how to write a project approach document

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How to Create Project Documentation in 5 Steps [Templates & Examples]

Knowledge Management Specialist

Brayn is a knowledge management specialist with over 10 years of industry experience. A thought leader in the field, Brayn writes about the utility of knowledge base software for business growth, customer support, user management, and more.

Project management is an indispensable part of all business functions. 

Sure, assembling a capable team is crucial, but there’s another secret ingredient that ensures your projects stay on the right path: dedicated project documentation. 

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “More paperwork? Isn’t that just adding to the workload when we already have a stellar team?” 

Well, hold onto your seat because you’re about to discover the incredible benefits that come with this seemingly mundane task.

Imagine a world where paperwork is reduced, your teams are effortlessly aligned, project gaps are identified and resolved, and progress is meticulously tracked. Sounds pretty amazing, right? That’s exactly what project documentation can do for you.

Dive into this blog to learn how to write project documentation, explore its impressive benefits, get access to templates, and much more. 

Stay tuned!

What is Project Documentation?

Project documentation is an online document comprising information related to project details, milestones met, targets achieved, changes accommodated, and much more. This document acts as a centralized reference point where teams can quickly find the information they need to complete certain tasks, track progress, or check recent updates. 

From project reports and business cases to project plans, proposals, budgets, and risks, this documentation contains all the necessary information required to manage projects with ease. 

By consolidating all project information in one place, this documentation brings clarity to the project management process and helps teams stay on the same page. While this keeps the confusion at bay, team alignment and productivity also witness a substantial improvement. 

Why Is Project Documentation a Must for Your Business? 

Do you know why projects fail? 

Well, there are multiple reasons for that. From inaccurate requirements gathering to changes in project objectives, there are various reasons that cause project delays and failures.

With well-written and meticulously structured project documentation, you can avoid most of these problems. 

As a centralized space where all project details are clearly mentioned, project documentation ensures that everyone in the team is aware of the project goals, developments, vision, and scope. 

Your project teams will always have the most updated information at their disposal, which helps them perform tasks effectively. They can also document their learnings and analysis in this documentation for future reference. 

There are many other benefits of creating project documentation, which we will explore in the next section. 

Types of Project Documentation

Project documentation comes in various forms, each serving a specific purpose in managing and communicating project information. Here are some key types of project documentation you should be familiar with:

Project Charter

The project charter outlines the project’s purpose, objectives, scope, stakeholders, and high-level deliverables. It establishes the project’s foundation, providing clarity and alignment to all team members and stakeholders from the start.

Project Plan

The project plan details the approach, tasks, timelines, resources, and dependencies required to complete the project. By incorporating lean methodology , it serves as a roadmap that guides your team throughout the project’s lifecycle, facilitating effective coordination and execution.

Requirements Documentation

Requirements documentation captures the functional and non-functional requirements of the project. It specifies the features, capabilities, and constraints that the end product or service must meet. With clear and well-documented requirements, you can ensure that the project meets stakeholder expectations and runs smoothly as intended. 

Change Control Documentation

Change control documentation outlines the procedures for requesting, reviewing, approving, and implementing changes to the project scope, schedule, or budget. It ensures that changes are carefully assessed and controlled to maintain project alignment with stakeholder requirements.

Status Reports

Status reports provide a snapshot of the project’s progress, including accomplishments, milestones reached, issues, risks, and upcoming activities. These reports help stakeholders monitor project performance and make informed decisions based on the project’s current status.

Read More: Best Software Documentation Tools for 2023

Astounding Benefits of Project Documentation 

Poor alignment, miscommunication and lack of clarity are some of the key reasons that deviate projects from the right path. 

Something as simple as building project documentation can streamline the entire process while maximizing the efficiency with which team members work. 

Let’s look at some of the remarkable project documentation benefits in detail:

Eliminates Confusion & Drives Success 

Often, project members lack clarity on project goals, client requirements, stakeholder expectations and milestones to be achieved. Project documentation has all essential project information explained in a detailed manner. This leaves little to no room for confusion and teams can carry out their project duties without any hassles. 

Brings Transparency to the Process 

It’s natural for project members to go off-track while working on projects. There can be inconsistencies in the pace and quality of task delivery. 

With project documentation at their disposal, teams have a clear picture of what is done and what is pending. This transparency helps them ramp up their efforts, ensuring that projects are delivered on time always. 

Increases Accountability

Assumptions, misinterpretations, and blame games in project management impact the overall team productivity and performance. With project documentation, team members have complete clarity of their roles and responsibilities, project scope, goals, and plans. 

This means if something goes wrong, they can take accountability for their actions instead of blaming others. 

Makes Project Tracing Easier

It’s natural for project managers to lose track of how the project is progressing while carrying out the day-to-day activities. Project documentation comprises thorough information on project progress, deadlines, and team workload. This makes it easy for managers to evaluate what worked well and what didn’t, as the project ends. 

Identify Risks & Manage Them

Risks are a part of the project management process and your team should be well-prepared to handle them. A detailed project document outlines not just the project scope, plan, and goals, but also the potential risks and their solutions. With this document, you will have a clear idea of what kind of risks to expect and how to mitigate them. 

How to Write Project Documentation in 5 Easy Steps  

Now that you’re well-acquainted with the incredible benefits of project documentation, it’s time to equip yourself with the essential know-how to create it effectively. 

It’s finally time to dive into the step-by-step process for crafting exceptional project documentation that sets you on the right path from the very beginning. 

Step 1: Bring all Scattered Documents in One Place

You might have project information scattered across Word docs, interactive PDF files , Excel sheets, and Powerpoint presentations. 

The first step to creating project documentation is to bring all this valuable information together in a centralized space. 

Modern project documentation tools offer features that help you directly import such files to the document. This makes content transfer pretty simple and fast.

As for the missing information, you will have to write it from scratch. For example, if you do not have pre-built documents for project plans and scope, create articles on these topics after discussing them with your team. 

This will put in place a single source of truth that your project team can instantly refer to every time they are stuck on a task or need assistance with something. 

Step 2: Take it Stage by Stage 

While writing project documentation, it is important to take the process step by step – one stage at a time. 

For example, the initiation stage is about setting up the team and outlining the basic requirements. For this stage, the documentation should cover the project proposal, scope, and team structure. 

After initiation comes the planning stage . For this stage, your project documentation should have thorough articles on the project plan, roadmap, communication strategy, and even the budget details. 

For the execution phase , it is important to add project status reports and potential risks expected in the course of the project. This information is essential to keep team members aligned throughout the project lifecycle. 

Changes are a vital part of any project. That makes change management an important stage in the process. Any changes requested by the client should be recorded in the change management section of the project documentation. 

Teams can quickly go through this section to keep track of the changing client requests and alter their strategies accordingly. 

Last comes the evaluation stage, when the project is delivered, and it’s time to assess what went right and what didn’t. 

Project closure details and progress reports should be a part of your documentation for this stage. This will help you track the overall project and team performance and identify bottlenecks that posed hurdles in the project. They can then implement the learnings in future projects and achieve better outcomes

Step 3: Pave Way for Collaborative Authoring  

From the previous step, it looks like project documentation is a comprehensive resource that is not possible for a single person to manage. 

You need a strong team who have the dedication and passion to consistently record all that goes on in the project – every milestone achieved, deadline met, or change requests accepted!

By deploying a tool like ProProfs Knowledge Base, you can add users and assign relevant roles and permissions to each one of them. For instance, some users can work as contributors – the ones who will do all the writing work, and some can take charge of editing all that’s written to ensure quality is not compromised. 

You can also assign the role of administrator to users who have proved themselves as capable managers. They are the ones who will take up the responsibility of overseeing every activity happening in the documentation, identifying gaps, and taking timely steps to ensure smooth operations. 

For more details on how collaborative authoring really works, watch this quick video.

Step 4: Structure the Document & Make it Easy to Search

Project documentation loaded with useful information but lacking a logical structure is counterproductive. An unstructured document is likely to make your team members confused and indecisive. 

Once you have all the information in place, try giving it a proper structure.

For example, you can create broad topics and their sub-categories to fit in all project details. You can also create a table of contents enlisting all sections and subsections of the document. 

Follow a stage-by-stage approach while structuring the document. Start by adding topics related to the initiation stage and then drill down into more complex topics on project execution, closure, and progress reports, change management, etc. 

For best results, you can make use of internal documentation linking to make information search even faster. This will save your team from mindless browsing and help them get what they need in just a few clicks. 

Here’s an example of what the ideal documentation structure looks like:

Step 5: Let Your Team Review the Document Before Sharing

Project documentation is supposed to be highly reliable and comprehensive. That’s precisely why all team members should collaboratively work on the document right from the start to ensure a high level of quality and accuracy. 

Creating articles is a heavy task and can take up a lot of your team’s time. In such situations, it’s natural for your team to sideline the review process and pass the content for publishing without taking a second look at it. 

Inaccurate information can wreak havoc on your projects. It can spread wrong facts in the team and completely change the track of the project. Therefore, careful review and analysis of every articles is important before taking them live. 

As and when articles are created, they should be thoroughly reviewed by editors and subject matter experts before publishing. 

The best project documentation tools out there come with a dedicated workflow review and approval system that allows you to track the status of each article right from the time it is written to when it finally gets published. This reduces the chances of any article skipping the review process. 

In the end, you can rest assured that everything that goes into your project documentation is free of errors and inaccuracies.

Read More: 10 Best Technical Documentation Software

Step 6: Keep Updating the Documentation

The project management process is not static, so how can your document remain unchanged? 

As your project progresses, there will be multiple changes in its plan, scope, client requirements, etc. Regularly maintaining project documentation ensures that teams always have the most updated information at their fingertips. 

As a project documentation best practice, your team must keep checking the document for any inaccuracies and continue updating it with relevant information. 

Manually tracking and making all the changes can consume more time than required. 

Instead, you can use reports to track document performance and identify knowledge gaps. 

For example, if you want to identify poorly rated articles or articles that are the most helpful for your teams, you can track metrics such as article upvotes and downvotes, total views, and reads. Once you know which articles are not received well by project members, consider improving them. 

Additionally, you can also go through the comments left by team members to identify their pain points and take timely steps for performance improvement. 

Read More: Best Technical Writing Tools and Software For 2024

Best Practices for Writing an Impressive Project Document

Creating project documentation is the key to ensuring clarity, alignment, and success in your projects. It serves as a roadmap for your team, keeping everyone on track and focused on the project’s goals. 

To help you create a stellar project document, here are seven best practices to follow:

Harness the Power of Visuals

To enhance user engagement and understanding, incorporate interactive elements into your project document. You can utilize clickable links, interactive charts, or multimedia content to provide a dynamic and immersive experience to all project stakeholders. 

Interactive features and visual elements help present information in an impactful way, making it easier for stakeholders to grasp complex concepts faster.

Provide On-the-Go Mobile Access

Project documentation is only helpful if teams can access it on their mobile devices right when they need it. 

You can optimize the document’s layout and design to ensure easy access and viewing on smartphones and tablets. By creating a mobile-friendly document, you enable stakeholders to access the information conveniently, even while they are away from their desks. This flexibility promotes better collaboration, decision-making, and responsiveness among the project team.

Make it Searchable & Easy to Navigate 

Searchability and navigation are two crucial elements that should not be ignored. 

You can implement a logical structure within your project document, using headings, subheadings, and a table of contents to facilitate easy navigation. Additionally, you can incorporate a search function that enables stakeholders to quickly locate specific information within the document. 

A well-organized and searchable document saves time, enhances user experience, and ensures your teams get everything they need in seconds. 

Define Clear Objectives

Kickstart your project document by articulating clear and concise objectives. These objectives serve as the guiding light, providing your teams with a clear idea of what the project aims to achieve. 

As you start creating project documentation, clearly state the project’s purpose, desired outcomes, and measurable goals. Avoid ambiguity and ensure that stakeholders have a crystal-clear vision of the project’s direction.

With objectives clearly defined, you will be able to build a solid foundation for the project, align the team’s efforts, and drive action towards a common goal. 

Deploy the Right Project Documentation Tool

Deploying the right project documentation tool can give your efforts the much-needed boost. It will equip you with all the bells and whistles you need to get started in the right direction and achieve an impressive document. 

When investing in document collaboration tools , look for one that aligns with your team’s needs and offers collaborative features, version control capabilities, and customization options. With the right tool in place, it will be easier for your team to make content curation a collaborative process and simplify document management.  

Best Project Documentation Templates 

Writing project documentation can mean spending days or weeks doing the initial groundwork. 

What if we told you there is a shortcut to the process? 

Project documentation templates offer a ready-made framework, so you don’t have to do the heavy lifting. The templates take a lot of pressure off your shoulders by giving you a pre-defined table of contents, topic-relevant sections, a dedicated space for branding, and much more. 

With these beautiful templates, your work is reduced to half, as you don’t have to work on a blank canvas. 

As your project progresses, you may want to expand the template by adding more categories and information.

Examples of Project Documentation 

While for large projects, the documentation is quite comprehensive, involving multiple change requests, documentation for small projects is mostly limited to the basics.  

However, there are some sections that are standard for all project documentation, regardless of their size and scale.

Project Proposal

Project proposal is all about ideating and communicating a project’s goals to clients and internal stakeholders. It gives a clear overview of project objectives, requirements, and value proposition. As part of the project proposal, you can highlight the number of resources that will work on the project, the budget allocation, timelines, and the key deliverables.

This document encapsulates everything that goes into the project planning stage. From outlining key milestones and their deadlines to setting the team, the project plan document covers it all. It acts as a roadmap for teams, guiding them in the right direction throughout the project lifecycle.

Project Charter 

While the project plan covers the “What” part of project management, the project charter covers the “how”. 

This document shows the process of achieving the goals established in the planning stage and also highlights the roles and responsibilities of all team members. The project charter provides a solid foundation for all activities that take place during the project.

Project Progress Report

Whether it is a large project or a small one, it’s crucial to keep everyone updated about how a project is progressing. This report highlights the project’s progress since the start, along with the bottlenecks that occurred during the process. It also shows the next steps you need to take to keep the progress on the right track.

Project Evaluation

Project evaluation is a vital part of project documentation. It brings into the spotlight both the best and the worst parts of the project. It shows how the project performed – what went well and what didn’t meet your expectations. Your team can use this as a reference and implement the lessons learned in the next project.

How to Choose the Right Project Documentation Software

To write impactful project documentation, you need a knowledgeable team. But to bring the documentation to life and share it with key stakeholders, you need the support of a solid tool. 

Depending on your project’s size, scope, and requirements, you may need a simple tool with basic features or an advanced tool with unique functionality. There are different kinds of online documentation software available today, but how do you know which one is worth the investment?  

