, you’ll likely start to find more project stakeholders at each phase.

Now is also a good time to go deeper on which stakeholders need to be informed and involved at which stages, for a more comprehensive stakeholder management plan you can use at each phase of your project.

4. Identify project milestones

What are the key markers of your project’s progress? It can be a concrete deliverable, the end of a phase in a stage-gate process — whatever milestones make sense to you, breaking your project down into manageable chunks, each with a defined goal, helps to keep the team motivated, allows you to celebrate each achievement, and signposts how the overall progress is coming along.  Learn more about using Milestones here .

5. Identify who’s responsible for what

Once you start to get a big-picture understanding of the work that’s needed and the resources you have to complete it, you can start deciding who should do what. Giving each item an owner is essential to getting things done. No more “oh, was I supposed to do that?” — once you identify who’s responsible for what, you can ensure accountability and transparency.

The 5 Stages of Team Development

All teams develop according to some natural patterns and using that knowledge, you can offer some guidance to build the kind of team that communicates well and finds better ways to collaborate and achieve the goals you’ve established. Here’s what you need to know.

Now let's go through a sample project plan. In the below example, we highlight the main sections of the plan and what needs to be included in each one to set your project up for success.

Section 1: Executive summary

The executive summary offers a concise overview of the entire project. It includes key highlights such as the project's purpose, objectives, scope, timeline, budget, and major stakeholders. It's often the first section stakeholders read to get a high-level understanding of the project.

Section 2: Project introduction

This section sets the stage by providing context and background information about the project. It explains why the project is being undertaken and introduces the main objectives and scope of the project.

Section 3: Project objectives

Here, the project's specific goals and objectives are outlined in detail. Objectives should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) to provide clarity and guidance.

Section 4: Project scope

The scope section defines what is included and excluded from the project. It helps prevent scope creep by establishing clear boundaries and also mentions any assumptions and constraints that may affect the project.

Section 5: Schedule management

This section details the project's timeline, including milestones and deadlines. It breaks down the project into tasks and identifies task dependencies. Often, visual representations like Gantt charts are used for clarity.

Section 6: Cost management

Here, the project budget is presented, including cost estimates for various project components. It may also outline cost control measures to ensure the project stays within budget.

Section 7: Quality management

This section focuses on the quality standards and objectives for the project. It describes quality control and assurance processes, as well as any inspection and testing procedures that will be implemented.

Project management template

Save time on setup without sacrificing attention to detail. With our project management template, you can quickly create project management plans that help you complete your project on time and on budget.

Section 8: Resource management

In this section, the project team is introduced, and roles and responsibilities are defined. It addresses resource allocation, scheduling, and, if applicable, procurement needs.

Section 9: Risk management

The risk management section identifies potential risks and uncertainties that could impact the project. It discusses risk assessment, prioritization, and mitigation strategies to reduce the impact of these risks.

Section 10: Communication plan

The communication plan outlines how project information will be shared with stakeholders and team members. It specifies communication methods, frequency, and reporting channels to ensure effective communication throughout the project.

Section 11: Stakeholder management

This section lists project stakeholders and analyzes their interests, influence, and expectations. It also outlines strategies for engaging and managing these stakeholders to ensure their needs are addressed.

Section 12: Procurement management

If procurement of goods or services is involved, this section explains the procurement strategy, vendor selection criteria, and how contracts will be managed.

Section 13: Change management

Change management procedures are detailed here, including how changes to the project scope, schedule, or other aspects will be requested, evaluated, approved, and communicated.

Section 14: Closure criteria

Criteria for determining when the project is complete and ready for closure are specified in this section. It may also include plans for project handover and post-project evaluation.

Section 15: Project organization

This section describes the project team's structure, roles, and responsibilities, ensuring everyone understands their positions and reporting lines. It may also mention external stakeholders and their roles if applicable.

Once you’ve documented your project management plan, bring it to life with a project management tool that will help you to stay on track, keep your team accountable, and promote transparency.

Here are 3 ways you can use Teamwork.com to supercharge your project management plan.

Add your supporting documentation to Teamwork Spaces

Use the Teamwork.com and Teamwork Spaces integration to link a project in Teamwork.com with a space in Teamwork Spaces, so your important project documents are only ever a click away.

Some documents you might want to add in addition to your project charter and project management plan include:

Scoping documents

Risk assessments

Change management plans

SOPs for important project processes

List of stakeholders and their roles

Outline of approval processes

Communications management plan

Any other best practices documentation or supporting info as necessary

You can even embed task lists into your pages and mark tasks as complete right from Teamwork Spaces, so you can keep work flowing without even needing to switch tabs.

Start adding your Milestones

Break down your work into Milestones and task lists that are going to help you reach them. With Teamwork.com, you can assign an owner to each Milestone, map out your Milestone due dates and see them represented in the project calendar, and even get a full change history for milestones so you can track any edits.

Visualize your task dependencies with a Gantt chart

Gantt chart-style views are a useful way to get a visual representation of your tasks and their dependencies, allowing for better scheduling and resourcing. In Teamwork.com, you can drag and drop to quickly rearrange your project schedule , without throwing everything out of order or straying off-plan.

Remember: software should support the way you work, not dictate it. So regardless of methodology or team type, create a project plan that works for you and your team — and find a tool that helps you put it into action.

Use our project plan template

Now that you know how to create a project management plan that actually works, you’re ready to implement using our team management software . To help you get up and running quickly, we’ve created a ready to use project plan template . Our project template will help you quickly create project plans that ensure all of your projects are completed on time and on budget

What is a project management plan template?

A project management plan template is a pre-designed framework that provides a structured format for creating a project management plan. It serves as a starting point for project managers and teams to develop their specific project plans, saving time and ensuring that key project management components are properly addressed.

How can a template help you build a great project management plan?

A template can help you build a great project management plan by saving time, ensuring comprehensive coverage of project management aspects, and incorporating industry best practices and visual aids for clarity. They also support collaboration, version control, and customization to fit the unique needs of each project, making them a valuable tool for project managers in achieving successful project outcomes.

What is the main purpose of a project management plan?

The main purpose of a project management plan is to provide a comprehensive and structured roadmap for successfully executing, monitoring, controlling, and closing a project. It serves as a central document that outlines project objectives, scope, schedule, budget, quality standards, resource allocation, risk management strategies, and communication approaches.

What tools do I need to help manage a project plan?

To effectively manage a project plan, you'll need a set of tools and software that cover various aspects of project management. These include project management software, communication and collaboration platforms, file and document management solutions, time and task tracking apps, and budgeting and financial management tools.

What steps are involved in the project planning process?

The steps involved in the project planning process include defining specific project objectives and scope, identifying deliverables and key milestones, budgets, risk assessment and quality control measures. It should also include a communication plan and stakeholder engagement strategies.

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by Guest Poster

6 Steps To Ensure Successful Project Completion

A staggering amount of projects go over-budget or exceed deadlines. A closer look at these faulty projects will show that they failed on several fronts – from lack of professional planning to poor communication levels at all stages in the project. This article will share 6 tips to make sure all projects at your organization are successfully completed within deadlines.

Step 1: Study the project thoroughly It’s important you learn about the project and the significance attached to it by the client. This will help you answer the following questions: • What is the goal of the project and how big is it? • How will this project benefit a client? • Where does this project stand as far as your organization goes? • Are there adequate resources available to complete this project?

Make sure you have satisfactory answers to the questions above before proceeding to the next step.

Step 2: Prepare a concrete project plan This is the most important phase in a project. A detailed plan will list important milestones in your project along with members assigned and their roles. Make sure you assign generous deadlines that give your team quality breathing space. Get the client’s approval on your plan.

After this, hold sessions with your team and the senior management to explain your plan in detail. The plan will provide all members in your team a clear idea of what is expected of them. Ensure you don’t deviate from the original plan and you will be on the path to successful project completion.

Step 3: Daily monitoring of work assigned after project begins Managing a project is no easy task. It requires a lot of dedication and effort. You will have to monitor tasks on a daily basis. This will ensure that you are not lagging behind in any task. It will also help you assign more resources to a task that’s taking longer to complete than usual.

Document every step of the project – it will come in handy for future projects.

