Home » FREE Project Tools and Templates

We offer customised project management training for corporate clients. Please see our case studies page to learn more about our work. Our consulting team also help clients establish consistent, practical and fit-for-purpose project management methodology. As part of these services we often create and provide best practice project management tools and templates. For more sophisticated clients these are often supported by setting up Microsoft SharePoint, a collaborative environment for project working or the full enterprise project management solution, Microsoft Project Server or Project Online.

Here is a set of simple and practical project management tools and templates that are based on the Association for Project Management Body of Knowledge. This set of documents supports the project lifecycle. Projects naturally move from an idea, through to selection, detailed planning, implementation and then finally handover & closure. We have included some guidance in this page to help you get started and you are free to use these documents & templates to help select, plan, run and close your projects.

Remember the No. 1 reason for project failure is scope creep or lack of scope definition! These documents will help ensure your project is well defined and this starts with the Project Proposal. Sometimes this type of early initial scoping document is called a Project Brief, Project Charter or Project Terms of Reference – arguably these are subtly different things but the core principle is to start getting that initial idea down on paper.

This Project Proposal Template has been provided in Microsoft PowerPoint form as typically there are presentations and discussions at this early stage to help form, define and direct the upcoming project. If the Project Proposal is approved then you would move on to the more detailed scope document, the Project Management Plan.

 

 

Now the initial Project Proposal has been approved, detailed planning can commence. The APM uses the term Project Management Plan (PMP) for this detailed scoping document. You might be familiar with the term Project Initiation Document (PID) as per PRINCE2 and this is widely used as well.

The PMP is the output from detailed planning and demonstrates to the Sponsor and other stakeholders that the project has been well planned and is now ready to transition into implementation. Smaller projects may not require this depth of information so feel free to add & remove sections as you see fit. Fundamentally you should have an agreed understanding of what you are going to do, why, who, how, when and at what cost. If you don’t know the answers to these basic questions then you shouldn’t be jumping into the implementation!

 

 

Once a project is underway it is important that the Project Manager maintains and updates project information. For example, the Project Manager should maintain a project schedule, a list of tasks to be completed in order to deliver the project and anticipated benefits. Microsoft Project is the tool of choice for detailed planning if the project is sufficiently important. Outside of the project schedule, it is also appropriate for the Project Manager to track project risks, issue, changes, decisions and so on. To help you get to grips with these things we have provided a simple version of our Microsoft Excel based Project Managers Toolkit.

This Toolkit includes an example Risk & Issue Log along with other logs and lists you might find useful when running your project. Of course, the less complex a project is, the less “project management” is needed so use those elements that add benefit and help you. Additional guidance notes are included in each Worksheet – just click the links from the main menu to jump to the appropriate Worksheet. This Excel spreadsheet has been kept as simple as possible so there are no clever macros or annoying passwords.

 

 

Once the project is underway you should establish a progress cycle; a regular review of work completed and issuing of work for the next period so everyone on the project team is clear about their work & deadlines…every task on a project has to have an owner and a deadline, otherwise assume it’s not going to happen!

The frequency of the progress cycle varies depending on the scale of the project but fortnightly is typical. This means the PM meets with the team and they review progress for the last fortnight and agree on work for the next period. On completion of this meeting, the Project Manager should issue the latest Project Status Report, often called a Project Highlight Report. This should provide a snapshot as to the current state of the project.

This simple two slide template provides that quick summary on current project status and should be shared with the Sponsor and other appropriate stakeholders. The template includes a simple RAG colour coding for a number of typical project KPIs; schedule, benefit, budget, risk. Ideally you would agree on the rules around the RAG coding otherwise, there is a tendency for Project Managers to be tempted to mark everything as Green to stay under the radar! This is not good project management, remember; there should be nothing wrong with giving bad news, but there is something wrong with giving bad news late…so keep those RAG KPIs realistic!

 

 

It is inevitable that at some point along the journey of your project someone is going to change their mind and want something slightly different. You might take minor changes on the chin and just make subtle corrections to the project. For larger changes you should be more careful. Remember that it is not the role of the Project Manager to say “yes” or “no” to a change, but you should provide clear information to enable an informed decision about a change. If we make this change what does it do to the schedule, the costs, the benefits and so on.

Use this simple template to help communicate the potential impact of a proposed change. It is typical for the Sponsor and other key stakeholders to be asked to formally approve a change and to do this with their eyes fully open as to the impacts.

 

 

Finally you have completed the project! Before you (and the project team) rush on to another challenge it is important that we look back to see how the project performed. What did you do well, what went wrong? Where could we improve next time? Now the project is finishing who is going to monitor the benefits we were all promised at the start? Use this simple template to provide a final Project Closure Report to the Sponsor and other key stakeholders.

 

 

Please do contact us to learn more about how we can help you develop your project management capabilities, both as an individual and across your organisation. Please do review our case studies to find out more about our track record of success and capabilities.

And finally, please note that we do not grant permission for you to use these tools & templates for commercial gain (i.e. sell them to someone else) or pass them off as your own work. You may use them to help run any type of project (commercial included) and we do not accept any liability, so don’t blame us if your project is still late! By downloading these tools & templates, you agree to our terms & conditions.