Keep an eye for these top features when looking for project documentation software:  

• Easy to use with little to no coding required 
• Simple to set up without any specialized skills or training
• Ready-to-use documentation templates that help you get started quickly 
• A smart search system that displays context-relevant results 
• User management and access control to help teams work in collaboration 
• Internal comments for team discussions on articles
• A workflow review and approval system to ensure content accuracy 
• Robust integrations with tools like Slack and JIRA for smooth communication

These are the standard features that any tool you pick must have. Rest, depending on your requirements, you can also opt for tools with advanced features like reports and version control. 

Set Your Projects for Success With Project Documentation

As a project manager, you may have to handle different types of projects simultaneously. 

In such a high-pressure environment, it’s natural for you to lose sight of important project details. With up-to-date project documentation, you can rest assured that nothing important will slip through the cracks. You can easily track progress, identify bottlenecks, and fix them right in time. 

To curate an impactful project document, bring all information to a central space, add relevant articles for different stages of project management , and give them a proper structure. 

All these steps can be easily executed with the support of a powerful project documentation tool like ProProfs Knowledge Base. It has all the necessary features and functionality you need to kick off the process and take your projects on the road to success.

About the author

Brayn wills.

Bryan Wills is a seasoned expert in knowledge management with over a decade of experience in the field. His expertise extends across various domains, including Security & Compliance, User Management, Knowledge Management, Software Documentation, and Customer Support. His writings not only reflect his deep understanding of these subjects but also offer practical solutions and strategies to help organizations enhance their knowledge management processes. Bryan’s work has been published in GetFeedback , CustomerThink , and Apruve .

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Project Documentation Guide (with Examples and Templates)

Creating and managing projects is crucial for the effective running of any organization. Many project teams tend to struggle to repeat the same success levels they reached in previous projects or keep on repeating the same mistakes they made in previous projects. You can trace this to the lack of a solid project documentation process.

Effective project documentation is key for recording successful new projects. Establishing a dependable project documentation process helps you emulate past process successes and minimize previous failures or shortcomings.

The job of project documentation is to help you track your project’s progress and carve out a more organized and systematic way of executing and managing your projects.

Despite its clear importance, many project managers prefer not to use it due to how tedious, repetitive, and boring the process may seem. However, what often separates a successful project from a failed one is comprehensive project documentation.

In this article, you will learn everything you need to know about project documentation.

Let’s get started.

What is Project Documentation?

Project documentation is the process of adequately keeping records of key project details in an organized manner. All the documents about the project process produced during the project process are what comprise project documentation. Examples of project documents range from project proposals to business cases to project status reports .

Proper project documentation ensures key documents needed for successful and prompt implementation of project strategies are readily available.

The project documentation process lists out a clear and well-detailed procedural method for the proper organization of key project documents. This ensures the project process goes on as smoothly as possible and key documents are within the reach of the project team.

Examples of Project Documents

Defining what is to be documented during a project process is dependent on the project description. Big projects require much more documentation than small-scale projects. But overall, some basic documents are needed irrespective of the project’s job description.

1. Project Proposal

A project proposal is often the first official document created for a project process. This document serves as the project initiator. The aim of creating this document is to paint a clear picture in the mind of the key project members and stakeholders on why they should buy into the project ideas.

2. Project Charter

The project charter is a key project document that serves as one of the foundational building blocks of the project planning process.

A well-drawn-up project charter should contain the ways the project would achieve its desired results. In addition, the project charter should also detail the key requirements, budgetary allocation, and the roles and responsibilities of every project undertaker.

3. Project Plan

The project plan serves as an efficient road map for the project. A good project plan details the key project milestones and the timeline expected for its completion.

Regarded as the most flexible of all the project documents, the project plan is often subjected to changes throughout the project process.

4. Project Status Report

Keeping all project stakeholders on the happenings around the project process is important. The document that does just that is the project status report.

This essential project management report is designed to provide regular updates to project stakeholders on the progress made on the project. The project status report also spells out the next step to be taken during the project plan implementation phase.

Other key project document examples include project scope statement , risk management plan, cost management plan, communication plan, and financial plan.

The Value of Project Documentation

The importance of adequately documenting important project processes as they occur cannot be overemphasized. Proper project documentation makes the project management process much easier.

1. Breeds Effective Knowledge Management

You can learn lessons from previous projects embarked on if you document the former project process properly. Project documentation helps prevent the recurrence of past mistakes .

This also helps improve on the former service delivery as the necessary documented knowledge can now be passed across to the new project.

2. Helps Set and Define Your Project Goals

Project documentation is an efficient guide that helps you effectively set your project goals and define the necessary steps to be taken in achieving the set goals.

Drawing up the necessary project documents needed at the project onset helps give the project a sense of clarity. Project documentation also gives the project team a sense of direction as to where the project is heading based on the project objectives and schedule already detailed in the necessary project documents.

3. Supports the Project Planning Stage

Each project document created by a project team is designed to serve a specific purpose in the project process. These documents serve as the necessary backup for the project planning process and help improve the service delivery of the project process.

4. Gives a Clear Overview of the Project

Keeping up-to-date project documentation ensures all projects are well informed of the status of the project process. Project documentation is an efficient tool project managers use to keep tabs on the project process in real-time.

5. Makes the Project Trackable

Proper project documentation makes the project process traceable and accountable . This encourages transparency as all the details are properly accounted for.

Project documentation helps the project manager in his ability to successfully conduct a thorough project evaluation at the end of the project process.

Project Documentation Tools

The introduction of various project documentation tools has made the project documentation process relatively easier and more efficient. These tools are specially designed to assist in project documentation processes.

1. Monday.com

Overall best project documentation platform.

Monday.com is a project management software that provides users with an efficient project documentation tool. This platform is trusted by 127,000 customers including top brands such as BBC Studios, Coca Cola, Hulu, Uber, Universal, Discovery Channel, Deezer, and NBC.

Main Features

• Templates: This project documentation tool provides users with hundreds of visual and easy-to-customize project documentation templates.
• Good Customer Support: Monday.com boasts of a 24/7 customer support system that provides users with personalized and outstanding customer service relations.
• Project Visualization: With this project management software, you can visualize your work either as a map, calendar, timeline, or Kanban.
• Integrations: Monday.com integrates with all your favorite tools such as Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Dropbox, Slack, Zoom, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Excel, Gmail, LinkedIn, Zapier, and OneDrive.
• Offers a free 14-day trial period with no credit card required
• Helps save time with its automation tool
• Mobile applications
• Easy collaboration
• Provides a high level of reporting

2. Filestage

Best-rated project review and approval platform.

Filestage is an easy-to-use review and approval software platform that specializes in efficient centralized collaboration. This platform is trusted by top companies such as ABInBev, Emirates, and LG.

• Due Date Feature: With this feature, you can ensure prompt project delivery and never have to worry about missing a deadline.
• Feedback: Filestage offers a feedback mechanism where project members can react to newly updated project documents.
• Doc Sharing: This review and approval software platform makes it easy for users to share their documents in a variety of formats such as DOC, DOCX, PPT, and XLS.
• Fast approval process
• Unlimited reviewers
• Full GDPR compliance
• AES 256-bit encryption

3. Workzone

Robust online project documentation tool for small, medium, and large organizations.

Workzone is a project documentation tool specifically designed to make the project management process relatively easy. This platform is trusted by top institutions such as Boston University, Allianz, Wells Fargo, and Vizient.

• Approvals Workflow: This project documentation tool addresses any pending approvals quickly to help you avoid delays.
• File Versioning: Workzone makes it easy for you to track changes made to your project documents. This tool helps project managers to manage the steady inflow of project documents being turned in by different individuals.
• Project Dashboard: This project management tool allows you to view all your project details such as notes, project plans, action plans, and due dates. You can display your company logos on your project dashboard.
• Status alerts
• Gantt charts
• Project templates

4. TeamGantt

Visual project documentation tool with reliable baselining feature for small businesses.

TeamGantt is an efficient project documentation software that focuses primarily on visuals. This online Gantt chart maker for project planning is used by top companies such as Intuit, Amazon, Nike, and Netflix.

• Intuitive Workspace and Workflow: This Gantt chart maker provides you with a smooth user interface that makes managing your workflow easier. You can create color codes for different elements of your workflow, create tasks and milestones with just a few clicks.
• Baseline Feature: TeamGantt provides you with a baseline feature that helps you monitor your project performance. With this feature, you can compare your current project progress with the projected progress. This makes it easy for you to detect where your project went wrong.
• PDF and Excel Exports: TeamGantt allows you to create beautiful project proposals and export your deliverables in PDF and Excel File formats.
• Supports the creation and storage of key project documents
• Easy to use and intuitive
• Interactive Gantt charts
• Great tutorials for beginners

5. Smartsheet

Best project documentation tool with major focus on document sharing and collaborations.

Smartsheet is a project documentation tool that offers users much-needed support throughout the project documentation process. This software is trusted by top brands such as Apple, Pfizer, P&G, and American Express.

• Smart Task Management: This project management software helps you manage your projects and tasks effectively, You can easily change the start and finish date for any task.
• Task Roll Up: Smartsheet offers you a comprehensive project summary feature called Task Roll Up. This feature provides you with an overview of your project information such as planned work hours, actual log hours, and percentage completion.
• Collaborations: This project management platform helps you maintain effective communications among your team members. With its rich array of collaboration features, you can share files, receive notifications on important updates, and set reminders. You can also choose between three permission levels for your team (admin, editors, and viewers).
• Integration: Smartsheet integrates with popular third-party applications such as Google Docs, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Zapier, DocuSign, Gmail, Dropbox, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft OneDrive, and Box.
• 30-day free trial on paid plans
• Customizations
• Multiple templates
• Easy imports from Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Projects

How to Document a Project

Taking out time to prepare a project document and the document not getting the needed attention can be very frustrating. This is usually the case because the project document was not presented in the best possible way to project team members.

Getting the much-needed and appreciative response for your efforts at proper project documentation is vastly dependent on how you document the project process.

1. Organize All Project Documents in One Place

As the project process is ongoing, a series of documents tend to emanate from the project process. This is to ensure all the stages involved in the process are adequately accounted for.

In keeping up with these developing stages, project documents are created. These documents tend to become cumbersome due to their volume and it might overwhelm the project team.

Creating an orderly arrangement for the project document and collating them in one centralized location for easy access helps to simplify the project documentation process.

2. Make it Easy to Access and Search

Generating interest from your project team regarding important project documents is a necessary factor to the success of the project process. Key project documents need to be easy to read and understand by all project stakeholders.

Making these key project documents easy to access by all project stakeholders will go a long way in generating much-needed interest.

For ease of convenience, you can also include a search function tool that specifies the particular project document required from loads of project documents available to the project team.

3. Keep it Lightweight

You must ensure your project document is not bulky and too detailed to ensure the document is easy to understand by the project team. Irrespective of the fact that your project document needs to be well-detailed, it should be restricted to key details that affect the project process.

Long pages of project documents prevent the project team from going effectively through them. This grooms a lack of interest. You should ensure your project document is as concise as possible without directly affecting the project’s document efficiency.

4. Keep it Presentable at All Times

Your project document should be kept neat, readable, and presentable at all times during the project process. Changes are likely to occur during the process and your project document should be flexible enough to adapt to these changes as they arise.

You should consider making your project document digital so that you can easily make significant changes without damaging the presentability of your project document.

Project Documentation Template

Several popular but necessary project documentation templates can help you in your project documentation process.

1. Project Business Case Document Template

Project business case document template is a key project business document that ensures all the necessary business points as regards the project process have been adequately accounted for in the project document.

2. Project Charter Document Template

The project charter document template is used primarily during the project creation stage. This acts as an efficient guideline which your project team refers to from time to time.

3. Work Breakdown Document Template

Work breakdown document template is designed to create an adequate project document that meets the specific requirements of your project specification.

4. Risk and Issue Log Template

Risk and issue log document template ensures there is a significant cover on the likely risk and issues that may arise during the project prices

5. Requirement Specification Template

This project documentation template ensures all the specific requirements of the project process are strictly adhered to and met.

6. Communication Plan Template

The communication plan template helps in ensuring there is effective communication among project stakeholders. This template also has the necessary tools to ensure prompt and timely dissemination of information.

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Anastasia has been a professional blogger and researcher since 2014. She loves to perform in-depth software reviews to help software buyers make informed decisions when choosing project management software, CRM tools, website builders, and everything around growing a startup business.

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How to write an effective project plan in 6 simple steps

Contributing writer

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

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

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

What is a project plan?

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

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

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

Why Are Project Plans Important?

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

Project plans help you stay agile

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

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

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

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

Project plans provide complete visibility

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

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

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

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

Project plans boost engagement and productivity

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

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

How To Write A Project Plan in 6 Steps

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

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

1. Establish Project Scope And Metrics

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

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

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

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

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

2. Identify Key Project Stakeholders 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Outline Deliverables

Now is the time to get granular.

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

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

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

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

4. Develop Actionable Tasks

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. Assign Tasks And Deadlines

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Example of a simple project plan 

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

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

Best Practices For Writing Effective Project Plans

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

Use Other Project Plans For Inspiration

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

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

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

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

Get Your Team Involved In The Process

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

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

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

Don’t Let Perfect Be The Enemy Of The Good

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

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

Use the right tools to succeed with your project plan

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

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

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

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How do you develop a PRINCE2 Project Approach?

Helping you answer the question of how to undertake a project

Continuing my series of articles discussing the seven core project documents in PRINCE2 projects , in this article you’ll learn about the Project Approach document.

Why do you need to document the Project Approach?

Before you start any project, you’ll need to make some decisions on how you will approach it. You’ll need to define what type of solution will be developed by the project to meet its objectives, and what methods you will use to deliver the project. You will need to consider a number of factors when determining the Project Approach, including the project environment.

The Project Approach will be used when developing the Project Plan and the Project Quality Plan, as part of the Project Initiation Documentation.

Who is responsible for developing the Project Approach?

The project manager is the one responsible for the Project Approach, though the approach must be agreed with the project sponsor, and agreed with the project board and in the project initiation .

What approach options are available?

With every project, there may be several approaches that might be adopted. These should be stated within the Project Approach document, and might include the following:

• ‘Off the shelf’
• ‘Made to measure’
• Contracted to a third party
• Developed in-house
• A partnership with a third party
• Enhancement to an existing product or service
• A technology-based approach

Summary of constraints

A summary of the constraints on potential project approaches should be included. For example, the above approaches may be restricted by:

• Human resources
• Material resources

Examination of best practice

There may also be certain standards, best practices, and regulatory requirements that have an impact on the approach to be taken as well as the proposed activities and products of the project.