Step 4: Keep the client informed on a predetermined basis Reach an understanding on how you would update the client about project developments. Sending two emails in a week is ideal. Be honest with the client and provide him/her with all kinds of updates – positive and negative.

Buy time and extend a deadline by consulting with the client whenever the need arises.

Step 5: Perform testing at regular intervals You will have to test the project’s deliverables at regular intervals to make sure everything is going according to plan. This will help you avoid heartache at the closing stages of your project. Perform remedial action immediately if you find anything amiss during testing.

Step 6: Final project delivery The most anticipated moment in a project is its completion! It can be a moment of immense joy or disappointment. Make sure the final solution meet’s the client’s expectations. Follow Steps 1-5 religiously to ensure everything ends smoothly.

Every project offers lessons to be learned. Absorb the positives and learn from the negatives so that you are better prepared for your next project.

Author Bio:- Hi, I am Susan Smith. By profession I have been in the promotional product business for the last 7 years now. Currently I am in charge of Promo Direct online marketing & promotion. Promo Direct brings nearly 20 years of experience into this industry.

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MockQuestions

Work-Related Accomplishment Interview Questions

To help you prepare for your next job interview, here are 15 interview questions you may be asked related to your work accomplishments.

Get More Information About Our Accomplishment Interview Questions

Question 9 of 15

Tell me about a project you completed recently that was ahead of schedule.

How to answer, answer example.

Community Answers

The interviewer would like to know about your project and deadline related accomplishments. Show that it is vital for you to meet and exceed work-related deadlines. Assure the interviewer that you can remain focused on a project and accomplish your goals ahead of schedule.

"In my current position I am expected to cold call 100 customers per week. Most of our associates will break this down into 20 per day, five days per week. What has attributed greatly to my success in this role is that I call 50 customers each day for the first two days and then have time to make additional calls throughout the week. This action equals a 25% surplus of cold calls to my portfolio. I am always ahead of target by going over and above that cold calling schedule."

"In my current role, I was given the task of migrating our payroll system to a new provider. I completed the project two weeks ahead of schedule allowing us to start the new service sooner."

"It drives me crazy, not being early. In my first job, at sixteen, I was told the adage, 'If you are not 10 minutes early, you are late', and it has stuck with me. I apply this same logic to how I train my team and their level of reliability. Gaining buy-in from my team is very important to me, and this is where I started with them. Every member of my team is early to client meetings, deliver their work before the deadline, and are eager to show up before ever being asked."

"The majority of my projects are completed ahead of schedule. I believe that my clients deserve the best of me and I will work overtime when I can to deliver faster than expected. For instance, I had a client who was releasing their new brand strategy for January 1. The deadline was right around Christmas but, rather than stressing their team out by delivering on time and right around the holidays, I worked overtime every day for the first two weeks of December, to ensure timely delivery."

"Every month our store is given until the last Monday of the month to submit our inventory counts. This month I decided that my team would be better off having the count complete before the weekend rush hit. We submitted our inventory count by the Thursday afternoon. I plan to make this a habit every month, moving forward."

"I'm required to make 100 calls with 70 minutes talk time, and two appointments set daily. I prefer to set goals at about 125% to target. I never want to get myself into a situation where I cannot hit a simple metric like calls made or talk time, by being complacent. I cannot control if a customer shows up for a meeting that we've set, but I certainly can overachieve the call volume to attempt to mitigate a pipeline problem in the future."

"I completed my quarterly student reviews five days ahead of schedule this last time around. I worked so hard and put my nose to the grindstone for a week. It was well worth the added effort not to feel the pressure of a looming deadline."

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How to Answer: Tell me about a project you completed recently that was ahead of schedule.

9. tell me about a project you completed recently that was ahead of schedule., anonymous interview answers with professional feedback.

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18. Project Completion

Adrienne Watt; Project Management Open Resources; TAP-a-PM; and David Wiley, et al.

Click play on the following audio player to listen along as you read this section.

Every project needs to end and that’s what project completion is all about in the last phase of the project life cycle. The whole point of the project is to deliver what you promised. By delivering everything you said you would, you make sure that all stakeholders are satisfied and all acceptance criteria have been met. Once that happens, your project can end.

Project completion is often the most neglected phase of the project life cycle. Once the project is over, it’s easy to pack things up, throw some files in a drawer, and start moving right into the initiation phase of the next project. Hold on. You’re not done yet.

The key activities in project completion are gathering project records; disseminating information to formalize acceptance of the product, service, or project; and performing project closure. As the project manager, you will need to review project documents to make certain they are up-to-date. For example, perhaps some scope change requests were implemented that changed some of the characteristics of the final product. The project information you are collecting during this phase should reflect the characteristics and specifications of the final product. Don’t forget to update your resource assignments as well. Some team members will have come and gone over the course of the project. You need to double-check that all the resources and their roles and responsibilities are noted.

Once the project outcomes are documented, you’ll request formal acceptance from the stakeholders or customer. They’re interested in knowing if the product or service of the project meets the objectives the project set out to accomplish. If your documentation is up-to-date, you’ll have the project results at hand to share with them.

Contract Closure

Contracts come to a close just as projects come to a close. Contract closure is concerned with completing and settling the terms of the contracts let for the project. It supports the project completion process because the contract closure process determines if the work described in the contracts was completed accurately and satisfactorily. Keep in mind that not all projects are performed under contract so not all projects require the contract closure process. Obviously, this process applies only to those phases, deliverables, or portions of the project that were performed under contract.

Contract closure updates the project records, detailing the final results of the work on the project. Con­tracts may have specific terms or conditions for completion. You should be aware of these terms or conditions so that project completion isn’t held up because you missed an important detail. If you are administering the contract yourself, be sure to ask your procurement department if there are any special conditions that you should be aware of so that your project team doesn’t inadvertently delay contract project closure.

One of the purposes of the contract closure process is to provide formal notice to the seller, usually in written form, that the deliverables are acceptable and satisfactory or have been rejected. If the product or service does not meet the expectations, the vendor will need to correct the problems before you issue a formal acceptance notice. Before the contract is closed, any minor items that need to be repaired or completed are placed on a punch list , which is a list of all the items found by the client or team or manager that still remain to be done. Hopefully, quality audits have been performed during the course of the project, and the vendor was given the opportunity to make corrections earlier in the process than the closing phase. It’s not a good idea to wait until the very end of the project and then spring all the problems and issues on the vendor at once. It’s much more efficient to discuss problems with your vendor as the project progresses because it provides the opportunity for correction when the problems occur.

The project team will then work on all of the items on the punch list, building a small schedule to complete the remaining work. If the number of items on the punch list is too large or the amount of work is significant, the project team continues to work on the project. Once the punch list becomes smaller, the project manager begins closing down the project, maintaining only enough staff and equipment to support the team that is working on the punch list.

If the product or service does meet the project’s expectations and is acceptable, formal written notice to the seller is required, indicating that the contract is complete. This is the formal acceptance and closure of the contract. It’s your responsibility as the project manager to document the formal acceptance of the contract. Many times the provisions for formalizing acceptance and closing the contract are spelled out in the contract itself.

If you have a procurement department handling the contract administration, they will expect you to inform them when the contract is complete and will in turn follow the formal procedures to let the seller know the contract is complete. However, you will still note the contract completion in your copy of the project records.

Releasing the Project Team

Releasing project team members is not an official process. However, it should be noted that at the conclusion of the project, you will release your project team members, and they will go back to their functional managers or get assigned to a new project. You will want to keep their managers, or other project managers, informed as you get closer to project completion, so that they have time to adequately plan for the return of their employees. Let them know a few months ahead of time what the schedule looks like and how soon they can plan on using their employees on new projects. This gives the other managers the ability to start planning activities and scheduling activity dates.

Final Payments

The final payment is usually more than a simple percentage of the work that remains to be completed. Completing the project might involve fixing the most difficult problems that are disproportionately expensive to solve, so the final payment should be large enough to motivate the vendor to give the project a high priority so that the project can be completed on time.

If the supplier has met all the contractual obligations, including fixing problems and making repairs as noted on a punch list, the project team signs off on the contract and submits it to the accounting department for final payment. The supplier is notified that the last payment is final and completes the contractual agreement with the project.

Post-Project Evaluations

Before the team is dissolved and begins to focus on the next project, a review is conducted to capture the lessons that can be learned from this project, often called a lessons-learned meeting or document. The team explores what went well and captures the processes to understand why they went well. The team asks if the process is transferable to other projects. The team also explores what did not go well and what people learned from the experience. The process is not to find blame, but to learn.

Quality management is a process of continual improvement that includes learning from past projects and making changes to improve the next project. This process is documented as evidence that quality management practices are in use. Some organizations have formal processes for changing work processes and integrating the lessons learned from the project so other projects can benefit. Some organizations are less formal in the approach and expect individuals to learn from the experience and take the experience to their next project and share what they learned with others in an informal way. Whatever type of approach is used, the following elements should be evaluated and the results summarized in reports for external and internal use.

Trust and Alignment Effectiveness

The project leadership reviews the effect of trust—or lack of trust—on the project and the effectiveness of alignment meetings at building trust. The team determines which problems might have been foreseen and mitigated and which ones could not have been reasonably predicted. What were the cues that were missed by the team that indicated a problem was emerging? What could the team have done to better predict and prevent trust issues?

Schedule and Budget Management

The original schedule of activities and the network diagram are compared to the actual schedule of events. Events that caused changes to the schedule are reviewed to see how the use of contingency reserves and float mitigated the disruption caused by those events. The original estimates of contingency time are reviewed to determine if they were adequate and if the estimates of duration and float were accurate. These activities are necessary for the project team to develop expertise in estimating schedule elements in future projects—they are not used to place blame.

A review of budget estimates for the cost of work scheduled is compared to the actual costs. If the estimates are frequently different from the actual costs, the choice of estimating method is reviewed.

Risk Mitigation

After the project is finished, the estimates of risk can be reviewed and compared to the events that actually took place. Did events occur that were unforeseen? What cues existed that may have allowed the team to predict these events? Was the project contingency sufficient to cover unforeseen risks? Even if nothing went wrong on this project, it is not proof that risk mitigation was a waste of money, but it is useful to compare the cost of avoiding risk versus the cost of unexpected events to understand how much it cost to avoid risk.

Procurement Contracts

The performance of suppliers and vendors is reviewed to determine if they should still be included in the list of qualified suppliers or vendors. The choice of contract for each is reviewed to determine if the decision to share risk was justified and if the choice of incentives worked.

Customer Satisfaction

Relationships with the client are reviewed and decisions about including the client in project decisions and alignment meetings are discussed. The client is given the opportunity to express satisfaction and identify areas in which project communication and other factors could be improved. Often a senior manager from the organization interviews the client to develop feedback on the project team performance.

A general report that provides an overview of the project is created to provide stakeholders with a summary of the project. The report includes the original goals and objectives and statements that show how the project met those goals and objectives. Performance on the schedule and budget are summarized and an assessment of client satisfaction is provided. A version of this report can be provided to the client as a stakeholder and as another means for deriving feedback.

Senior Management

The report to senior management contains all the information provided to the stakeholders in a short executive summary. The report identifies practices and processes that could be improved or lessons that were learned that could be useful on future projects.

Archiving of Document

The documents associated with the project must be stored in a safe location where they can be retrieved for future reference. Signed contracts or other documents that might be used in tax reviews or lawsuits must be stored. Organizations will have legal document storage and retrieval policies that apply to project documents and must be followed. Some project documents can be stored electronically.

Care should be taken to store documents in a form that can be recovered easily. If the documents are stored electronically, standard naming conventions should be used so documents can be sorted and grouped by name. If documents are stored in paper form, the expiration date of the documents should be determined so they can be destroyed at some point in the future. The following are documents that are typically archived:

• Charter documents
• Scope statement
• Original budget
• Change documents
• DPCI ratings
• Manager’s summary—lessons learned
• Final DPCI rating

Text Attributions

This chapter was adapted and remixed by Adrienne Watt from the following sources:

• Introductory text and text under “Contract Closure” was adapted from “Project Completion” in Project Management for Skills for All Careers by Project Management Open Resources and TAP-a-PM. Licensed under a CC BY 3.0 licence .
• Text under “Final Payments”, “Post-Project Evaluations”, “Trust and Alignment Effectiveness”, “Schedule and Budget Management”, “Risk Mitigation”, “Risk Mitigation” and “Customer Satisfaction”  adapted from “ Project Closure ” in Project Management for Instructional Designers by Amado, M., Ashton, K., Ashton, S., Bostwick, J., Clements, G., Drysdale, J., Francis, J., Harrison, B., Nan, V., Nisse, A., Randall, D., Rino, J., Robinson, J., Snyder, A., Wiley, D., & Anonymous.  Licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike) licence .

18. Project Completion Copyright © 2014 by Adrienne Watt; Project Management Open Resources; TAP-a-PM; and David Wiley, et al. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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12 Steps to Initiate and Plan a Successful Project

Editorial Team

Being entrusted to initiate and plan your company’s new project can be a great responsibility—and it’s something you don’t want to mess up.

Project initiation , the process by which you start a project, and project planning , the process in which you create schedules and plan a project systematically, are integral to the project management process.

Project planning, the most important phase of the project management process , should be executed well, as poor planning may lead to serious problems and setbacks later. Collaboration with remote teams can help reduce the burden brought about by repetitive tasks and help initiate and plan a project without bias.

Below, we list the twelve steps of the project management process that can help you get started initiating and planning a successful project.

Step 1: Develop Project Charter

The first step to starting your new project is to develop your project charter. Basically, your charter will serve as your project’s mission statement and serve as your guide throughout the project. In your charter, you should define the scope of your project (what you plan to do) as well as an overview of how it will be done (who will do what).

Successful project charters are prepared from information from three main sources: contracts, Service Level Agreements (SLA), and Letters of Award.

Your contracts are the agreements between you (the service provider) and your client. Your SLA is a special type of contract in which you and your client define and agree to the scope and deliverables of the project, and your Letter of Award states that you’ve won a particular bid for the project.

Within your project charter, be sure to provide a comprehensive overview of the scope and direction of the project. Also known as your project’s content, this information is key to the success and to the professionalism of your charter.

This document signifies to your project manager that (s)he has permission to start work on the tasks, as laid out in the charter. Having a clear direction, purpose, and high-level project description can keep all parties on the same page and help your team to provide a service as agreed to with your client.

In order to do this, your charter should include any and all requirements and key deliverables as well as provide a general milestone schedule. Parties responsible for the project, such as the project manager, the project sponsor, and keyholders, should be listed.

Step 2: Identify Stakeholders

It’s imperative that you identify all stakeholders while developing your project charter. Stakeholders are any individual, group, or organization that will be affected by the outcome of the project.

In order to do this, most organizations run what’s called a stakeholder analysis . This analysis identifies the stakeholders in a project and determines what outcome the project should provide to each one.

A stakeholder register is also made. This register identifies project stakeholders and lists their influence over its outcome.

A Communications Management Plan is then put in place to help guide communications between your organization and all involved parties to help ensure favorable outcomes for all involved.

Step 3: Collect Requirements

Next, it’s important that you collect requirements for the project, or in other words, start brainstorming ideas behind the project’s goal.

To do this, you’ll need to conduct interviews and attend meetings with all the key stakeholders who can provide input to the project requirements as well as those who can contribute to the project’s success.

Communication is key during this stage, as you make sure that the brainstorming you do and the information you collect both reflect the desires of all parties.

Mind mapping is a popular and effective brainstorming technique that allows you to visually organize information. Creating a mind map can help you and the members of your team stay on track while collecting project requirements .

Step 4: Define Scope

This all goes into helping you define the project’s scope. You can think of your project’s scope as what you’re planning to do. It’s here that you set the limits of the project and determine just what is—and what isn’t—included in your service.

There are four important considerations to make when working to define your project’s scope.

The first is requirements documentation, or files that specifically define what should be accomplished. This document lists out all the requirements gathered during the requirement collection process.

Your product analysis should thoroughly review the project at hand, including the estimated costs, the work to be done, your competitors, and other important information that will allow management to review and consider the project.

Once this is done, you’ll need to draft a Project Scope Statement. This document is important, as it defines the scope and the goals of the project for all stakeholders involved.