Other potential constraints

Other potential constraints that may exist include:

• Security implications
• Maintenance and operational implications that might affect project products and outcomes
• Integration and interface with other projects
• Impacts on other areas of the business

How does the project fit with the business strategy?

The project should fit with the business strategy of the organisation, and this should be summarised in the Project Approach document.

What will be the impact on the business?

The Project Approach should also outline how the approach will impact on other parts of the business. For example:

• Who will be involved in the project
• The critical nature of the project
• The risks and nature of risks associated with the project

The Project Approach should also cover potential training needs required, especially any training needs of end users.

How will the project’s products be introduced?

An outline of how the project’s products will be integrated into the business should be included, including impacts on and influences from internal and external sources.

A recommendation of project approach

All of the above leads to a statement of selected project approach, summarising the reasons for this selection, and including any other information that the project manager believes to be pertinent to making that choice.

How do you know the Project Approach document is complete?

Is the Project Approach document complete? Does it do what it sets out to do? To answer these questions, simply ask four other questions:

• Is it reflective of the Project Brief ?
• Does it lay the foundation upon which the project can be planned?
• Is the recommended approach acceptable to the user, customer, and sponsor?
• Does it give enough information for the project board to decide to adopt the recommended approach?

In our next article, you’ll learn how to develop a business case for a PRINCE2 project. In the meantime, contact Your Project Manager for further advice or if you need help with an upcoming project:

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A Quick Guide to Project Documentation: Key Tips and Examples

17.08.2021 – 09:52 Uhr by Gabriella Martin

Table of Contents

Despite not being the most glamorous part of a manager’s job, project documentation is the foundation of any successful project.

From the planning phase to creating the project schedule and later managing tasks and teams, documenting your project ensures that stakeholders are on the same page regarding goals, requirements, deliverables, and resources.

Plus, project documentation makes every aspect of your project fully traceable. This clarity, in turn, helps you easily spot any obstacles or delays during the controlling phase .

But how should you approach project documentation? Take a look at the guide below to learn more about the main benefits of project documentation, key tips on how to document a project and examples of crucial project documents you should create.

What is project documentation?

Simply put, project documentation is the process of creating, organizing, and managing a collection of key documents you need to successfully execute a project and report progress to clients and executives.

The project documentation process should start at the beginning of the project and be continued all throughout its lifecycle, recording not only vital information but also any changes that might occur.

Even though project managers are responsible for managing this process, the project documents are created in collaboration with the project team and other important stakeholders.

Once archived, the documents from a recently finished project can be used to streamline the planning and implementation processes for future projects.

Why should you document your projects?

There are numerous advantages behind having a rigorous project documentation process in place, including:

• Clearly define and set goals, requirements, and baseline so that stakeholders have the same expectations of a project
• Turn key project documents into a detailed Work Breakdown Structure you can use to create realistic project schedules
• Get a comprehensive overview of how your project progresses and keep everyone involved up to date on the project’s current status
• Enhance the traceability of your project’s workflow and easily see which tasks need to be completed, when is their deadline and who is responsible
• Improve team communication and collaboration and minimize misunderstandings
• Speed up employee onboarding by providing new team members with access to all the knowledge recorded during previous and ongoing projects
• Be well-prepared when it comes to mitigating potential risk or solving issues that might occur during the implementation of your project
• Evaluate the team’s performance once a project has finished and determine the lessons learned and possible improvements

How to document a project

Want to know how you can stay on top of your project documentation from day one? Here are 3 useful tips to help you create well-written, relevant, and up-to-date project documents that your team can easily access and use when necessary:

Keep key project documents in one place

No one likes to do a scavenger hunt for project-related information across Slack channels, chats, emails, and shared drives. Using a project management solution allows you to bring all project documents into one single place, saving you and your team essential time and helping you keep essential information neatly organized and accessible.

Stay concise when preparing your project documentation

How often have you come across a milelong project document no one wants to read dumped in an archived folder? When it comes to creating project documents, the golden rule is to write down only what’s necessary while keeping your audience in mind. After all, these documents are part of your organizational knowledge management process, meaning they need to serve as a reference point for future projects.

Set regular reminders to update the documents

Most of the time, project managers have at least one dozen things to keep track of without counting the documentation updates. That’s why it’s best to set a time to update project documents so they stay accurate as the project progresses. You can also make documentation maintenance a team effort by giving stakeholders access to make updates when changes occur.

Examples of project documents

What you must keep in mind is that project documentation will differ depending on the industry, company size, and the kind of project you’re managing.

Nevertheless, based on the five project management phases, we’ve outlined some of the most important project documents you’ll need to create at each stage of your project:

1. Initiation project documents

• Project Proposal: The purpose of this project document is to outline the scope, purpose, and objectives of a proposed project and convince stakeholders it’s worth investing time and resources in it. If approved, the project proposal will be used as a starting point when initiating the project.
• Project Business Case: The business case justifies the investment in a specific project while presenting the benefits, costs, and risks involved. The project sponsor and key stakeholders need to review and approve the business case for a project to start.
• Project Charter: The project charter deals with high-level project planning. This project document provides a brief description of the project’s objectives, scope, key deliverables, team roles and responsibilities, budget, potential risks, and constraints. Moreover, it authorizes the start of a project and serves as a base for your project plan.

2. Planning project documents

• Project Plan: The project plan acts as a detailed roadmap for your project. It defines the main objectives, scope requirements, resources, risks, quality criteria, and stakeholder roles and responsibilities while placing tasks, key milestones, and deliverables against a timeline. The main role of this project document is to guide the project’s execution while facilitating communication among project stakeholders.
• Work Breakdown Structure: The work breakdown structure (WBS) document helps you hierarchically map a project and determine the phases, deliverables, and tasks required to achieve the project’s goals and objectives. The WBS is the first step in creating a project schedule, enabling you to allocate resources efficiently and determine dependencies between tasks.

3. Execution project documents

• Project Status Report: Since projects require regular status reports to ensure that everything stays on the right track, you can use this type of document to inform relevant stakeholders on the progress made so far and what’s planned to happen next.
• Project Communication Plan: The communication plan describes how the project manager and the project team will communicate during the length of the project. This project document should include the communication methods used, how frequent information should be shared across the team or with other stakeholders, and the contact information details.
• Risks & Issues Log: This is an essential risk management tool for identifying and keeping track of roadblocks within a project and other potential issues that might negatively impact its delivery. Project managers use this log to prioritize issues, determine the action required to solve each problem quickly, assign a team member to take care of it, and keep an eye on its status until it has been resolved.

4. Controlling project documents

• Change Request Management: This document tracks changes to the initially agreed project scope. Each change should be recorded here while mentioning what it involves, who requested it, the reason for requesting it, its impact on other areas of the project (budget, timeline, etc.), and how much it will cost to implement it. After the proposed changes are reviewed, they can be approved and executed or dismissed.

5. Closing project documents

• Project Closure Document: The role of this document is to formally close a project. Also known as a project review document, it includes an overview of the project, encompassing scope, budget, deliverables, timeline, and lessons learned. This report enables project managers and other key stakeholders to evaluate if the project’s performance matches its original objectives and whether deliverables meet previously set expectations in terms of quality.

Apart from the documents mentioned above, meeting agendas and minutes are also included in the project documentation process. While agendas determine what will be discussed in a project meeting and who will participate, the minutes present what has been decided as a result of that meeting.

Managing project documentation with Allegra

It’s easy to get overwhelmed just by thinking about the amount of paperwork you have to organize and manage from the start of a project until the final deadline .

That’s why it’s best to use a project management tool that can help you manage all documents in one place from one phase of the project to another while keeping everyone in the loop.

Allegra’s Enterprise plan comes with the Wiki perspective , which allows you to collaboratively create project documents such as meeting agendas, protocols, and notes and share them with your team, executives or clients.

Wiki can effectively handle the most common document creation tasks like any other word processor, thus supporting figures, standard tables (no nested tables), text styling (bold, italic, and underline), headings, code blocks, and ordered and unordered lists. You can also switch between inline editing a single document section to full edit mode, where you can see the whole document at a glance.

Wiki documents can be easily exported into Word documents using Word templates, or to PDF documents via LaTeX templates, enabling you to effortlessly generate documents with a clean and appealing layout . Moreover, you can organize your collection of Wiki documents into folders for each workspace for easier access. Once the project is completed, you can archive everything with a few clicks.

Want to put Allegra to the test? Start your 30-day trial today and optimize your project documentation efforts.

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Key Solutions Blog

A guide to writing a technical approach.

Jul 28, 2022

Let's set the scene. You’ve just come on to a new proposal effort and are anxiously awaiting your writing assignment.

When it finally hits your inbox, fear rises as you discover that you have been assigned the Technical Approach and have no technical expertise. Do not panic! We’ve got your back! Keep reading for some proven do’s and don'ts to help you write a winning Technical Approach.

What the Technical Approach should be

The Technical Approach should meet the customer’s technical requirements, clearly show your methodologies and solutions for doing this work, and include impactful proof points to validate your claims and reinforce your success. While responding to the technical requirements of the RFP is critical, ensuring that the other sections of the proposal, such as Program Management, Staffing, Transition, and Pricing support the Technical Approach provides a truly powerful, compelling case to the customer. The government will evaluate the degree to which your proposal submission presents a clear understanding of the work statement in the request. Remember, proposals are scored, not read. It is important to note that the RFP usually specifies the relative weightings of the Technical, Management, Transition, Price, and other sections. Oftentimes, we see general information used to address a project’s Technical Approach section. This approach is a big mistake that will cost you dearly at scoring. A comprehensive, clear Technical Approach is essential to your proposal's success, but often, the development of the Technical Approach lags the rest of the proposal.

Because of space constraints, a lack of time and understanding, or poor planning, offerors often fill the Technical Approach section of a proposal response with reuse or boilerplate material instead of a customized, scope-specific solution. Such shortcuts result in a missed opportunity to highlight and weave in key win themes and discriminators of your proposed work plan.

The goal of a Technical Approach document is twofold:

• To demonstrate that your solution is fully compliant.
• To supply a solution that is compelling in meeting the customer’s requirements better and as a better value than any alternative.

Writers should remember that the focus of a Technical Approach should be on how the customer will benefit from what you offer. Evaluators should walk away understanding why your proposal is their obvious best option. The section should demonstrate your understanding of the requirements and the approach to satisfying them.

There are many ways to approach writing technical sections. The KSI Advantage™ process recommends the following steps:

• Describe the Technical Challenge(s). What is the problem in need of a solution? What are the risks? What are the consequences of failure to fix the problem? Demonstrate you understand the scope and complexity of the problem. Describe the as-is state and why it is not optimal or could be improved.
• List Your Assumptions. What reasonable, necessary, or desirable assumptions must be made to support the plan?
• Who: Organization or key personnel, responsibilities, and authorities, labor categories, skill mix
• What: System, technology, process, procedure, policy, steps, activities
• When: Timeframe, schedule, milestones, dates, phases
• Where: Location(s) where the work will be performed
• Why: Rationale for why your solution will work
• How: Methods to measure your solution’s effectiveness, including metrics, performance measures, success criteria, and relevant benchmarks; identify potential risks of your plan, and eliminate or mitigate them
• Provide Your Experience. Provide your relevant experience and past performance that demonstrates the credibility and effectiveness of your approach. Include examples of past performance handling contracts of similar scale, scope, and complexity. Provide metrics of your success where appropriate.
• Articulate the Customer Benefits. How will your customer benefit from your understanding, plan, and relevant experience? Be specific. Think improved safety, enhanced quality, improved performance, reduced costs, accelerated schedule, reduced risk, and increased customer or stakeholder satisfaction.
• Define the Vision for the End State. Assume your solution was successfully implemented. What is the end state? What would it look like? Describe how activities would be carried out safer, better, faster, and cheaper.
• Support with Graphics. Technical processes are difficult to describe in words. Include supporting graphics, such as process flows, charts, milestone schedules, matrices, risk registers, schematics, pictures, customer testimonials, snapshots of awards or commendations, feature/benefit charts, organizational charts, or related visuals. Below is an example of Feature and Benefits Table that applies to a technical section.

Helpful tips when developing the Technical Approach

• Read it ALL: Make sure you read the entire solicitation carefully and understand all the requirements while identifying anything that is not clear and needs clarification by the Government or that will require a corporate decision on how to respond. If the specifications are unclear or contradictory, consider submitting a Request for Information (RFI) to ensure you have all the information for a clear understanding.
• Follow the RFP and Evaluate the Rating Scheme: Use the order of the RFP to develop your outline and systematically address all submission and evaluation criteria. Make sure you understand the implications of the rating scale.
• Remain Customer Focused: This entire process is about them, not you. Emphasize why they should pick your proposal over every other submission by showing how your approach will benefit them.
• Include a Corporate Blue Team Review: A corporate review of the proposed technical solution ensures the right questions are asked early in the development process and avoids lagging or misalignment with the Management, Pricing, and Transition sections.
• Work with Subject-Matter Expert(s) (SMEs): Before you can write to a solution, you must understand it. SMEs hold the keys to that understanding. Engage a SME to ensure a thorough approach is provided for critical scope areas. Expert knowledge will go a long way in showing your understanding of the project.
• Include Opportunity-Specific Details: Do not just restate the SOW/PWS. The Technical Approach is your opportunity to provide details! Stand out from the competition by demonstrating your understanding of the project through a work breakdown structure or thoughtful sequencing information.
• Connect to the Schedule: If a schedule is required, make sure the narrative matches, and ensure the Technical Approach is reflected in the Transition Plan. Check for consistency across key elements such as start dates, dates for full operation, total contract duration, etc.
• Ensure the Staffing Plan Includes Required or Key Personnel : You can’t do the work if you don’t have the staff. Make sure technical staff are in place to execute the technical work and that all necessary staff have been considered in the overall Staffing Plan of the proposal. Be sure staff covers all the positions, skills, and qualifications the client specifies.
• Identify Risks and Mitigation Plans: Every project has its challenges as well as its opportunities. Make sure to identify any major technical risks and provide a brief description of your mitigation strategy. 
• Ensure Compliance: Review your content and make sure that your proposal appropriately addresses all of the RFP specifications, is formatted as requested, and includes all of the required forms for a fully compliant response.
• Be Consistent: Make sure you have double and triple-checked your grammar, titles, acronyms, key personnel, meeting names, format, etc. for consistency throughout the entire proposal.
• Simulate a Review: Mimic a source-selection committee by having a separate person or group that is not involved in the preparation of the approach to review your proposal. As every writer knows, a fresh pair of eyes can see things we cannot. They may be able to identify a deficiency that needs additional language to get the point across.
• Make Sure the Management Approach Supports the Execution of the Technical Approach: Demonstrate the Management Approach you have designed to successfully execute your Technical Approach. Develop a high-level Program Management Plan and drill down to specific tasks, timelines, and deliverables. It must be clear to the evaluator that you have the appropriate personnel, oversight, and expertise needed to drive your Technical Approach.