Finally, you’ll want to use a Requirements Traceability Matrix to measure the success of your project. This matrix will allow you to ensure that those working at lower levels are meeting your high-level standards and adhering to the project’s overall mission. It will establish a baseline of goals as outlined in your project charter and use it to compare to your project’s current state. This allows management to adjust to present conditions and work to complete the project in an accurate and timely manner as agreed to in the project charter.

Step 5: Create Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is another essential element to helping ensure that your project is completed accurately and on-time.

Your WBS should breakdown the work to be done into several manageable sections to be carried out by different groups on your team. It should also establish a hierarchy of deliverables—things you seek to accomplish and provide through your service.

The process by which work is broken down and micro-managed is known as decomposition. Proper decomposition is important, as it helps make sure that the workload is manageable and that it is being conducted and supervised by members who are best-suited to do it on your team. This helps workflow proceed as accurately and as timely as possible.

Step 6: Develop Schedule

Developing a schedule is an integral part to your project charter. It’s important that you create a timeline that is agreed to upon all parties involved, as well as one that allows for the work to be done to the best-quality possible.

In order to do this, it’s important to define and sequence activities that need to be undertaken to complete the project. This means that you should know exactly what work will need to be done and what order it will be done in.

Once you have this information, you can start estimating activity duration so that you can get a general idea of how long the project will take.

Estimating activity duration can be tricky, as you want to leave enough time to accommodate for setbacks while also providing your service at a competitive pace. Be sure that your estimates will more-or-less align with reality to keep your stakeholders and your clients happy.

Step 7: Estimate Costs

In addition to estimating the time you will spend on the project, you’re also going to need to estimate costs. Having accurate cost estimates will help you to later plan a solid project budget .

There are three main methods organizations use to estimate costs:

• Analogous Estimating
• Bottom-Up Estimating
• Three-Point Estimating

Analogous estimating involves comparing the cost and the duration of similar projects in the past to help determine the overall costs of your current projects. While it can be helpful in getting a general ballpark figure, analogous estimating requires you to be careful in considering outside variables that could affect the cost from one project to the next.

Bottom-up estimating is a different process altogether and involves getting all of your team members to help you in the estimating process. In a way, bottom-up estimating gets the workers directly involved with a certain portion of the project to provide a general cost estimate of their portion. This can be effective, as it delegates cost estimation to the individuals who may have a better understanding of the cost of their specific tasks. These costs are then combined for an overall estimate .

Three-point estimating is favored by many project managers as a way to provide a more-accurate cost estimate. As you pay have guessed, three-point estimating involves the consideration of three different estimates and weighting them for a more-accurate guess of total project costs. The three estimates involved determine the best-cast scenario, the most-likely scenario, and the worst-case scenario. A weighted average of the three values is then taken to get an accurate estimate of overall costs.

Step 8: Determine Budget

Once you’ve got your total cost estimates in place, it’s time to set your project’s budget. Having accurate estimates will allow you to better prepare your budget and help you be able to get all work done in a cost-effective manner.

Determining your project’s budget requires the use of cost aggregation. This process involves adding the costs of each step of the project to get an overall cost figure.

Once this is done, you’ll want to establish both a contingency and a management reserve .

Your contingency reserve will be under the control of the project manager and will consist of funds allocated to manage estimated risks. This helps the project operate in the event your team is challenged with a risk as determined by your risk management plan.

In contrast, your management reserve will consist of funds that are designed to deal with unforeseen challenges. These are complications you did not account for in your risk management plan.

Both reserves help your project stay more-or-less on budget despite potential setbacks and challenges. Having proper contingency and management reserves is a vital aspect to any effective project management plan.

Step 9: Develop Project Management Plan

Your project management plan is, in many ways, a summation of the work we’ve discussed so far. It’s here that you will officially layout both the objective and the scope of the project.

You’ll also mention the deliverables you seek to offer, list any stakeholders, and define specific roles and responsibilities for your team.

Once this is done, your plan will also include your estimated project schedule of when work will be done, as well as discuss any risks you expect to encounter.

A complete project management plan should include:

• Project Objective
• Project Scope
• Project Deliverables
• List of Stakeholder
• Roles & Responsibilities
• Project Schedule
• Project Risk

Step 10: Plan Resource Management

For your project to be successful, you’ll need an effective resource management strategy. Resource management is the method by which you effectively acquire and use resources required to do your project.

Without the proper resources, you’ll be unable to execute your project as planned, so be sure to have a solid strategy in place for the acquisition, the development, and the use and management of all required resources.

This can be managed through hierarchical charts and a responsibility assignment matrix. Both of these methods help describe who does what work and what specific resources align with that role. A responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) is particularly useful in describing the goal of each individual team as well as well as any tasks they may have.

Step 11: Plan Quality Management

To be successful, you’ll need a quality management plan in place to measure and control the quality of the work being done.

Performing cost-benefit analyses is an integral part of any quality management plan, as it measures the potential costs and revenues of a specific action. This information is important because it can help tell you the most financially-beneficial aspects of your project—and subsequently where to put more effort into quality control .

In order to effectively manage project quality, design a testing and inspection plan that will allow you to control the quality of each aspect of your project. This involves the use of quality metrics that help to measure the quality of work done and compare it against work goals.

Step 12: Plan Risk Management

Finally, a risk management plan should be established to forecast potential risks your project may face. This is an important step in determining accurate budget estimates, as well as in establishing a contingency reserve.

A successful risk management plan works by performing a three-step process. When preparing for risks, you should:

• Identify Risks
• Perform a Risk Analysis
• Plan Risk Responses

Identifying risks refers to the process by which your team analyzes the project for possible risks or setbacks that may be faced. Your WBS should allow you to identify potential risks at every level of the project.

Once this is done, you’ll need to perform a risk analysis.

Risk analyses allow you to assess the chances that you will encounter a specific complication while working.

Once you have this information, work with your team to ensure that you have an appropriate plan in place to deal with the risk if encountered. In this step of the process, you’ll plan your risk responses so that your team knows what to do in case you do encounter one of your potential identified risks.

Project initiation and project planning are two important steps in the project management process. Having project initiation and project planning strategies in place can help streamline your project and prevent against future setbacks. Project planning, in particular, requires great attention to have the project completed without complications.

Project initiation and planning involve specific and targeted steps that work to build a solid project charter and project management plan. Agreements between you and your clients should be reached and all stakeholders identified before work commences.

Before starting your project, all parties should be aware of a specific project mission, as well as the project’s timeline, scope, costs, and the work involved.

By following the twelve steps above, you can effectively initiate and plan a successful project that meets the needs of all stakeholders.

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• 8 steps to write an effective project s ...

8 steps to write an effective project status report

Effective project status reports are the best way to keep your stakeholders aligned and in the loop during your project progress. These high-level updates proactively let your team know if a project is on track, at risk, or off track—so you can course correct if necessary to hit your deadlines every time. Learn how to create project status reports in a few easy steps, plus check out a template you can use right away.

It’s the end of the week and here you are again: having to dig through a variety of spreadsheets, emails, and tools to patch together an update of how your project is doing. 

Instead of manually assembling this information, use a project status report template to streamline this process for you. That way, you spend less time on unnecessary data gathering and more time on work that matters. 

Whether you’re gearing up for your first ever project status report or you’re looking for a better system than the one you currently use, this article will walk you through what a progress report is, how you can build one, and how to use project status reports to hit your project deadlines on time, every time. Here’s how.

What is a project status report?

Project status reports are timely updates on the progress of your projects. Written concisely, project reports offer high-level information about project progress, so team members get at-a-glance insight into what’s happening within the project. With a timely status report, you can ensure your entire project team and cross-functional stakeholders understand what’s on track, what’s blocked, and what’s coming next. 

Regularly sharing project status reports is important because they help you keep all project stakeholders in the loop and aligned on how your project is progressing. They answer the questions everyone has before team members even have a chance to ask them. They show and tell your team that you’re on track, making you (and everyone else) feel confident.

How often you share project status reports depends on your project’s timeline. Some projects benefit from weekly reporting, while others only need to be updated once a month. Schedule your project reports as frequently as is helpful for your stakeholders. These shouldn’t be reactive reports on things going poorly—rather, effective reports keep your team updated on the project’s progress, whether the project is on track, at risk, or off track.

The benefits of effective project reporting

Reporting isn’t just something you should do for the sake of doing it. Effective reporting has a variety of benefits. When you correctly report on project status, you effectively: 

Keep track of project health

The worst thing for a project is when you arrive at the end of the timeline and realize you were off track the whole time. No one likes being blindsided—and as the project manager, you’re empowered to make sure your team is aware of your project health at all times. 

Progress reports are a way to do that without too much manual work. Because these reports mix high-level summaries with some important metrics, everyone has a sense of the project's health. And if the project is off track? You can quickly and proactively fix it—so you still hit your project deadline on time and on budget.

Summarize project progress

Project status reports are not real-time reports. These reports are summaries of what happened during the past week, two weeks, or month of project work. They’re an opportunity for your stakeholders to stay informed on how well you’re sticking to the project plan . 

If you’re looking for tips on how to report on projects in real time, check out our article on universal reporting tools for every team . 

Reduce manual work

As the project manager, you already have enough on your plate. You don’t need to also spend hours every week or month grabbing data from different places. Project reporting tools make it easy to find all of this information in one place, and create a project status report with the click of a button. 

Share next steps and action items

Project status reports should go out to your project team, project sponsor, important stakeholders, and cross-functional team members. Because these are high-level reports, they’re appropriate for anyone who wants to stay informed about project progress. 

This is the optimal way to let everyone know what’s happening without getting into the details. If there are important project next steps or action items, share them here so everyone knows what to expect. 

Proactively identify blockers

If your project isn’t on track, your status report lets others know what the delay is and what you’re doing to resolve any blockers, allowing you to show off your proactive approach to getting things back to where they should be. Similar to the project risk management process , proactive status reporting helps you identify and overcome issues before they impact your project timeline.

Say goodbye to status meetings

The day of the status meeting is over. We now know these aren’t effective ways to spend your time. Unlike face-to-face meetings, project status reports are shared in a central tool that team members can check asynchronously when they want to. They can refer back to the information, or dig deeper into the project if necessary. Save your face-to-face meeting time for valuable meetings like brainstormings or all hands. 

Before you report: Combine reporting with effective project management

The biggest benefit of project status reporting is that it reduces your manual work, centralizes information, and makes it easy to keep everyone up to date. If your information is scattered across multiple tools, you can’t effectively use project reporting templates—you still need to manually open this Excel spreadsheet and that team email to gather your information. 

Instead, make sure you’re using project management software as your central source of truth. With project management software you:

Have a central source of truth so team members can see who’s doing what by when. 

Can easily visualize project information in a Gantt chart , Kanban board , calendar, or spreadsheet-style list view. 

Create status reports with the click of a button. 

Offer a place for team members who read the status report and want more details to look and find the information they need. 

Have access to additional project information, like your project plan, communication plan , project goals, milestones, deliverables , and more.

Naturally, we think Asana is a great option. Asana is a work management tool your entire team can use. Your cross-functional collaborators need a way to view past status reports. Your key stakeholders need a bird’s eye view of the entire program or project portfolio management progress. And your team members need a way to track individual work throughout the project lifecycle.

8 steps to write a great project status report

So, how do you go about doing project status reports? Be sure to create a clear structure you can use consistently for all future status reports. You should also make sure it matches with your project brief to keep your report on topic.

Follow this guide to understand what to include in your project status report, and watch as we put each step into practice with an example of an Employee Satisfaction project.

1. Build your report where work lives

Before you build your report, make sure you’re already tracking your work information in a project management tool. That way, you don’t have to manually grab information from a host of sources—instead, you can reduce manual work and create a report with a few clicks. 

Starting off with a project management tool makes it easy to capture dependencies and note upcoming tasks so you’re never blindsided about your project health.

2. Name your report

A great option is to simply use the project name for clarity. If you’re reporting on this project regularly, you should also include a date or timestamp.

Example project report title: February 2020 - Employee satisfaction initiative

3. Indicate project health

The project health is the current status of the project. Project health may change from report to report, especially if you run into blockers or unblock big project risks. Look for a project management tool that allows you to communicate the project’s status and whether or not it’s on track. One way to do this is to use a color coding system (green = on track, yellow = at risk, red = off track).

Example project health update: Project status is on track.

4. Quickly summarize the status report

Your project status report summary should be brief—about 2-3 sentences. The goal here is to give readers who may not have time to read the entire report a quick TL;DR of the most important facts. 

This is the first section of your report, so it’s the best place to: 

Include highlights

Flag major blockers

Note unexpected project risks

Example status report summary: Our survey results are in and being reviewed. At first glance, we’re seeing 80% employee satisfaction, up 3 points from the last survey. The Engagement Committee is working with the Executive team on what new engagement initiatives to implement in our key target areas, which include career growth and transparency.

5. Add a high-level overview of each key area

Depending on your project, your key areas may vary from report to report, or they may stay consistent. For example, in an Agile project that’s continuously improving, you’d likely use dynamic key areas that cover the things your team worked on during the last sprint. Alternatively, for an event planning project, there are a set number of key areas that you always want to touch on, like promotion, signups, and speakers. 

For each key area in the status report, add a few bullet points that give an update on progress, accomplishments, and upcoming work.

Example high-level overview of a key area: Survey results

70% of employees took the satisfaction survey.

Our overall satisfaction rating is 80%.

Only 57% of employees report having a clear path towards career advancement, down 5% since the last survey. 

41% of employees listed transparency as the number one improvement they’d like to see.

6. Add links to other documents or resources

While you shouldn’t include every little detail about how your project is going, some people will want to know more. For stakeholders who are looking for more in-depth information, provide links to documents or resources. This can include more specific project information, like links to specific project milestones , or the broader impacts of the project, like a reference to the business goals the project is contributing to.

Example: Include a link to the employee satisfaction survey , as well as to the larger company OKR around increasing employee engagement over the course of the fiscal year.

7. Flag any blockers the project has run into

All projects run into roadblocks. These can come in the form of project risks , unexpected increases to the budget , or delays that impact the project timeline . Keeping stakeholders in the loop when issues arise will help everyone adjust accordingly to stay on track. 

Example roadblock: The executive team wants to look at results before the engagement committee meets again, but won’t be able to do so for another three weeks. This will delay our overall project timeline.

8. Highlight next steps

These could include a list of next steps, kudos you want to give someone, or anything else you want to highlight.

Example: Thank you Sarah A. for sending out multiple communications to employees encouraging them to participate in the survey!

Template for creating your project status report

To quickly put everything you learned in the previous section to use, write your next project status report using this easy-to-fill-out template:

Report name:

Name your report. This can be as simple as the project name and the date of the report.

Project health:

Is the project on track, at risk, or delayed?

Include a short description of the most important takeaways from your project status report here. Keep in mind that busy stakeholders may only look at this section, so include any highlights or blockers the entire team needs to know about

Key area 1: High-level overview

Specific details about progress, accomplishments, and upcoming work.

Key area 2: High-level overview

Key area 3: High-level overview

Additional information and links: 

Link to relevant project details or higher-level project information that stakeholders might be curious about. This section is a chance for team members to dig deeper on specifics, or understand how the project initiative fits into your larger strategic goals . 

Are there any challenges you’re facing? How will you resolve them?

Additional notes or highlights:

Are there any additional things your team needs to know? What are the main next steps? 

Example project status report

While a how-to guide on writing project status reports is helpful, sometimes seeing a real-life example allows you to really see what your own update could look like, right? We thought you might agree, so here’s an example you may find useful:

Report name: Ebook launch

Project status: On track

Great progress this week! We are still in the concept phase, but Avery Lomax will be choosing a topic this week. Content and Design teams are standing by and ready to get started once we give the go ahead.

Planning team met to discuss an overall topic

We have three final ideas and will choose one on Friday

A brief is due to the Content team the following Thursday

The Content team is ready to start writing copy as soon as our idea is finalized

They are gathering pertinent company information that should be included

Design reviewed five ebook examples to determine the style they liked

They will be choosing a template by next Tuesday

Jen is out of the office all next week so please direct any content questions to Joy

Thank you to Henry for curating a huge list of topics for us to choose from!

Issues/challenges:

The e-book’s deadline is tight, as we all know. It’s critical that we’re all working in our project management tool to keep everyone organized and on track. Thanks!