Things to avoid

Now that we have spent significant time telling you what to do, here are some key “not to do’s.”

• Don’t ignore the SOW/PWS and technical requirements.
• Don’t wait to engage your technical SMEs.
• Don’t skimp on the details that give your proposal strength and proof points.
• Don’t forget that you need an appropriate Staffing Plan to do the work.
• Don’t price yourself so high that it does not match the weight of your Technical Approach.
• Don’t fill your Technical Approach with fluffy, non-specific language.

If you are assigned the Technical Approach section of a proposal, do not fret! Remember it is crucial to present a fact-based approach that demonstrates a clear, tangible value to the customer.

Your response should illustrate how you will approach the project and meet the requirements in the solicitation while remaining customer-focused and integrating illustrative proof points throughout. Make sure you show them your value-add through metrics and thoughtful graphics. And don’t forget, proposals are scored, not read, so review your work like an evaluator would.

Topics: Proposal Writing KSI Advantage Capture & Proposal Guide Technical Solution KSI Advantage Technical Approach

Written by Melissa Serna

Melissa Serna is a Proposal Development Consultant with Key Solutions. She is an alumnus of Florida International University where she earned a BS in Mass Communication with a concentration in Journalism. Melissa then went on to complete an MS in Higher Education Administration at the University of Miami. She has extensive writing and editing experience and in her free time enjoys yoga, cooking, and traveling.

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How to Create a Realistic Project Plan with Templates & Examples

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

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

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

What is a project plan?

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

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

Any solid project management plan should answer the following questions:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Step 1: Start with project discovery and definition

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

Understand the project scope and value

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

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

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

Interview key stakeholders

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

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

Be sure to discuss these things with your stakeholders:

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

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

Get to know your team

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

• Collaboration and communication styles
• Availability and workload

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

Step 2: Draft a rough outline of your plan

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

Sketch out the main components of your project plan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Step 3: Formalize your project management plan

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

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

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

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

See how to create a project plan in TeamGantt

Consider how your team likes to work

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

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

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

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

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

Step 4: Present and confirm your plan

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

Run your final plan by your internal team

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

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

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

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

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

Review your project plan with stakeholders

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

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

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

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

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

Step 5: Execute your plan and adjust as needed

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

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

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

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

1. Enter your basic project details.

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

2. List out your project tasks and milestones.

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

3. Organize tasks into subgroups. 

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

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

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

5. Connect related tasks with dependencies.

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

6. Assign responsible team members to tasks.

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

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

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

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

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

9. Color-code tasks for better scannability.

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

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

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

11. Upload important documents to the project.

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

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

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

Try our basic project plan template for free!

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

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

Plan your next project in minutes

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

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How to Write a Project Proposal (Examples & Templates)

Written by: Unenabasi Ekeruke

A project is not something that just comes together overnight. It often takes strategic planning and a significant amount of time to get it right and receive the support it needs to thrive.

To fast-track approval for an external or internal project, it’s important to successfully present your ideas . And although a convincing elevator pitch may work in some circumstances, it’s often not enough. This is where writing a project proposal comes in.

But what is a project proposal exactly?

A project proposal is a powerful document that communicates what the project is all about, how it will be executed, and what outcomes can be expected.

Read on to learn what a project proposal is and what it should include. We've also included templates and tips to help you create a winning project proposal.

Here’s a short selection of 8 easy-to-edit project proposal templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more templates below:

Table of Contents

What is a project proposal.

• The Main Types of Project Proposals
• How to Write a Project Proposal

10 Project Proposal Template Examples

The top 7 tips for writing a project proposal, project proposal faqs, give your project proposal an upgrade today.

• A project proposal is a document that communicates everything stakeholders should know about a project, including the objectives, deliverables, timeline and budget.
• Project proposals are created to: secure funding and stakeholder buy-in, win clients over and convince higher-ups to allocate resources to an idea.
• The six major types of project proposals include: solicited, unsolicited, informal, renewal, continuation and supplemental project proposal.
• Six steps to writing a project proposal: write the executive summary, explain the project background, present a solution, and define the project deliverables and resources needed.
• Top tips for writing a persuasive project proposal: know your audience, keep it simple and make it persuasive, do you research, use a template and cover letter.
• Tap into Visme’s extensive template library to create winning project proposals .

A project proposal is a document or set of documents that clearly communicates and defines your project and ideas, including the goals and objectives, timelines , deliverables and budget.

Project proposals are used to tell the story of why a project idea should be executed and supported. They are typically created for the purpose of securing funding or buy-in, winning new clients, extending an existing client’s contract or convincing someone to allocate resources to a new initiative.

It should establish what the project is, what you’re aiming to achieve with it, how you plan on getting there and why it’s worthwhile. You can use a timeline maker to visualize timelines, deadlines, and milestones, while a budget planner can help you work out inflow and outflows.

Essentially, a project proposal should not just grab attention for the sake of it. It should be persuasive with a clear, confident and congruent message.

As the project's foundation, project proposals are vital for creating clarity around the goals. They define the priorities and requirements of a project before and when a stakeholder gets involved.

Types of Project Proposals

There are different types of project proposals to choose from, depending on your proposal's audience and the type of proposal you're presenting.

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Here's a brief description of each of them.

Solicited Project Proposal

A solicited project proposal is sent in response to a Request for Proposal (RFP). An RFP is a document that gets sent to a qualified organization. It announces a project, describes it and asks for a bid.

RFPs are competitive and often put businesses up against top candidates. They come with highly specific directions and require thorough research and sharp persuasive writing skills.

Unsolicited Project Proposal

An unsolicited project proposal is just that — unsolicited. It’s a bit like the cold call version of a proposal. In this situation, no one has asked for your proposal and there is no RFP involved. However, under the right circumstance, a well-executed unsolicited project proposal can be a game-changer.

A possible downside to unsolicited project proposals is not having clear knowledge of a stakeholder’s needs.

Maybe you've identified a problem and the solution to it. While the opportunity presents itself, you need resources to bring your idea to life. This is when you might turn to an unsolicited project proposal.

Informal Project Proposal

In the case of an informal project proposal, a client may reach out with an informal request for a project proposal to be sent to them. Once completed, you can respond with your pitch.

However, because this isn’t an official RFP , the rules aren’t as well established. This means that this type of proposal most likely isn’t going to come with much context. The writer will need to do a lot of solo research.

Renewal Project Proposal

A renewal is used when a project has run its course and needs to start again. The research that goes into this type of proposal typically stems from the success data of the last project.

In this project proposal format, the goal is to highlight ideal past results produced via the project. If the results are worth it, you should work to persuade project sponsors and other stakeholders of your capabilities to produce similar, or even better, future results.

Continuation Project Proposal

Continuations are usually done on a calendar basis when a project is entering a new phase or when new resources are needed to ensure the project can continue. These proposals don’t require as much work as the project has already been approved and is up and running.

For example, you can send continuation proposals when you seek additional funding to extend the project's duration and scope or continue an ongoing project beyond its initial funding period.

Supplemental Project Proposal

Along the lines of a continuation proposal, a supplemental proposal is needed in situations where you may have gone over budget or need more resources than you originally requested.

Essentially, the project scope has grown beyond initial expectations. The project team needs to modify the project's scope, budget, or timeline to address unforeseen circumstances or take advantage of new opportunities not included in the original proposal.

This proposal aims to persuade stakeholders to invest more resources by proving the value of the modified scope or project.

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How To Write a Project Proposal

How you write your project proposal can make or break its success. The best way to write a project proposal is to follow a step-by-step plan, regardless of proposal type.

After you’ve completed your project proposal outline, follow the steps below to make sure your proposal is a winner.

Step 1: Write the Executive Summary

Coming up with an executive summary is the first step to take when writing a project proposal. It’s a relatively shorter section designed to give investors and stakeholders a brief overview of the most important information about the project. It should summarize what’s coming and also persuade the reader to continue reading.

It often contains a short statement that addresses the main selling points of the project, such as:

• The core problem your proposal aims to solve
• Who will benefit and how
• What resources are needed
• A timeline and budget
• How the success of the project will be measured
• Return on investment (ROI) and more

The goal of an executive summary is to capture your audience’s attention . It should get them excited and motivated about the project you’re pitching and its potential impact.

Follow the executive summary tips below.

Step 2: Explain the Project Background

This section gives you the opportunity to go into the background of the project.

When putting together the project background, it’s critical to explain the current state of the problem and why your audience should care about solving it. Using references and statistics in this section can be helpful in getting your point across effectively.

Some points to cover may include:

• A deeper dive into the problem your project addresses
• What’s already known about the problem
• Who has addressed the problem before
• What research is out there already (if any) and
• Why past research has been insufficient at fixing the problem.

The best practice is to keep this section no longer than one page.

Step 3: Present a Solution

Now that you’ve presented the problem, you must now present the solution. This section serves as a great opportunity to outline your project approach in more extensive detail.

Some of the key items to include are a vision statement, the project schedule and any important milestones . Also include project team roles and responsibilities, reporting tools to be used throughout the project and more.

This section is great for showcasing how you’ll be measuring and reporting on your project’s success. Give an overview of which metrics you’ll watch and how you intend to display those results accurately.

Step 4: Define the Project Deliverables

Defining your project deliverables is a crucial step during the project proposal process. Stakeholders want to know just what it is you’re going to be delivering to them at the end of the project. This could be a product, a program, an upgrade in technology or something similar.

For example, depending on your project type, your project deliverable can be any of these things:

• A software application
• Training material
• Report, plan or policy document
• Infrastructure (buildings, bridges, or highways)
• Artistic or literary works

When defining project deliverables, the stakeholders should easily be able to visualize your project and the end goal in mind. Also, include realistic timelines outlining the time and date of each deliverable.

Step 5: Request Your Needed Resources

Hopefully, by this point, you have convinced your reader that your project can’t wait and needs to be implemented. Congratulations! But you're not out of the weeds yet.

Now is the time to share the pivotal details on:

• The project budget. This involves everything from the supplies needed to create the project to ad pricing and team salaries.
• A breakdown of the costs. This should cover why you need the specific resources you do. That way, stakeholders have a firm grasp on what their buy-in is being used for.
• A resource allocation plan. It’s important to include an overview of your resources being allocated and where they plan to be used. For instance, if you need $100,000 to complete your project, where will this money be going? Technology, materials, etc.?

Requesting resources can be tricky. So it’s important to be clear on what you need, how much you need and most importantly, why you need it.

It’s a good idea to save the required resources for the end of your project proposal so you’re not overwhelming anyone right away with requests. It’s better they know first what their resources are actually going to provide and the objective at hand.

Step 6: State Your Conclusion

The conclusion section of a project proposal should give a final summary and brief review of all the points already discussed. This is your last chance to win over your audience. So make it count by ensuring it incorporates the absolute most important evidence in order to receive approval.

This serves as the closing moment to emphasize the impact of your project. Prove you have adequately researched all potential solutions and are positive your proposed method is the best way to go.

This section is typically dedicated to any additional graphs , charts , images or reports that were not already cited in the proposal. With Visme’s data visualization tool , you can bring your project proposals to life with interactive graphs and charts like the one below.

For example, you can visualize key financial metrics associated with the project, such as

• Gross margin
• Cost-benefit analysis
• Return on investment (ROI) analysis
• Break-even analysis

When visualizing project tasks, milestones, and dependencies, Also, Gantt charts, PERT charts and flowcharts can come in handy.

The amount of detail you choose to include in your project proposal can vary significantly, depending on the project itself and its scope. In some cases, a brief proposal may suffice; in others, an extensive document spanning many pages may be a better fit.

No matter what amount of detail or length your project proposal needs to be, Visme has got you covered. We've got a variety of beautiful and customizable project proposal templates.

Here's what Autumn, a finance manager, has to say about Visme.

“I feel that for anyone who wants to improve efficiency and effectiveness at the workplace, VISME gives you the extra edge to take things forward. It's an apt tool for quickly converting your thought process into a unique communication.” 

Take a look at some of Visme’s top proposal template examples.

Example #1: Web Development Project Proposal

With this project proposal template, you can share your project ideas, attract investor interest and get them to pull out their checks. The template features an attractive cover page, color combination and layout bound to hold your readers spellbound.

Every design element in this template is customizable. You can swap content, colors, fonts, shapes and logo to match your branding.

Example #2: Project Management Proposal Template

Share your business idea and impress potential clients with this project management proposal template. The template features a sleek black theme with multiple bright colors flowing through the footer, giving off a trendy look.

Notice how this project proposal example uses icons on the cover and images in the adjoining pages. That’s the beautiful thing about using Visme. You can switch things up as much as you want.

Visme has a rich library of high-quality images and other design assets, including 3D icons, shapes and illustrations and animated graphics to make your proposal shine.

Even if you don’t find a perfect fit, Visme’s got your back. You can upload yours or use our AI-image generator tool to whip up stunning images, art, illustrations and graphics in seconds.

Example #3: Technical Project Proposal

If you’re embarking on a technical project and need to secure approval, funding and the resources needed for execution, this proposal template is a must-have. This proposal serves as a plan of action that outlines the steps necessary to complete the project and helps stakeholders understand the technical aspects of the project.

Visme’s intuitive editor makes it super easy for you to customize every part of their template. You can visualize data using graphs, charts, diagrams and widgets like progress bars and radial gauges.

Notice how page 5 depicts the project timeline. You can do that and more with Visme’s timeline maker .

Example #4: Architectural Project Proposal

This template has everything you need to create a winning project proposal. From the aesthetics to the layout to the content, every part of this proposal oozes elegance and quality. It features sections like project goals, milestones and budgets, plus lots of images to add more context.

Amp up your proposal and create engaging reading experiences using animation and interactive elements like popups, hover effects, animated icons, illustrations and special effects.

Example #5: Simple Business Proposal Template

This simple business proposal template cuts across a wide range of use cases. You can use it to secure buy-in for a short or long-term project or business. It features key sections like introduction,  services, customer reviews, setup process, delivery timeline and pricing.

Sometimes it can be difficult to create project proposals in silos. Fortunately, you can get your team involved in the process and collaborate with style using Visme’s collaboration feature .

You can add your team to a single workspace and assign user roles and permissions. Team members can tag each other, leave comments and feedback, react, resolve and delete comments.