Streamline reporting with a work management tool

The above report is clear and easy to follow. By building this report in a work management tool like Asana, you can automatically fill each section but the summary. Here’s what the above report looks like in Asana:

Project status reporting best practices

Now you know what to include in your project status report, but you may still have a few additional questions. As you’re creating status reports for your project, these best practices will help you formulate a winning update.

How often should you report out?

The frequency with which you send project updates depends on the type of project you’re running. If your project has a short timeframe, or if things are moving quickly, aim to send weekly project status reports. Alternatively, if the initiative you’re reporting on is a long-term project, you probably only need to send biweekly or even monthly reports. The most important thing is making sure your project stakeholders are up to date. 

When you use a project reporting tool, you can set a task for yourself to always send status reports on a certain day each week. These recurring reminders make it easy to keep stakeholders informed, whether you're sending weekly status updates or monthly progress reports. Either way, stakeholders will begin to expect your updates, which means less frequent check-ins from them (plus they’ll appreciate always being in the loop).

By sending regular reports, you can avoid multiple meetings related to a project (we all know unnecessary meetings have their own reputation ). Skip the check-in meetings and save your time for more important work.

Who should you include?

It depends on the project and who is involved, but typically plan to send an update to any stakeholders working on your project. You should have created a stakeholder analysis—outlining all stakeholders, sponsors, and team members—during the project planning process, but refer to your project plan if you aren’t sure.

Even if that week’s status report doesn’t affect a particular team member, you should still share it with everyone. It’s important for everyone to have a high-level overview. Team members who don’t need to review the report in depth can quickly skim your summary section, while others who are more involved can dive into the details you’ve provided. 

How detailed should you get?

A project status report shouldn’t offer every little detail. Let the work tell the story—you’re simply curating information and adding a little color. Think of a project status report as a top line message—just the most important pieces of your project that affect most of stakeholders should be included.

You should always indicate whether the project is on track, at risk, or off track, give a quick summary of what’s complete and what’s upcoming, then link out to other resources for people who want more details.

Where should you write your project status report?

The best way to draft and share status updates is with a work management tool . Look for a tool that offers an overview of your project, so your team has a central source of truth for all project-related work. That way, instead of managing projects in spreadsheets , you can keep it all—status updates, project briefs, key deliverables, and important project milestones—in one place. Your reports will be easily shareable, and stakeholders can look back on previous reports at any time, avoiding email overload on your end.

Wrapping your project up: summarizing your work

The status reports we’ve been talking about are always sent during a project to keep everyone in the loop. However, once the project is finished, it’s smart to send out a final summary report. Think of this as the executive summary for your project. This is your chance to offer stakeholders a wrap-up to the project. Use it to officially close it out.

Again, it’s a high-level overview, but instead of including updates and statuses, you’ll provide a summary of how the overall project went. Here are a few questions to answer in a project summary report:

What were the goals of this project and were they met?

Was the project completed on time and on budget (if applicable)?

What successes should be highlighted?

What challenges did we run into?

What can we learn from this project to help us on future projects?

Keep every stakeholder on track with status reports that write themselves

If you’re looking to over-deliver on your next project, try sending project status updates. They keep you productive, efficient, and accountable, while giving everyone else a quick (and engaging) look into what’s been happening. 

Use the resources we’ve provided to create reports that give just enough information without diving into too much detail. Find a project management solution like Asana that has features designed specifically to help with status reports. You’ll save time and be as organized as possible.

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• LiquidPlanner , Methodology , Project Management

Five Steps to Getting a Project Done

You’re eager to start a new project and jump right in without trying to make order out of and find meaning in everything that needs to get done. How much time do you spend scratching your head, wondering what to do next or even how or where to start?

Having a good plan is the most important strategy for getting a project done.

Here are five steps to help you organize your work so you can sail through the project cycle while spinning your wheels as little as possible.

1. Collect all related work items.

Identify all the work items that are part of your project, including emails, open tasks in your project management tool, and scribbled notes. Next, organize all these pieces and prioritize them as tasks that are part of your project. If you’re stuck on the prioritizing part, ask yourself the following questions:

• Which one has the most immediate hard deadline?
• Which task will make the most positive effect if it is finished ASAP?
• Are any of these tasks dependent on another one being completed first?
• Are you dependent on another person completing something else before you can start?
• Is there a task that you must get off your plate to clear your mind and move forward?

2. Develop a process.

Outline or list the necessary steps to complete each task. Ask yourself these questions:

• What are all the tasks and microtasks that must be done to complete this?
• Who needs to weigh in on, contribute to, perform a quality assurance check on, or sign off on the work?
• Is this the most efficient way to get from A to Z on this particular project?

3. Get organized.

Commit to being as organized as possible and to finding a structure that fits you, your team, and the project. This could take some trial and error, but being organized is a process. A good place to start is by using a collaborative project management tool where collected work can live, stay organized, and be accessible to other team members. You need a place where you and your team members can reference a project and all the work involved while knowing what’s going on at any time.

4. Set a time to review.

Our memories need a good refreshing to stay organized. Plus, a review might give us fresh insight into what needs to get done, reprioritized, or reorganized. Set a time each week, such as every Friday afternoon or Monday morning, to review work items. This not only keeps your mind fresh but also helps you see all the things that are part of a bigger project and vision. Change happens, so you’re probably updating a lot of tasks in the course of a week. This review process will help you stay on top of your moving work.

5. Just do it!

Now that you’ve completed the first four steps, it’s time to take action. Pull the trigger; press publish; deliver the final product. What do you do right now ?

Based on David Allen’s GTD methodology, consider these four things:

• Context. What can you do right now?
• Time available. What do you have time to do right now?
• Energy available. What are you able to accomplish right now?
• Priority. After answering the first three questions, start working on the highest priority item.

You can organize yourself and your team in endless ways. What is your favorite organizational hack? Let us know in the comments.

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What Is a Project? Definition, Types & Examples

What is a project, exactly? We talk a lot about specific facets of project management, but it’s sometimes valuable to start at the root and dig into the basics.

To fully understand high-level project management concepts, it’s important to know the simple answers. When you can call on this knowledge, more complicated concepts are easier to master. Whether you’re the project manager or a stakeholder, give your next project definition with these project management tips in mind.

Project Definition

A project is a set of tasks that must be completed within a defined timeline to accomplish a specific set of goals. These tasks are completed by a group of people known as the project team, which is led by a project manager, who oversees the planning , scheduling, tracking and successful completion of projects.

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Use this free Project Budget Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

Besides the project team, projects require resources such as labor, materials and equipment. Organizations and individuals manage projects with a wide range of objectives. These can take many forms, from constructing a building to planning an event and even completing a certain duty. Retailers, for example, may pursue projects that improve the way they track order fulfillment. Construction teams complete projects any time they plan and build something—and so on!

Project management software gives you the tools to manage all the parts of a project so it is delivered on time and within budget. ProjectManager is award-winning project management software with features to plan, manage and track your project in real time. Organize tasks on our robust Gantt, link all four types of task dependencies to avoid costly delays and save your project plan by setting a baseline. This allows you to track your actual progress against your planned progress to help you stay on track. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

What Are the Characteristics of a Project?

There are certain features or characteristics that are unique to projects and differentiate them from the daily operations or other types of activities of an organization. Here are the main characteristics of a project.

1. Any Project Needs a Project Manager and a Project Team

One of the most important characteristics of a project is that it’s a team effort. While the structure of project teams might change from one organization to another, projects usually involve a project manager and a team of individuals with the necessary skills to execute the tasks that are needed.

2. Every Project Needs a Project Plan

Project team members need clear directions from the project manager and other project leaders so that they can execute the work that’s expected from them. These directions come in the form of a project plan. However, a project plan is more than just a set of instructions for the project team. It’s a comprehensive document that describes every aspect of a project, such as the project goals, project schedule and project budget among other important details.

3. All Projects Go Through the Same Project Lifecycle

The project life cycle refers to the five phases all projects must progress through, from start to finish. The five phases of a project lifecycle serve as the most basic outline that gives a project definition. These five phases are initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and closure.

4. All Projects Share the Same Project Constraints

All projects no matter their size or complexity are subject to three main constraints: time, scope and cost. This simply means that projects must be completed within a defined timeline, achieve a defined set of tasks and goals and be delivered under a certain budget .

These project constraints are known as the triple constraint or the project management triangle and are one of the most important project features to know about.

5. Every Project Needs Resources

A resource is anything necessary to complete a project, such as for example, labor, raw materials, machinery and equipment. For example, in construction, raw materials such as wood, glass or paint are essential project resources . That said, other resources — like time, labor and equipment — are just as important.

A project manager must be able to identify all of the project resources in order to create a resource plan and manage the resources accordingly. When resources are left unaccounted for, it is easy to mismanage them.

Types of Projects

Projects can take many shapes and forms, which makes classifying them into types a very difficult task that requires different approaches. Here are some of the types of projects grouped by funding source, industry and project management methodology .

Types of Projects By Funding Source

One simple way to categorize projects is to look at their source of capital.

• Private projects: Projects that are financed by businesses or private organizations.
• Public projects: Projects which are funded by Government agencies.
• Mixed projects: Projects that are financed by a public-private partnership.

Types of Projects By Industry

Projects can be executed by large or small organizations from any industry. However, some industries are more project-intensive than others. Here are some of the most common types of projects by industry.

• Construction projects: The main goal of any construction project is to make a building that can be used for different purposes such as infrastructure, residential or commercial use.
• Manufacturing projects: Manufacturing projects consist of manufacturing physical products to generate profits for a company.
• IT projects: Information technology projects consist in establishing an IT framework for the processing of data at a company-wide scale.
• Software development projects: The main goal of a software development project is to create a software product for a client.
• Business projects: The term business project could refer to creating a new business, creating a new business unit for an existing company or simply launching a new business initiative.

Types of Projects By Project Management Methodology

Besides the types of projects mentioned above, projects can also be classified by the project management methodology that’s used to plan, schedule and execute them.

• Waterfall projects: Waterfall is the most traditional project management methodology, where the project plan is defined before the project begins and each major project phase must be completed in sequence.
• Agile projects: Agile projects are planned and executed in short iterations known as sprints , where project teams plan their activities as they execute the project.

Project Examples

Now that we’ve reviewed the main characteristics of a project and the various project types that exist, let’s review some common project examples to better illustrate what a project is.

Construction Project Examples

• Construction infrastructure projects: Building a bridge, a road, a mass transportation system or a water treatment facility.
• Residential construction projects: Building a house, a residential building or an apartment complex.
• Commercial construction projects: Building a shopping mall, a parking lot or a hotel.

Manufacturing Project Examples

• Building a factory from scratch
• Manufacturing products for retail sale
• Manufacturing products for a B2B purchase order
• Improving an existing production line by acquiring new machinery and training employees

Key Project Terms to Know

No matter the project, there are universal project terms that are used regardless of project type, project size or any other factor. Know these seven terms like the back of your hand and you’ll be a step ahead before the project begins:

Project Scope

Project scope is a key aspect of the project planning stage. In many ways, it is the starting point. Determining project scope requires the project manager and their team to set goals and objectives, detail deliverables, create tasks, establish important dates and more. Project scope defines desired outcomes and all specific factors which will affect reaching them.

Project Stakeholder

A stakeholder refers to anyone and everyone involved in a project. A stakeholder can be involved at every stage of the project, or just in a certain way. Stakeholder analysis helps categorize how investors, team members, vendors, contractors and more can affect your project.

Project Deliverables

A deliverable refers to the specific outcome(s) a project creates. Deliverables can be “tangible” or “intangible,” meaning they can be a physical product or something conceptual. Typically, deliverables are the need that inspired the project in the first place. If someone contracts a builder to design and construct an office space, the office is a tangible deliverable.

Project Milestones

Milestones are predetermined achievements that help track project progress. Think of milestones as checkpoints. These checkpoints are decided on before a project begins, so the project manager and team know when they are on track to achieve deliverables. Without milestones, it’s difficult to know if the project is on the road to success or needs to reroute.

Project Dependencies

Project dependencies refer to how resources must be shared and allocated within a project. Many projects will use the same physical materials for different purposes and across different stages. Understanding this dependency is the only way to ensure there is enough resources to go around. Similarly, all projects are broken down into tasks. When one task cannot begin before another is completed, these tasks share a dependency.

What It Means to Work on a Project

Whether it’s the project manager, a team member or any other project stakeholder, they’re a member of the greater project team and their actions directly affect other team members. Like any team, you “win” or “lose” as a unit, so it’s incredibly important to communicate and listen to other team members in order to coordinate efforts and succeed. Most project mishaps and project failures are the direct results of poor communication or lack of collaboration.

Why does this matter as long as the work is getting done? Working on a project is about understanding the project as a whole just as much as it is about doing the work. The only way to see this big picture is by listening to the team and learning from one another.

What Is Project Management?

The process of project management starts with the conception of the project and continues all the way through the project lifecycle. This requires detailed knowledge of company resources and how to assign them in order to complete tasks, duties, events and other projects.

A wide range of industries relies on project management methods and tools to execute projects. A few examples of these industries are construction, IT, engineering, marketing and advertising. Any team working together to reach a shared objective is engaging in some form of project management.

What Does a Project Manager Do?

A project manager is more than just a manager, in the traditional sense. This individual is the leader of the project team and oversees every aspect of the project, from beginning to end. The project manager will typically write the project plan, run team meetings, assign tasks and do quality control tests to ensure everything is running smoothly. A project manager can’t carry the entire project on their back, though. One of their key duties, in fact, is knowing how to entrust various responsibilities to team members.

With the help of their team, project managers will create project schedules and budgets. They will also create project reports throughout the project lifecycle.

As you can see, their responsibilities are widespread, but that doesn’t mean spreading too thin. Ideally, a project manager creates the foundation of the project—like the foundation of a house. They then appoint other individuals to finish out each room.

Project Definition: Best Practices for Project Management

Regardless of the project, the size of the team, or anything else, there are practices that exponentially increase the chances of success. As vital as it is to hit goals and achieve deliverables , it’s just as important to create a positive culture within the project. These five tips may seem simple, but they make a big difference:

Set Regular Team Check-ins

It’s easy to meet with the team “as needed,” but once a project begins it gets harder to find time in everyone’s schedule. Instead, schedule regular meetings before a project even starts. These meetings serve as check-ins where team members can give each other updates, voice concerns, ask questions, make adjustments and do anything else they may need. When these check-ins are already built into the schedule, no one is waiting to meet until there’s a mishap or issue.

Part of what gives a project definition is knowing how to delegate. Whether it’s the project managers or a team member, they’ll more than likely need help with a task at some point. Now, this doesn’t mean just passing along the task to someone else. It means that every team member has equal responsibilities. Instead, the best project managers know how to relinquish some control and delegate to team members.

Know the Team

Everyone on the project management team should be familiar with each other’s strengths, weaknesses and specialties. For example, if a team member needs information from a different department, they should know exactly who to ask. This familiarity cuts down on lost time. It is especially important for a project manager to know their team extremely well.

When a project member knows these things, they can make decisions that play to their team members’ strengths, not around their weaknesses. Knowing the team is a huge aspect of creating a positive culture within a project, as it celebrates everyone’s abilities.

Celebrate Milestones

Speaking of positive culture, never underestimate the power of taking a moment to mark meeting a milestone . Reaching one means the team has made significant progress and the project is still on track. At the very least, it’s important to announce reaching milestones during team check-ins. This keeps everyone on the same page and improves team efficacy.

Choose Superior PM Tools

Project management is an extremely complex job. Without the proper tools, it’s easy to make mistakes, become disorganized and even fail to complete the project. The best way to protect your project from these missteps is by choosing tools that simplify the entire process.

The best project management software does just that. Using project management software unleashes your team’s and the project’s full potential and takes the end result to new heights. The key is finding an intuitive, user-friendly project management software that makes no compromises in functionality.

How ProjectManager Makes Managing Projects Easy

ProjectManager is an award-winning project management software that makes managing projects easier than ever. Our online software allows the entire team to work on the project while in the field or on the go, and our modern interface combines functionality with user-friendly navigation. This means no more wasted time just trying to familiarize yourself with a new tool and more time perfecting your project definition.