Furthermore, you can take advantage of the workflows feature to assign different sections of the proposal to specific team members. Likewise, you can use it to ask the team lead for approval on the final design.

Example #6: Construction Proposal Template

Win your next project bid with this attention-grabbing project proposal template. The bright color combination and high-quality images are next-level, giving your proposal a trendy and professional look.

Customize the template by replacing the placeholder text and then proceed to edit the visual elements until you’re satisfied with the look and feel.

Once done, you can download your proposal in PDF, JPG, PNG and HTML5 format. Or share it online using a live link or embed it on your website.

Example #7: Nonprofit Proposal Template

Are you running a nonprofit organization and want to solicit funding, grants, or other forms of support from individuals, corporations, or government agencies? We’ve got a project proposal template for you.

Share important information about your project, program or initiative using this enchanting proposal template from Visme. The template has a superb selection of high-resolution stock photos that add flair to your design, plus an exquisite design layout that will help you draw attention to your content.

Example #8: Financial Proposal Template

Elevate your company's product proposal using Visme's polished proposal template. Our templates offer a sophisticated design layout, a range of high-quality stock photos, and separate sections for product specifications, budget, and usage.

Utilize our data visualization tools to effectively visualize financial details like budget, cost and expenditure analysis. You can even add an extra page to your document to capture investment requirements, cost analysis, revenue projections, risk analysis and more.

Example #9: Corporate Proposal Template

This template is professionally to grab the attention of potential business partners and give your corporate image a boost. You can customize the proposal for a new product development project or corporate initiative.

Visme’s brand design tool can help ensure your proposal stays on brand. You can create beautiful templates, a library of assets and reusable content blocks tailored specifically to your brand. Simply input your website address into the AI-powered brand wizard and watch the magic happen.

Example #10: Partnership Proposal Template

Writing a partnership proposal requires putting your best foot forward. And that’s what this template offers. It encapsulates all of the key details, including the company overview, benefits or value proposition and legal considerations.

With Visme’s Dynamic Fields , preparing a proposal is a piece of cake. You can easily update information throughout your projects and ensure you don’t miss out on anything important.

Example #11: Purchasing Proposal Template

Writing a good proposal is also an essential skill for procurement experts. If you’re looking to convince higher-ups, clients and other stakeholders to release funds for procurement, this template is a perfect pick. It highlights why they should invest in the equipment, the specifications and pricing details.

Feel free to add in more details as you deem fit. Add a flipbook effect so your readers can flip through pages as though they are opening a book.

Example #12: Freelance Proposal Template

Whether you’re a freelancer, creative or professional, you need a captivating proposal that pitches your service in the most compelling way.

The good news is that this template fits the bill. The template displays unique designs, distinctive layout, color and font combinations on all pages.

Use it to show your clients why you’re the best fit for the project, what they should expect, goals, payment and budget. After sharing your proposal, monitor Visme’s analytics to see who has viewed or clicked on it.

Example 13: Bid Proposal Template

Make a strong case for your company and win your next bid with this stunning project proposal template from Visme.

The proposal template features a minimalist yet sleek design that captures the eyes. The colorful geometric pattern and a blend of high-resolution photos make this template a masterpiece.

Furthermore, it includes a formal letter, budget and conditions for project commencement and completion.

Get help writing critical proposal sections so they’re concise and easy to understand, using the Visme AI Writer . Use the prompt window to ask the AI to condense, reword, summarize or edit your proposal text.

Make this template your own by editing content, changing image(s), applying custom colors, fonts and logo and more.

Example #14: One Page Proposal Template

Who says your proposal has to consist of multiple pages? Visme allows you to switch things up with your designs.

Capture the essence of your project using this attractive one-page proposal . The template design layout allows you to keep the information short, sweet and to the point, making it easy for clients to make decisions fast.

Didn’t see what you were looking for? No problem. Visme has a large variety of proposal templates that are colorful, visual, attractive and simple to use. Check out the rest of our project proposal templates in our fully stocked library.

No matter which proposal format you’re working on, here are seven tips that apply as best practices for all.

1. Know Your Audience

It’s important to keep your audience (i.e. the stakeholders) in mind while you write your proposal. Consider where they’re coming from. Why should they give you funding? Will it have a direct impact on them? Knowing your audience can help increase your chances of winning your audience over.

2. Keep It Simple

Although a project proposal is often a hefty lift, that doesn’t mean it needs to be overly complex. This means you can discuss the project plan , but you don’t need to discuss every technical detail. It’s also imperative to keep your writing style simple, clear and free of errors .

3. Be Persuasive

If your reader isn’t intrigued by your project, it will be much harder to get them on board. To combat this, focus more on how it will benefit others and how it will positively impact your industry, rather than just sharing the features it will offer.

4. Do Your Research

A winning project proposal includes thorough research and knowing the ins and outs, backwards and forwards. Be sure you can back up your problem - and solution - with reputable sources via outlets such as case studies , customer testimonials, user analytics, statistics or charts.

5. Utilize the Smart Method When Setting Goals

When writing a project proposal, setting your project’s objective and locking down the right goals should not be overlooked.

If you’re running into roadblocks, consider implementing the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound) method. They help ensure your KPIs cover everything and every goal can be met effectively.

6. Include a Cover Letter and Table of Contents

Your project proposal should read like a book. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that your proposal should also include a cover letter and a table of contents .

A cover letter, paired with a table of contents, makes for a great couple. When combined, they are a perfect way to help set your audience up mentally for what they’re about to read.

To enhance reader experience, consider making your Table of Contents (TOC) clickable. This allows readers to easily navigate between sections of your proposal.

7. Use a Template

In a lot of ways, project proposals are all about making the best impression possible. Establishing a proposal using a pre-built template can help keep everyone on the same (virtual) page. It also helps keep your template looking modern and visually eye-catching. When in doubt, use a template .

Even more, use AI-backed tools like Visme’s AI document generator . Use the chatbot prompt to describe what your project proposal needs to include and the tool will suggest a number of styles based on Visme templates. Choose one and let the AI save you time and effort to create a first draft for your project proposal.

Q. Project Proposal vs. Project Charter

A project proposal is a preliminary document used to secure approval and funding for a project. The proposal typically includes a high-level overview of the project, a description of the problem or opportunity the project addresses, the proposed solution, the expected outcomes, and the cost and resource estimates.

On the other hand, a project charter is a formal document used to initiate and manage the project once it has been approved. ​​

The purpose of a project charter is to provide a clear, concise, and shared understanding of the project and its objectives and to establish a framework for project management and decision-making. The charter is typically created after the project proposal has been approved, and it provides a more detailed and specific plan for the project.

Q. What Is the Difference Between a Project Proposal and a Project?

A project proposal and a project are two distinct concepts in project management.

A project proposal is a document that outlines the plan for a proposed project. It describes what the project is about, what needs to be done, and how it will be done.

A project on the other hand, is the actual work that is carried out to achieve the objectives outlined in the project proposal. It is a specific set of activities that are planned, executed, and monitored to achieve a specific goal within a defined timeline and budget.

Q. What Are the Two Types of Proposals?

The two types of proposals are solicited proposals and unsolicited proposals .

Solicited proposals are those that are requested by a client or organization. The client typically issues a Request for Proposal (RFP) that outlines the requirements and specifications for the project and invites interested parties to submit proposals in response.

Solicited proposals are usually more structured and formal, as they need to address the specific needs and requirements outlined in the RFP.

Unsolicited proposals, on the other hand, are submitted without a formal request or invitation. These proposals are typically used to pitch an idea, product or service to a potential client or organization and persuade them to consider a partnership or collaboration. This type of proposal is usually less structured and formal.

Q. What Are the 6 Types of Project Proposals?

As highlighted in the article, the six types of project proposals include:

• Unsolicited project proposals
• Solicited project proposals
• Informal project proposals
• Renewal project proposals
• Continuation project proposals
• Supplemental project proposals

Q. What Are the 4 C’s in Proposal?

The 4 C's in a proposal refer to the key components that should be included to make a winning proposal.

Customer-focused: A good proposal should be customer-focused, meaning it should be tailored to meet the specific needs and requirements of the customer.

Clear: The proposal should be clear and concise, with a well-defined structure and logical flow. It should be easy to read and understand. Try to avoid technical jargon or unnecessary complexity.

Compelling: The proposal should be compelling, capturing the customer's attention and persuading them to take action. Make sure to use persuasive language, compelling visuals, and a well-crafted value proposition.

Competitive: The proposal should be competitive, meaning it should demonstrate how your solution is superior to that of your competition. You can achieve this by highlighting your unique selling proposition, competitive advantages, and value proposition. Also, include a clear pricing strategy and demonstrate good value for money.

Q. How Long Should a Project Proposal Be?

The length of a project proposal can vary depending on the complexity and scope of the project.

However, as a general rule, a project proposal should be concise and to the point while still providing enough information to fully describe the project, including the purpose, scope, objectives, deliverables, timelines, budget, and potential impact.

A typical project proposal can range from 5 to 20 pages, although it can be shorter or longer depending on the funding organization's requirements or the nature of the project.

Q. What Is The Format of a Proposal?

The basic proposal writing format is as follows:

• An executive summary to introduce the proposal.
• The project’s background and the problem it aims to solve.
• The potential and expected solutions the project offers.
• A list of project deliverables that will be done at the end of the project.
• A request for resources to complete the project.
• Financial metrics to highlight a budget and costs.
• Review and conclusion to close the proposal.

You can create a proposal as a document or as a presentation. Both options are viewable as flipbooks, when created with Visme.

When it comes to proposal writing and designing, it’s in your best interest to follow a formula that’s tried and true. Stick to what your clients expect from you and add a dose of your brand personality through the messaging.

Make the best impression possible and get one step closer to your goal by using a visually striking and compelling professional proposal template from Visme. Then, deploy all the design and business features to plan, create, share and manage all sorts of content within the platform.

Start creating your project proposal today with our free and easy-to-use tool.

Put together compelling proposals in seconds using Visme

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How to Write a Project Plan: Template and Examples

Create a blueprint for your project and keep the stakeholders aligned.

Starting a new project is exciting – it may be tempting to jump straight into it and figure things out as you go along.

But going in without a plan is bound to result in chaos. At best, your team members will charge ahead without fully understanding how their work fits in. At worst, they won't even know where to start.

Poor planning is cited as one of the main reasons behind failed projects, but it doesn't have to be this way. Let's dive deeper into what a project plan looks like and how it should be written.

What is a project plan?

Project plan example, project plan template, how to create a project plan.

A project plan is a structured document that defines the project goals and specifies how these goals will be achieved. PRINCE2 , a structured project management method adopted in many countries worldwide, formally defines a project plan as a "statement of how and when a project's objectives are to be achieved, by showing the major products, milestones, activities, and resources required on the project".

A project plan is prepared by the project manager (often based on the previously approved project proposal ) and serves as a roadmap and a single source of truth for the team. It is a living document that evolves together with the project, capturing all changes and decisions and facilitating communication among project stakeholders.

What should be included in a project plan

When most people hear "project plan", they tend to imagine a gantt chart – but a visual timeline is only a small part of it. A thorough project plan needs to cover several important topics, including:

Objective & motivation : Why are you investing resources into this project?

Deliverables : What needs to be accomplished at the end of the project?

Scope : What is relevant to the success of the project? What is excluded?

Budget : What are the cost estimates for delivering this project?

Tasks & responsibilities: What are the specific tasks that need to be carried out? Who will be responsible for them?

Timeline & milestones : What are the main phases of the project? When does each phase start and end?

There are hundreds of project plan examples online – many of them are in the form of flashy, colorful diagrams, spreadsheets, and timelines. They may be pretty to look at, but are they practical?

A project plan should not look like a slide out of a sales deck. Its goal is not to dazzle its audience, but to be as clear and informative as possible in order to keep all stakeholders on the same page.

Here's an example of what a project plan could look like in Nuclino :

Nuclino is a unified workspace where you can not only plan, document, and manage your projects, but also build your internal knowledge base , collaborate on internal documentation , onboard new employees , take meeting minutes , and more. Rather than using a tool like Trello to manage your projects and a separate software like Google Docs to document them, with Nuclino you can bring it all together in one place and collaborate without the chaos of files and folders, context switching, or silos.

Using a project plan template is an easy way to save time and ensure that your project documentation stays consistent. Although project plans differ from company to company, the high-level structure is usually the same.

Remember – a project plan is supposed to be a living document . It's not something you write once at the beginning of the project and then set in stone.

A project plan needs to be collaboratively maintained and kept up-to-date by all stakeholders – that means that it can't be hidden away in some folder on your hard drive. Pick a project documentation tool that supports real-time collaboration and is easily accessible to your entire team.

Once you have the right tool in place, start with the broad strokes and refine the details as the project takes shape.

Define the scope and objectives

Begin by outlining the goals of your project – think of it as a business case that needs to provide answers to the following questions:

Why is this project being initiated?

What are the underlying hypotheses?

What will be the ideal outcome and the ROI?

Define the roles and responsibilities

Next, you need to identify the project stakeholders – the ones who are responsible for its success. After you get the initial buy-in from them, you can define roles and assign responsibilities. In some cases, one person can fill multiple roles, while in others, multiple people may hold identical roles.

Set milestones and create a timeline

Now, it's time to break down the work that needs to be done into manageable blocks. Consider the goals you set earlier and derive a list of activities needed to achieve them. These activities need to be mapped to specific milestones and organized chronologically in a timeline. Milestone deadlines do not have to be exact dates, but the more precise, the better.

Hold a kick-off meeting

Much of the work until this point can be done asynchronously , but at a certain point, you need to bring all stakeholders together and align on the details. Use this opportunity to review the project plan and ensure that the team shares the same vision for the project. Prepare a meeting agenda and share it with the stakeholders in advance, as soon as you schedule the meeting .

After the first iteration of your project plan is finalized, don't rush to laminate it. No matter how thorough your research has been, it's highly likely that some of your estimations of cost, time, or scope will need to be corrected. But as long as you review the project plan regularly, keep it up-to-date, and preserve a log of all decisions, it can be a highly efficient project planning tool for keeping your project on track.

Nuclino : Your team's collective brain

Nuclino brings all your team's knowledge, docs, and projects together in one place. It's a modern, simple, and blazingly fast way to collaborate, without the chaos of files and folders, context switching, or silos.

Create a central knowledge base and give your team a single source of truth.

Collaborate in real time or asynchronously and spend less time in meetings.

Manage and document your projects in one place without losing context.

Organize, sort, and filter all kinds of data with ease.

Integrate the tools you love , like Slack, Google Drive, Figma, Lucidchart, and more.

Ready to get started?

• Why Nuclino?
• Apps & Integrations
• Sidekick (AI)

The Project Approach: Display and Documentation Techniques

This list contains a variety of resources associated with the project approach, as well as display and documentation techniques for parents, caregivers, and teachers.

Table of Contents

IEL Resources

Web resources.

• Project Approach: Anticipating What Children Might Learn
• Project Approach: Children Taking Surveys
• Project Approach for Preschoolers
• Project Approach: Helping Children Ask Questions
• Project Approach: Helping Preschoolers Represent What They Learn
• Project Approach: Including Every Child
• Project Approach: Phase 1—Getting Started
• Project Approach: Phase 1—Choosing a Topic to Investigate
• Project Approach: Phase 2—Getting Ready for Fieldwork
• Project Approach: Phase 2—Doing Fieldwork
• Project Approach: Phase 3—Concluding the Project
• Journey into the Project Approach

This article describes why documentation is important in early childhood education.

This article shares the perspective of a teacher on how she implemented the project approach in her inclusive classroom in a preschool that had a history of structured, teacher-driven curriculum.

This article explains the purpose of documentation and how the different stages of documentation support the learning and understanding of young children.

This website, managed by the Educators Institute at Duke School in collaboration with Sylvia Chard, is dedicated to providing information about the Project Approach. It offers theory, structure, and examples of the Project Approach, as well as resources and tools that teachers and administrators can use, including: an overview of the theoretical framework and history; explanations of how to develop and implement project work; examples of projects conducted in classrooms worldwide; information about upcoming seminars, workshops, and other forms of professional development; a study guide that helps participants understand the definition and applications of the Project Approach and walks them through the process of developing and implementing a project in the classroom. 

This Q and A focuses on how documentation is used in American early childhood centers, and how it can differ from the Reggio approach.

About this resource

• Preschool Program
• Teachers / Service providers
• Preschoolers (Age 3 Through Age 5)
• Documentation
• Project Approach

How to write a good software design doc

by Angela Zhang

As a software engineer, I spend a lot of time reading and writing design documents. After having gone through hundreds of these docs, I’ve seen first hand a strong correlation between good design docs and the ultimate success of the project.

This article is my attempt at describing what makes a design document great .

The article is split into 4 sections:

• Why write a design document
• What to include in a design document

How to write it

• The process around it

Why write a design document?

A design doc — also known as a technical spec — is a description of how you plan to solve a problem.

There are lots of writings already on why it’s important to write a design doc before diving into coding. So all I’ll say here is:

A design doc is the most useful tool for making sure the right work gets done.

The main goal of a design doc is to make you more effective by forcing you to think through the design and gather feedback from others. People often think the point of a design doc is to to teach others about some system or serve as documentation later on. While those can be beneficial side effects, they are not the goal in and of themselves.

As a general rule of thumb, if you are working on a project that might take 1 engineer-month or more, you should write a design doc. But don’t stop there — a lot of smaller projects could benefit from a mini design doc too.

Great! If you are still reading, you believe in the importance of design docs. However, different engineering teams, and even engineers within the same team, often write design docs very differently. So let’s talk about the content, style, and process of a good design doc.

What to include in a design doc?

A design doc describes the solution to a problem. Since the nature of each problem is different, naturally you’d want to structure your design doc differently.

To start, the following is a list of sections that you should at least consider including in your next design doc:

Title and People

The title of your design doc, the author(s) (should be the same as the list of people planning to work on this project), the reviewer(s) of the doc (we’ll talk more about that in the Process section below), and the date this document was last updated.

A high level summary that every engineer at the company should understand and use to decide if it’s useful for them to read the rest of the doc. It should be 3 paragraphs max.

A description of the problem at hand, why this project is necessary, what people need to know to assess this project, and how it fits into the technical strategy, product strategy, or the team’s quarterly goals.

Goals and Non-Goals

The Goals section should:

• describe the user-driven impact of your project — where your user might be another engineering team or even another technical system
• specify how to measure success using metrics — bonus points if you can link to a dashboard that tracks those metrics

Non-Goals are equally important to describe which problems you won’t be fixing so everyone is on the same page.

A list of measurable checkpoints, so your PM and your manager’s manager can skim it and know roughly when different parts of the project will be done. I encourage you to break the project down into major user-facing milestones if the project is more than 1 month long.

Use calendar dates so you take into account unrelated delays, vacations, meetings, and so on. It should look something like this:

Start Date: June 7, 2018 Milestone 1 — New system MVP running in dark-mode: June 28, 2018 Milestone 2 - Retire old system: July 4th, 2018 End Date: Add feature X, Y, Z to new system: July 14th, 2018

Add an [Update] subsection here if the ETA of some of these milestone changes, so the stakeholders can easily see the most up-to-date estimates.

Existing Solution

In addition to describing the current implementation, you should also walk through a high level example flow to illustrate how users interact with this system and/or how data flow through it.

A user story is a great way to frame this. Keep in mind that your system might have different types of users with different use cases.

Proposed Solution

Some people call this the Technical Architecture section. Again, try to walk through a user story to concretize this. Feel free to include many sub-sections and diagrams.

Provide a big picture first, then fill in lots of details. Aim for a world where you can write this, then take a vacation on some deserted island, and another engineer on the team can just read it and implement the solution as you described.

Alternative Solutions

What else did you consider when coming up with the solution above? What are the pros and cons of the alternatives? Have you considered buying a 3rd-party solution — or using an open source one — that solves this problem as opposed to building your own?

Testability, Monitoring and Alerting

I like including this section, because people often treat this as an afterthought or skip it all together, and it almost always comes back to bite them later when things break and they have no idea how or why.

Cross-Team Impact

How will this increase on call and dev-ops burden? How much money will it cost? Does it cause any latency regression to the system? Does it expose any security vulnerabilities? What are some negative consequences and side effects? How might the support team communicate this to the customers?

Open Questions

Any open issues that you aren’t sure about, contentious decisions that you’d like readers to weigh in on, suggested future work, and so on. A tongue-in-cheek name for this section is the “known unknowns”.

Detailed Scoping and Timeline

This section is mostly going to be read only by the engineers working on this project, their tech leads, and their managers. Hence this section is at the end of the doc.

Essentially, this is the breakdown of how and when you plan on executing each part of the project. There’s a lot that goes into scoping accurately, so you can read this post to learn more about scoping.

I tend to also treat this section of the design doc as an ongoing project task tracker, so I update this whenever my scoping estimate changes. But that’s more of a personal preference.

Now that we’ve talked about what goes into a good design doc, let’s talk about the style of writing. I promise this is different than your high school English class.

Write as simply as possible

Don’t try to write like the academic papers you’ve read. They are written to impress journal reviewers. Your doc is written to describe your solution and get feedback from your teammates. You can achieve clarity by using:

• Simple words
• Short sentences
• Bulleted lists and/or numbered lists
• Concrete examples, like “User Alice connects her bank account, then …”

Add lots of charts and diagrams

Charts can often be useful to compare several potential options, and diagrams are generally easier to parse than text. I’ve had good luck with Google Drawing for creating diagrams.

Pro Tip: remember to add a link to the editable version of the diagram under the screenshot, so you can easily update it later when things inevitably change.

Include numbers

The scale of the problem often determines the solution. To help reviewers get a sense of the state of the world, include real numbers like # of DB rows, # of user errors, latency — and how these scale with usage. Remember your Big-O notations?

Try to be funny

A spec is not an academic paper. Also, people like reading funny things, so this is a good way to keep the reader engaged. Don’t overdo this to the point of taking away from the core idea though.

If you, like me, have trouble being funny, Joel Spolsky ( obviously known for his comedic talents…) has this tip:

One of the easiest ways to be funny is to be specific when it’s not called for [… Example:] Instead of saying “special interests,” say “left-handed avacado farmers.”

Do the Skeptic Test

Before sending your design doc to others to review, take a pass at it pretending to be the reviewer. What questions and doubts might you have about this design? Then address them preemptively.

Do the Vacation Test

If you go on a long vacation now with no internet access, can someone on your team read the doc and implement it as you intended?

The main goal of a design doc is not knowledge sharing, but this is a good way to evaluate for clarity so that others can actually give you useful feedback.

Ah yes, the dreaded P-word . Design docs help you get feedback before you waste a bunch of time implementing the wrong solution or the solution to the wrong problem. There’s a lot of art to getting good feedback, but that’s for a later article. For now, let’s just talk specifically about how to write the design doc and get feedback for it.

First of all, everyone working on the project should be a part of the design process. It’s okay if the tech lead ends up driving a lot of the decisions, but everyone should be involved in the discussion and buy into the design. So the “you” throughout this article is a really plural “you” that includes all the people on the project.

Secondly, the design process doesn’t mean you staring at the whiteboard theorizing ideas. Feel free to get your hands dirty and prototype potential solutions. This is not the same as starting to write production code for the project before writing a design doc. Don’t do that. But you absolutely should feel free to write some hacky throwaway code to validate an idea. To ensure that you only write exploratory code, make it a rule that none of this prototype code gets merged to master .

After that, as you start to have some idea of how to go about your project, do the following:

• Ask an experienced engineer or tech lead on your team to be your reviewer. Ideally this would be someone who’s well respected and/or familiar with the edge cases of the problem. Bribe them with boba if necessary.
• Go into a conference room with a whiteboard.
• Describe the problem that you are tackling to this engineer (this is a very important step, don’t skip it!).
• Then explain the implementation you have in mind, and convince them this is the right thing to build.

Doing all of this before you even start writing your design doc lets you get feedback as soon as possible, before you invest more time and get attached to any specific solution. Often, even if the implementation stays the same, your reviewer is able to point out corner cases you need to cover, indicate any potential areas of confusion, and anticipate difficulties you might encounter later on.

Then, after you’ve written a rough draft of your design doc, get the same reviewer to read through it again, and rubber stamp it by adding their name as the reviewer in the Title and People section of the design doc. This creates additional incentive and accountability for the reviewer.

On that note, consider adding specialized reviewers (such as SREs and security engineers) for specific aspects of the design.

Once you and the reviewer(s) sign off, feel free to send the design doc to your team for additional feedback and knowledge sharing. I suggest time-bounding this feedback gathering process to about 1 week to avoid extended delays. Commit to addressing all questions and comments people leave within that week. Leaving comments hanging = bad karma.

Lastly, if there’s a lot of contention between you, your reviewer, and other engineers reading the doc, I strongly recommend consolidating all the points of contention in the Discussion section of your doc. Then, set up a meeting with the different parties to talk about these disagreements in person.

Whenever a discussion thread is more than 5 comments long, moving to an in-person discussion tends to be far more efficient. Keep in mind that you are still responsible for making the final call, even if everyone can’t come to a consensus.

In talking to Shrey Banga recently about this, I learned that Quip has a similar process, except in addition to having an experienced engineer or tech lead on your team as a reviewer, they also suggest having an engineer on a different team review the doc. I haven’t tried this, but I can certainly see this helping get feedback from people with different perspectives and improve the general readability of the doc.

Once you’ve done all the above, time to get going on the implementation! For extra brownie points, treat this design doc as a living document as you implement the design . Update the doc every time you learn something that leads to you making changes to the original solution or update your scoping. You’ll thank me later when you don’t have to explain things over and over again to all your stakeholders.

Finally, let’s get really meta for a second: How do we evaluate the success of a design doc?

My coworker Kent Rakip has a good answer to this: A design doc is successful if the right ROI of work is done. That means a successful design doc might actually lead to an outcome like this:

• You spend 5 days writing the design doc, this forces you to think through different parts of the technical architecture
• You get feedback from reviewers that X is the riskiest part of the proposed architecture
• You decide to implement X first to de-risk the project
• 3 days later, you figure out that X is either not possible, or far more difficult than you originally intended
• You decide to stop working on this project and prioritize other work instead

At the beginning of this article, we said the goal of a design doc is to make sure the right work gets done. In the example above, thanks to this design doc, instead of wasting potentially months only to abort this project later, you’ve only spent 8 days. Seems like a pretty successful outcome to me.

Please leave a comment below if you have any questions or feedback! I’d also love to hear about how you do design docs differently in your team.

Giving credit where credit is due, I learned a lot of the above by working alongside some incredible engineers at Plaid ( we are hiring! Come design and build some sweet technical systems with us) and Quora .

If you like this post, follow me on Twitter for more posts on engineering, processes, and backend systems.

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How to document a process: 9 steps and best practices

Here’s why process documentation is actually… fun

Ok, hear us out: Documentation is cool. Like, really cool. 

We never thought we’d be stoked to write a blog post about process documentation. It just sounds dull.

But we’re here to tell you: There is fun to be had, people. Here’s why.

For the past five years, we’ve been on global teams that prioritize written communication over meetings. And we absolutely rely on written process documentation to get our work done.

What is process documentation?

Process documentation is the creation of a written record that outlines procedures and tasks within an organization. Our favorite use is internal process documentation, but we’ll chat a bit more about customer-facing process docs in a sec.

Effective internal process documentation frameworks make sure all workflows and processes are documented, and stored centrally. Teams save time with standardization through templates, and articulated approaches for creating and maintaining documents. It’s one way knowledge workers can find freedom from the drudgery of meetings, and clarity in their work tasks.

Types of internal process documentation include: 

• Onboarding documentation
• Product development lifecycle
• Marketing checklists

Types of external (customer-facing) process documentation include:

• Customer support articles
• API guides for developers to integrate with a product

Related: What is process documentation (and how can it help your team?)

Before you get into the weeds of writing long-form documentation that makes everyone’s eyes glaze over, let’s think about the why.

Why are we documenting processes? 

It’s important to maintain a single source of truth on how to clearly explain tasks in a written format. Successful process documentation offers clear expectations, increases alignment among team members, and offers clear step-by-step instruction on how to complete tasks. 

Getting right down to it — we can’t count the number of meetings we’ve been in over our careers where a smarty-pants facilitator has started spewing out highly technical jargon, as if everyone should just know what it means. This situation quickly becomes one person talking at the attendees rather than a fun or helpful exchange of energy. 

The chances of the attendees staying focused and retaining the information? Not great.

What would happen if we all stopped trying to sound so dang smart? We've already got the job; we don’t need to prove ourselves. We do need to communicate clearly, simply, and effectively.

The goal of process documentation is to communicate a technical topic in a digestible way so that the readers can complete the documented task.

External process documentation bridges the communication gap between the knowledge keeper (the smarty-pants expert) and the learners (end-users). Something else to keep in mind: If someone is at your help center reading support articles? They’re likely already frustrated or confused. So, let’s help reduce friction for them.

Did you know that the goal of technical documentation should be a readability level of 6th-8th grade? To put that into context: We’re aiming for readability along the lines of Harry Potter books. 