Plan on Gantt Charts

Plan your projects from start to finish with ProjectManager’s powerful Gantt chart feature, which allows you to map out project tasks in phases. You can even create dependencies and set milestones. Plus, you can import Excel files and Microsoft Project files, so switching over to our software is seamless.

Track on Project Dashboards

As the project team moves forward with tasks, project managers can track every status update on our real-time dashboard that you can personalize to show the most important metrics. Every change to a task is tracked and automatically updates the colorful, easy-to-read charts and graphs. Keeping an eye on your project’s progress has never been easier!

Get all these features and more when you use ProjectManager. All of these tools are available in our software to help you plan, track and report on your project in real time. See what it can do for you by taking this free 30-day trial run!

Deliver your projects on time and on budget

Start planning your projects.

Innovative Projects Showcase Power of American Innovation in Developing Advanced Energy Technologies and Accelerating the Energy Transition  

WASHINGTON, D.C. —  In support of President Biden's Investing in America  agenda , the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $63.5 million for four transformative technologies through the Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy technologies with Untapped Potential (SCALEUP) program. The four projects have demonstrated a viable path to market and represent technologies focused on aerogels for energy-efficient insulated glass units, thermal batteries to supply combined heat and power from renewable electricity, energy-dense solid state batteries, and cement decarbonization. SCALEUP supports the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to advance critical research and development helping to propel America’s energy innovation leadership on the global stage.  

“America is an innovation superpower, and President Biden is helping to scale up the next generation of clean energy solutions that will advance the nation even further toward our net-zero goals,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. “By catalyzing the commercialization of promising technologies, we are empowering the private sector to go all in to boost American manufacturing, strengthen national security and ensure our competitive edge.” 

The SCALEUP program provides new funding to previous ARPA-E awardees that have successfully de-risked their technology and established a viable route to commercial deployment. 

The four projects selected as part of the latest SCALEUP program are: 

• AeroShield Materials (Waltham, MA) will develop a pilot manufacturing facility for aerogels for high-efficiency insulated glass units that will enable residential and commercial buildings to become more energy efficient, meeting current and future ENERGY STAR targets for windows. ( Award amount: $14,500,000 ) 
• Antora Energy (Sunnyvale, CA) will scale up production of its thermal battery technology, which turns low-cost renewable energy into reliable, on-demand heat and power for industrial facilities, enabling rapid decarbonization of the industrial sector. ( Award amount: $14,500,000 ) 
• Ion Storage Systems (Beltsville, MD) will support domestic manufacturing of next generation solid-state lithium-metal batteries and accelerate commercialization of the technology into the electric vehicle market. ( Award amount: $20,000,000 ) 
• Queens Carbon (Pine Brook, NJ) will develop an on-site pilot facility capable of producing carbon-neutral supplemental cementitious materials using industry standard raw materials to support decarbonized cement production. ( Award amount: $14,500,000 )

This is the third cohort of projects selected under the SCALEUP program, and you can access full project descriptions for the technologies above on the ARPA-E website .    One of the project teams from the initial SCALEUP—Natron Energy, a global leader in sodium-ion battery technology—recently began commercial-scale operations at its manufacturing facility in Holland, Michigan. 

LongPath Technologies—another awardee from the initial SCALEUP—has created a paradigm shift in methane detection and mitigation by developing technologies capable of detecting over 90% of methane leaks down to 0.2 kg/hr from nearly a mile away. LongPath recently received an LPO conditional commitment of $189 million . 

Finally, Sila—a next-generation battery materials company also funded under SCALEUP—was selected to received up to  $100 million in funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL)  to support the build-out of a facility in Moses Lake, Washington. Early ARPA-E funding and SCALEUP support were instrumental in the company’s success, and continued support demonstrates how critical President Biden’s whole-of-government strategy is to supporting energy technology from early stages, such as R&D, to full-scale deployment.  

In 2021, ARPA-E issued the second SCALEUP program, which went on to support work in hybrid electric aircraft; high-power density magnetic components; efficient, cost-effective and compact U.S.-manufactured electric vehicle charging equipment; wood products that are stronger, lighter and less expensive than structural steel; rare earth-free permanent magnets; floating offshore wind; and geomechanical energy storage. 

The SCALEUP program has successfully demonstrated what can happen when technical experts are empowered with the commercialization support to develop a strong pathway to market, and this latest cohort furthers the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to supporting American energy innovation.  

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511 Travel Info

News releases

June 28, 2024

Latest news releases

Highway 59 concrete repair project begins July 8

WILLMAR, Minn. – The Highway 59 concrete repair project south of Marshall and south of Garvin begins July 8, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation. The first project detour, south of Marshall, also begins July 8 when Highway 59 will close from Highway 23 to County Road 6. Maps of the work zones and detour routes are attached and additional information about traffic impacts during the project are detailed below.

Work is expected to end Oct. 18, depending on weather and other unforeseeable circumstances.

Project summary The concrete road surface will be repaired on two sections of Highway 59.

• South of Marshall: Highway 59 from Lyon County Road 6 to Highway 23
• South of Garvin: Highway 59 from 201st Street to Lyon County Road 14

Sidewalks and pedestrian crossings in Marshall will be upgraded to meet current Americans with Disabilities Act standards.

• Along Highway 19 from the intersection of Highway 23 to the intersection of Tiger Drive
• Where Highway 59 intersects with Susan Drive and with Boyer Drive

Traffic impacts A detour will be required to complete the concrete repairs in each section (see attached maps).

• The section south of Marshall is scheduled to go first and take about five weeks to complete. Traffic will be routed on Highway 23, and County Roads 35 and 6.
• The section south of Garvin will follow and is scheduled to take about seven weeks to complete. Traffic will be routed on Highway 14 and County Roads 5, 29 and 48.
• Work in both sections may overlap and both detours could be in place at the same time for up to five days.
• Short term, intermittent intersection closures will take place for ADA improvements and minor detours may be required.
• Businesses along the project route will be open and accessible.

Project benefits and cost Benefits of the project include a smoother road surface and enhanced safety for people who walk and bike. Interstate Improvement, Inc., is the contractor, and the project cost is approximately $4.4 million.

Stay connected

• Learn more about the Highway 59 project at mndot.gov/d8/projects/hwy59south .
• Join the Southwest Minnesota Facebook group for news, events, and updates
• Follow us on Twitter @MnDOTsouthwest for news, events, and updates
• For real-time traffic and travel information in Minnesota, visit www.511mn.org or get the free smartphone app at Google Play or the App Store

• Anniston/Gadsden

Work begins on first phase of Birmingham Northern Beltline project

• Updated: Jun. 28, 2024, 6:37 p.m. |
• Published: Jun. 28, 2024, 6:37 p.m.

This map shows where construction will resume on the Northern Beltline, to be called Interstate 422. (Photo by Greg Garrison/AL.com)

• Howard Koplowitz | [email protected]

After a decade of false starts, construction has begun on the first section of the Birmingham Northern Beltline project, the Alabama Department of Transportation announced Friday.

The $64.7 million first phase of the project, which includes two bridges and spans two miles, is scheduled to be completed by late 2026, the agency said.

McInnis Construction of Summerdale, which was awarded the project segment in May, will be building a four-lane highway connecting State Route 79 and State Route 75 in Jefferson County.

When fully complete, the Northern Beltline will be 52 miles, stretching from I-59 in northeast Jefferson County to the I-459 interchange near Bessemer. It will be known as I-422.

More than 40 cities, three counties and numerous business voiced support for the construction, according to ALDOT.

Work began on the 52-mile, six-lane corridor in 2014, but construction was halted in 2016 after funding dried up.

In April, Gov. Kay Ivey announced $489 million in federal funding was secured to resume construction.

She hailed the project as a boon to Jefferson County businesses and would open up economic opportunities across the state.

Stories by Howard Koplowitz

• Woman dead, 5-year-old child among 3 injured after Limestone County crash
• Pedestrian killed after being struck by pickup truck in north Alabama
• Police identify man whose body was found on interstate in Mobile
• Tommy Tuberville lays the sarcasm on thick about Joe Biden debate performance: ‘Great job tonight’
• Trump hits Biden on mental acuity during debate: ‘I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence’

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