So, how can you (as a person who knows the product in and out) write steps in a simple, clear way? Here are a few of our favorite tricks for writing good — nay great — process documentation:

• Play make-believe! Pretend you’re a newbie who’s never used the process or feature before. Keep track of any sticky points that might feel confusing, or go a different direction from what the feature requires. 
• Document every darn step, from the beginning to the end! If you built a feature, workflow, or integration, you may think, “Oh, this part is easy – the end-user will just know how to do it.” False! Refuse to skip steps. Remember: You're not writing this for you. You’re writing this for an end-user who may be new or frazzled. Clear = kind.
• Only use images, GIFs, or videos as sprinkles! Process docs should be complete and accurate without any added media. We want a process doc to be a delicious, flavorful cake with no missing ingredients. Only use images, GIFs, or videos to support steps that are already thorough and clear. 
• Correct : “To Rick Roll your colleague, send them to the Rick Roll YouTube video .”
• Incorrect : “Click here to Rick Roll someone.”

Process documentation is more than “nice to have” – it’s essential. And, heck yea, it’s fun.

Process documentation is essential for effective async work

At its core, process documentation is effective asynchronous work. Written information sharing promotes transparency and collaboration. Instead of relying on team members' time – or waiting around for colleagues who are on vacation or in a different time zone – documentation increases efficiency on hybrid teams.

Without documentation of our processes, team members are left to their own devices, lots of time is wasted, and lots of questions are asked. Directing everyone to the same single source of truth that is an active, living document means clarifying questions can be answered async, and saves the time from long meetings or constant pings.

Related: 6 essential steps to build an async-first culture

What are some challenges of process documentation?

Information overload.

Creating and reading documentation can feel tedious, dry, and overwhelming. Who wants to feel bored and stressed at the same time?

Not maintained

Documentation can help us feel connected, and give us access to info without relying on people. But, if not maintained properly, can be frustrating.

Time-consuming

Your team might (or might not) see the benefits of effective process documentation, but the short-term effort of reading or writing can feel like a time suck.

What are some benefits of process documentation?

Process improvement.

When a team takes the time to carefully describe their processes, extra steps or missing tasks become quickly evident. Take pains to make sure that every step of your process is included in your documentation and that any additional context necessary is available.

Autonomy for workers

Documentation of processes can be empowering. Quick access to information gives workers autonomy and freedom, instead of relying on the availability of others to share answers.

Centralized knowledge

Another time saver, centralizing your team’s collective knowledge and expertise in one place creates efficiency. Also, knowledge sharing improves collaboration and cohesion both within your team, and cross-functionally. 

Training and onboarding

It’s incredibly helpful for new hires to quickly learn the roles of internal processes, or to communicate changes to processes, if everything is articulated — and visualized.

Collaborative input

In an era of hybrid and remote work, collaboration on documents is async work; it’s a way to communicate and collaborate with your team, and allow for input and feedback.

What does good process documentation look like?

​​Good process documentation is essential for providing efficiency, consistency, and accountability in business operations. Here’s what effective process documentation typically looks like:

Clear and concise

Good documentation should be straightforward and easy to understand. It avoids jargon and overly technical language unless absolutely necessary, making it accessible to all intended users. Each step is clearly defined, leaving no room for ambiguity.

Comprehensive

It covers all aspects of the process, from start to finish, including inputs, outputs, and the steps required to complete the process. It also identifies the roles and responsibilities of everyone involved, ensuring that each participant knows what's expected of them.

Visually organized

Incorporating visual elements such as flowcharts, diagrams, and tables can make the documentation easier to follow than blocks of text. Visual aids help in breaking down complex processes into understandable parts, making it easier for users to follow the workflow.

Related: 5 ways visual task management benefits your team

Easily accessible

The documentation should be easily accessible to all stakeholders involved in the process. This could be through a shared digital platform or physical copies in necessary areas. Accessibility ensures that everyone can refer to the document as needed to understand their role and responsibilities.

Regularly updated

Processes evolve, and so should their documentation. Good process documentation is regularly reviewed and updated to reflect any changes. This ensures that‌ your documentation remains relevant and useful, preventing outdated practices from persisting.

Effective documentation not only describes what needs to be done — but also how to do it. It includes step-by-step instructions that are actionable and practical. This helps in minimizing errors and increasing efficiency in executing the process.

Feedback mechanism

There should be a way for users to provide feedback on the process documentation itself. This could be through regular reviews or a feedback section in the document. Feedback helps identify areas for improvement and makes sure the documentation evolves to meet the needs of its users.

Compliance and standards

Good documentation adheres to relevant standards and complies with legal and regulatory requirements. This is crucial in industries that are heavily regulated, as non-compliance can lead to serious consequences.

Security and confidentiality

Processes that handle sensitive information should have documentation that respects and outlines necessary security measures and confidentiality protocols. This makes sure that sensitive data is handled appropriately and in compliance with privacy laws and regulations.

9 steps to document a process

1. determine your goals.

What process needs to be documented? What is the scope and level at which you are describing the process? Like any effective asynchronous collaboration, first it’s critical to set aside time to plan before you begin the creation process.

2. Identify stakeholders

Who'll contribute to the creation of the documentation, and who is the end reader? What knowledge do they currently possess, and what knowledge do they need to gain? At Mural, we leverage the DACI (Driver, Approver, Contributor, Informed) framework to articulate stakeholders for especially complex process documentation.

3. Draft the process

Create an outline using basic tasks or steps. Allow space for additional input. Consider asking individuals who frequently complete process tasks to take notes in the flow of work. Jen suggests using numbered lists for process steps that must occur in a specific order. 

4. Gather initial feedback

While you can immediately jump into writing, an iterative approach means you include contributors early in the creation. Tag stakeholders in comments in a doc or a mural, or brainstorm live in a meeting. We recommend:

• Having a few selected SMEs (subject matter experts) on each project. Too many “cooks in the kitchen” (too many opinions) can lead to ongoing back-and-forth rather than true progress. The DACI framework helps prevent this issue.
• Setting a clear turnaround time for feedback. 

5. Write detailed instructions

Document every step, from beginning to end. Jen recommends the following best practices for technical writing: 

• Know your audience. Assume no one knows what the hell you're talking about. Know your audience. Ask yourself: “Who am I writing this for?”
• Keep it short. Multiple short sentences make content easier to digest. If you have to take a breath while reading a sentence aloud, you likely need to slice the sentence into two or three shorter sentences.
• Spell out acronyms. Always spell out the first instance of acronyms. For example, “You might choose to integrate Mural with your company’s SSO (single sign-on) solution. SSO allows your employees to authenticate into Mural using their company SSO credentials."
• Clarify general pronouns. Clarify general pronouns like it , that , they . Confusion arises when documentation refers to more than one feature or app, but then uses a pronoun like "it" without specifying which feature or app "it" refers to.

6. Add visuals

Visuals can make your documentation more engaging and provide helpful cues for your readers. But visuals should only be supplemental — ideally, documentation should be clear and complete without visuals. Remember! Visuals are just the extra sprinkles to add to an already finished, yummy process documentation cake.

7. Gather final feedback

Simple process documents might only require one round of feedback, but more complex processes might need multiple rounds of editing. Ask your stakeholders for feedback on the technical accuracy of the content. Then, make sure to proofread or have a copyeditor review for grammar, punctuation, and readability.

8. Share with your team

Make sure your process is documented in an accessible location, whether an accessible folder in Mural, or a shared documentation space. Consider how you communicate the documented process. Would it be better to offer a quick demo in a team meeting, or share a video walkthrough on key points?

9. Create a maintenance schedule

Pre-schedule recurring meetings or tasks to review and edit your documented process. You can also have annual or quarterly “documentation days.” Teams take inventory of all their internal process docs and work together to get everything updated. Make it fun - wear pjs, bring a beverage, or take laptops outside!

Improve your process documentation and level up your teamwork with Mural’s Professional Services 

The Mural Professional Services team offers decades of combined experience across process-building, workflows, and asynchronous collaboration.

Get in touch to see how we can tailor a solution that directly addresses your team’s needs today.  

About the authors

Katie Scheuer

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Project Scope Statement: How to Write One With Examples

Table of Contents

What is a project scope statement, how to write a project scope statement, project scope statement sample, project scope statement examples, project scope statement vs. scope of work, scope statement vs. scope management plan.

The scope of a project is the sum of all the work that needs to be executed. A project scope statement helps project managers define the boundaries of what will and what won’t be done. But scope statements aren’t just about work management.

To write a project scope statement, you’ll need to understand the project goals, work breakdown structure and requirements, among other things. Then, once you’ve defined your project scope, you can create a scope document.

A scope statement is a document that defines all the elements of the project scope as well as assumptions, project requirements and acceptance criteria. Your project scope statement will act as the primary tool for stakeholders and teammates to reference and use as a guideline to accurately measure project success.

A project scope statement is part of the scope management plan , a larger document that contains all the strategies, rules and procedures to manage your project scope. In the same way, the scope management plan is an important component of your project plan.

Get your free

Project Scope Template

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

Now that we know what a project scope statement is, let’s learn how to write this important project management document. Similar to the five Ws of journalism—who, what, when, where, why—to properly outline your project scope statement, you must address these seven things:

1. Project Goals & Objectives

Project goals and objectives are what define the purpose of a project. Project objectives are the smaller steps that lead to the project goals, which are broader. Start your project scope document by explaining them. These goals and objectives should be documented in a project charter , too.

2. Project Requirements

Project managers and stakeholders must reach an agreement about the project scope and other project requirements such as the expected quality, risk, benefits and cost, among others.

3. Project Scope Description

It might sound easy enough, but this is the most important step. Here is where you’ll define your project scope, which is all the work that needs to be done to complete the project. Here are some simple steps to help you define the project scope.

• Use a work breakdown structure to visualize all your project tasks, deliverables, and milestones.
• List what’s within the scope of your project, and what’s out of scope. Everything that’s not included in the project scope is known as project exclusions.
• Identify project constraints, which are all the limitations such as time or cost.
• Create a scope baseline to compare your actual progress to the planned project scope.

Project exclusions and constraints are essential because they help establish boundaries for the project to exist. They also manage your stakeholders’ expectations/input and give your team members some creative limitations to work within.

4. Project Exclusions

While it’s imperative that you define the boundaries around what the project includes from the outset, it’s also extremely important that you list what this project doesn’t include. For example:

• Application updates that are planned for a later project and are intentionally not included in this project
• Restricted or rescheduled customer access to certain support lines/product features

5. Project Constraints

Project constraints are what make managing projects such a puzzle to solve. The top three constraints to managing any project are typically time, money and scope, known as the triple constraint of project management. They’re interconnected, meaning that if you pull one lever on ‘scope,’ another lever on ‘money’ or ‘time’ will also move.

But there are additional project constraints that can crop up at any time, including risk, resources, organization, method, customers and more. List all the constraints you foresee in your project, so you can try to have solutions in place ready to launch when needed.

6. Project Assumptions

Your project assumptions typically revolve around the very things that end up being constraints, including time, money and scope. For example, it’s in this section of your project scope document, “the front-end development team will be available during this project time period,” or, “the customer support team will receive new product training by x time.” It’s important to list these out as this won’t only tell key stakeholders what your primary resource needs are to make the project go, but it also gives you fast insight as to where your biggest risk factors lie.

7. Project Deliverables

List out the deliverables your team members need to produce in order to meet business objectives. This can include the product itself, instruction and installation manuals, marketing materials, press releases, advertising campaigns and more.

Your project scope statement outline helps act as a marker as you build out your full scope statement. Because while predicting the future of the project is impossible at such a high level, this is the first step to getting your project as close to the outcome as possible. By starting with the seven key statements above, you can get a head start on a successful project.

Gantt charts are the workhorses of scope management. However, most Gantt chart software is woefully limited in terms of its functionality. ProjectManager has dynamic online Gantt charts that do the regular organizing, prioritizing and linking dependencies and adding milestones. But unlike other tools, you can filter for the critical path. When you set the baseline, you’re able to compare your actual progress to what you had planned. There’s no better way to monitor project scope.

To better understand what the project scope statement is, we thought it’d be helpful to visualize it using our free project scope template for Word as a project scope statement example. As you can see, it has the basic project scoping information on top and then goes into a general justification for the project’s need and how it’ll fulfill that.

Then we get into the main part of the project scope statement, such as what will be in scope and out of scope for the project. This creates boundaries for the project and makes clear what is essential and must be prioritized.

Now we get into explanations of the business objectives, such as targets that the project needs to hit in order to be successful, and the deliverables that’ll be produced over the life cycle of the project.

From there, you’ll describe project exclusions, issues of time, cost, scope, risk, resources and so on that could constrain it and whatever is assumed to be done in the project.

Finally, you’ll go into costs. The project scope statement is going to estimate the costs and list them all, including the estimated cost, the actual cost and the cost on completion of the project. Then you can show the variance, which is the difference between the estimated cost and the actual cost.

Now let’s review two simple project scope statement examples to better understand how a scope statement can be used in different industries.

Construction Project Scope Statement Example

Defining the scope of a project is one of the most important steps in the project planning process . In construction, defining the scope helps construction project owners, contractors and subcontractors not only reach an agreement on what the construction project will look like but also create an accurate project cost estimate based on the work, materials, equipment and labor that’ll be required.

• Project Goals & Objectives: Build a residential construction project, an apartment complex that will generate revenue for the construction firm.
• Project Requirements: Architects, engineers and construction project managers will work on the construction design to determine the specifications and requirements for the project. These include quality standards for construction materials and safety requirements, among others. To have a clear understanding of what these project requirements will look like, they’ll need to create a set of construction drawings and construction documents such as blueprints, a bill of quantities and computer-assisted designs.
• Project Scope Description: Once there’s a design for the building, the project scope can be defined by using a work breakdown structure that’ll allow the construction management team to zoom into the types of tasks that will need to be executed, such as masonry, plumbing, electrical and other types of construction activities.
• Project Exclusions: One of the most important things when writing a scope statement is to state what activities won’t be executed, known as project exclusions. Clearly explaining this helps avoid misunderstandings down the road.
• Project Constraints: In project management, there are three traditional project constraints; time, scope and cost. However, there are even more project constraints that can affect a construction project, such as resources, quality and risk. For any construction project, there will be constraints that need to be factored in during the project planning phase such as environmental concerns, local regulations and building codes.
• Project Assumptions: In any project, there are assumptions that subject matter experts will draw before the construction phase begins. These are usually things beyond the control of the construction management team, such as weather conditions, availability of suppliers and the ability of the team to complete work within the planned time frame. These assumptions will be proven true or false once the work begins.
• Project Deliverables: As previously stated, the construction project involves different types of work such as HVAC, electrical work, woodwork and masonry, among others. Each of these construction crews or subcontractors will be responsible for producing many project deliverables throughout the construction phase.

Manufacturing Project Scope Statement Example

Manufacturing projects generally involve the production of physical products. This takes a series of steps needed to transform raw materials into finished goods. Here’s a simple scope statement example for manufacturing.

• Project Goals & Objectives: Create a finished product based on market research and the strategic planning of the company.
• Project Requirements: There will be internal and external requirements for the development and manufacturing of your product. In terms of internal requirements, think about the concerns of your company stakeholders who will want low production costs, high profit margins and the shortest time possible to get a return on their investment. In terms of external requirements, consider the competition in your market and the preferences of your target customers such as the quality, price and features they expect from your product.
• Project Scope Description: The project scope in this case will summarize the different activities that are part of the production cycle. This includes the product development process, the procurement and transportation of raw materials, parts and components from suppliers to the production line, the assembling process, quality control procedures and the distribution channels that’ll be utilized to bring the product to the market.
• Project Exclusions: It’s important to explain to your stakeholders exactly what features will be included in your product as well as the quality standards that will be followed. Product documentation such as a bill of materials is ideal to define your project exclusions.
• Project Constraints: There will be project constraints specific to manufacturing such as limited production capacity, resource availability, customer demand and machinery maintenance.
• Project Assumptions: Brainstorm with different departments involved with the product, such as marketing, sales, production and maintenance to draft as many project assumptions as you can get. The more cross-functional insights you can get, the better. It’s important to be ready to face multiple scenarios. A good way to do so is to use linear programming models to simulate different levels of production and customer demand.
• Project Deliverables: The deliverables will be all the different product development documents that’ll guide the production process , the product prototype and finally the final version of the product that’ll be launched to the market.

There are a few things that project scope statements typically get confused with, including your scope of work . They may sound like similar project scoping documents, but here are the primary differences between these two.

Your scope of work is an agreement of work, typically between consultant and client, that details the agreement of work to be performed, including, but not limited to:

• Deliverables/products/results
• Project timeline
• Project milestones
• Reports to catalog project progress

While your scope of work can be time-consuming to write, it outlines the project itself and not necessarily the plan that’s to follow. The project scope statement, in turn, fulfills that role by detailing and mapping out exactly what to expect with the project plan and the project itself.

They might sound similar, and the outcome of the project may be similar, but a project scope statement is different from your project scope management plan . A project scope management plan is what follows the project scope statement, detailing the scope management process from the start to the finish of your project life cycle.

Additionally, it helps define the work that must be done over the course of the project, and it controls and monitors those processes. It also documents and tracks phases to avoid scope creep  and assists with project closing, including an audit of deliverables and assessing the project outcome for success factors.

Your scope statement isn’t nearly as involved—it’s just the umbrella over your project scope management plan, acting as a rubric for stakeholders and team members to follow.

Tips to Write a Project Scope Statement

Here are the best practices to consider as you write your project scope statement:

• Avoid using jargon-heavy language. You’ll be talking to multiple people across multiple departments and specializations, so keep the language consistent and clear.
• Keep it short. Since this is a project document that’s seeking stakeholder buy-in, there will likely be plenty of editing to be done before it’s finalized, and it’ll need to be a quick reference guide for later. So, keep it simple and save the verbiage for your full project plan.
• Stay away from sweeping statements. You don’t want to over-commit your resources to the project before it even kicks off.
• What are the long-term business benefits?
• What does it provide our customers that do not already exist?
• Is this better than what we currently offer on the market?

ProjectManager & Project Scope Management

Major project rollouts can be demanding on both your time and energy. Don’t let it overwhelm you before kick-off. For starters, you can use our Gantt chart software to create a WBS and get a visual on deliverables, as well as the tasks needed to complete before submitting your project scope statement.

From there, you can try ProjectManager and use our task management features to get all the necessary tasks organized, prioritized and sorted by project phase. You can even ask other people for input: team members can comment directly on the tasks so communication stays organized and to the point.

Keep tabs on your resources, tasks, deliverables and more so you can keep your project on track. With ProjectManager, you can practice mapping out your project timeline by using our Gantt chart, listing out deliverables using our task list or kanban tool and inviting team members to review the timeline before submitting the scope statement to key stakeholders. Start your free 30-day trial today.

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• Project planning |

3 elements every project charter needs

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

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

What is a project charter?

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

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

Project charters vs. project plans

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

There are seven key elements in a project plan:

Success metrics

Stakeholders and roles

Scope and budget

Milestones and deliverables

Timeline and schedule

Project charters vs. project briefs

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

A project brief has four parts:

Background information

Project objectives and success criteria

Project timeline

Target audience

Project charter vs. business case

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

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

Do you need a project charter?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to create a project charter

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

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

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

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

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

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

Project charter examples

Project charter template

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

Project name

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

Project manager

Who is the point of contact for this project?

Last revision date

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

Project purpose

Why are you working on this project?

Project objectives

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

Project scope

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

Project team and resources

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

Stakeholders and approvers

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

From project charter to project success

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

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

Related resources

Cost control: How to monitor project spending to increase profitability

How to use a feasibility study in project management

How to track utilization rate and drive team profitability

How to accomplish big things with long-term goals

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• Operating systems

When enterprise employees worked almost exclusively in company offices, they sat at desks and did their work on company-owned desktop computers. Now an employee's work moves with them from place to place. On laptops and tablets and phones. And very often, the work resides on devices the employees own. All this has shifted the work of the enterprise IT staff dramatically. This cavalcade of mobile devices and remote employees is one reason unified endpoint management came to be. In this guide, we look at what UEM can do, its main features, how to choose the right UEM product for your organization – and much more.

Operating system (os).

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

What is an operating system?

An operating system (OS) is the program that, after being initially loaded into the computer by a boot program, manages all of the other application programs in a computer. The application programs make use of the operating system by making requests for services through a defined application program interface ( API ). In addition, users can interact directly with the operating system through a user interface, such as a command-line interface (CLI) or a graphical UI (GUI).

Why use an operating system?

An operating system brings powerful benefits to computer software and software development. Without an operating system, every application would need to include its own UI, as well as the comprehensive code needed to handle all low-level functionality of the underlying computer, such as disk storage, network interfaces and so on. Considering the vast array of underlying hardware available, this would vastly bloat the size of every application and make software development impractical.

Instead, many common tasks, such as sending a network packet or displaying text on a standard output device, such as a display, can be offloaded to system software that serves as an intermediary between the applications and the hardware. The system software provides a consistent and repeatable way for applications to interact with the hardware without the applications needing to know any details about the hardware.

As long as each application accesses the same resources and services in the same way, that system software -- the operating system -- can service almost any number of applications. This vastly reduces the amount of time and coding required to develop and debug an application, while ensuring that users can control, configure and manage the system hardware through a common and well-understood interface.

This article is part of

What is unified endpoint management (UEM)? A complete guide

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• Compare capabilities of Office 365 MDM vs. Intune
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Once installed, the operating system relies on a vast library of device drivers to tailor OS services to the specific hardware environment. Thus, every application may make a common call to a storage device, but the OS receives that call and uses the corresponding driver to translate the call into actions (commands) needed for the underlying hardware on that specific computer. Today, the operating system provides a comprehensive platform that identifies, configures and manages a range of hardware, including processors; memory devices and memory management; chipsets; storage; networking; port communication, such as Video Graphics Array (VGA), High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) and Universal Serial Bus (USB); and subsystem interfaces, such as Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe).

What are the functions of an operating system?

An operating system provides three essential capabilities: It offers a UI through a CLI or GUI; it launches and manages the application execution; and it identifies and exposes system hardware resources to those applications -- typically, through a standardized API.

UI. Every operating system requires a UI, enabling users and administrators to interact with the OS in order to set up, configure and even troubleshoot the operating system and its underlying hardware. There are two primary types of UI available: CLI and GUI.

The CLI, or terminal mode window , provides a text-based interface where users rely on the traditional keyboard to enter specific commands, parameters and arguments related to specific tasks. The GUI, or desktop , provides a visual interface based on icons and symbols where users rely on gestures delivered by human interface devices, such as touchpads, touchscreens and mouse devices.

The GUI is most frequently used by casual or end users that are primarily interested in manipulating files and applications, such as double-clicking a file icon to open the file in its default application. The CLI remains popular among advanced users and system administrators that must handle a series of highly granular and repetitive commands on a regular basis, such as creating and running scripts to set up new personal computers (PCs) for employees.

Application management. An operating system handles the launch and management of every application. This typically supports an array of behaviors, including timesharing multiple processes, or threads , so that various tasks can share the available processors' time; handling interruptions that applications produce to gain a processor's immediate attention, ensuring there is enough memory to execute the application and its corresponding data without interfering with other processes; carrying out error handling that can gracefully remove an application's processes; and performing memory management without disrupting other applications or the OS.

An operating system can also support APIs that enable applications to utilize OS and hardware functions without the need to know anything about the low-level OS or hardware state. As an example, a Windows API can enable a program to obtain input from a keyboard or mouse; create GUI elements, such as dialog windows and buttons; read and write files to a storage device; and more. Applications are almost always tailored to use the operating system on which the application intends to run.

Additionally, an operating system can perform the following services for applications:

• In a multitasking operating system, where multiple programs can be running at the same time, the OS determines which applications should run in what order and how much time should be allowed for each application before giving another application a turn.
• It handles input/output (I/O) to and from attached hardware devices, such as hard disks, printers and dial-up ports.
• It sends messages to each application or interactive user -- or to a system operator -- about the status of operation and any errors that may have occurred.
• It can offload the management of batch jobs -- for example, printing -- so that the initiating application is freed from this work.
• On computers that can provide parallel processing, an operating system can manage how to divide the program so that it runs on more than one processor at a time.

All major computer platforms (hardware and software) require, and sometimes include, an operating system, and operating systems must be developed with different features to meet the specific needs of various form factors.

Device management. An operating system is responsible for identifying, configuring, and providing applications with common access to underlying computer hardware devices. As the OS recognizes and identifies hardware, the OS will install corresponding device drivers that enable the OS and applications running on the OS to use the devices without any specific knowledge of the hardware or devices.

An operating system is responsible for identifying the correct printer and installing the appropriate printer drivers so that an application needs to only make calls to the printer without having to use codes or commands that are specific to that printer -- that is the operating system's job. The situation is similar for other devices, such as USB ports; networking ports; graphics devices, such as graphics processing units (GPUs); motherboard chipsets; and storage devices, such as Serial-Attached SCSI (SAS) disk adapters and disks that are formatted with a suitable file system.

The OS identifies and configures physical and logical devices for service and typically records them in a standardized structure, such as Windows Registry. Device manufacturers periodically patch and update drivers, and the OS should update them to ensure best device performance and security. When devices are replaced, the OS also installs and configures new drivers.

Operating system types and examples

Although the fundamental roles of an operating system are ubiquitous, there are countless operating systems that serve a wide range of hardware and user needs.

General-purpose operating system. A general-purpose OS represents an array of operating systems intended to run a multitude of applications on a broad selection of hardware, enabling a user to run one or more applications or tasks simultaneously. A general-purpose OS can be installed on many different desktop and laptop models and run applications from accounting systems to databases to web browsers to games. General-purpose operating systems typically focus on process (thread) and hardware management to ensure that applications can reliably share the wide range of computing hardware present.

Common desktop operating systems include the following:

• Windows is Microsoft's flagship operating system, the de facto standard for home and business computers. Introduced in 1985, the GUI-based OS has been released in many versions since then. The user-friendly Windows 95 was largely responsible for the rapid development of personal computing.
• Mac OS is the operating system for Apple's Macintosh line of PCs and workstations.
• Unix is a multiuser operating system designed for flexibility and adaptability. Originally developed in the 1970s, Unix was one of the first operating systems to be written in the C language .
• Linux is a Unix-like operating system that was designed to provide PC users a free or low-cost alternative. Linux has a reputation as an efficient and fast-performing system.

Mobile operating system. Mobile operating systems are designed to accommodate the unique needs of mobile computing and communication-centric devices, such as smartphones and tablets. Mobile devices typically offer limited computing resources compared to traditional PCs, and the OS must be scaled back in size and complexity in order to minimize its own resource use, while ensuring adequate resources for one or more applications running on the device. Mobile operating systems tend to emphasize efficient performance, user responsiveness and close attention to data handling tasks, such as supporting media streaming. Apple iOS and Google Android are examples of mobile operating systems.

Embedded operating system. Not all computing devices are general purpose. A huge assortment of dedicated devices -- including home digital assistants, automated teller machines (ATMs), airplane systems, retail point of sale (POS) terminals and internet of things (IoT) devices -- includes computers that require an operating system. The principal difference is that the associated computing device only does one major thing, so the OS is highly stripped down and dedicated to both performance and resilience. The OS should run quickly, not crash, and handle all errors gracefully in order to continue operating in all circumstances. In most cases, the OS is provided on a chip that is incorporated into the actual device. A medical device used in a patient's life support equipment, for example, will employ an embedded OS that must run reliably in order to keep the patient alive. Embedded Linux is one example of an embedded OS.

Network operating system. A network operating system (NOS) is another specialized OS intended to facilitate communication between devices operating on a local area network ( LAN ). A NOS provides the communication stack needed to understand network protocols in order to create, exchange and decompose network packets. Today, the concept of a specialized NOS is largely obsolete because other OS types largely handle network communication. Windows 10 and Windows Server 2019, for example, include comprehensive networking capabilities. The concept of a NOS is still used for some networking devices, such as routers, switches and firewalls, and manufacturers may employ proprietary NOSes, including Cisco Internetwork Operating System (IOS), RouterOS and ZyNOS.

Real-time operating system. When a computing device must interact with the real world within constant and repeatable time constraints, the device manufacturer may opt to use a real-time operating system ( RTOS ). For example, an industrial control system may direct the operations of a sprawling factory or power plant. Such a facility will produce signals from myriad sensors and also send signals to operate valves, actuators, motors and countless other devices. In these situations, the industrial control system must respond quickly and predictably to changing real-world conditions -- otherwise, disaster may result. An RTOS must function without buffering, processing latencies and other delays, which are perfectly acceptable in other types of operating systems. Two examples of RTOSes include FreeRTOS and VxWorks.

The differences between operating system types are not absolute, and some operating systems can share characteristics of others. For example, general-purpose operating systems routinely include the networking capabilities found in a traditional NOS. Similarly, an embedded operating system commonly includes attributes of an RTOS, while a mobile operating system can still typically run numerous apps simultaneously like other general-purpose operating systems.

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