Project planning report template

What is a Project Plan? At the very least, a project plan should answer the following questions about a project: Why? What is the problem that this project will address or solve? What are the major deliverables and goals? What are the milestones? What Is the Purpose of a Project Plan? Here are the four biggest benefits of a project plan: Improves communication : By outlining your whole plan for everyone to see, stakeholders can provide feedback early in the process if things are going in the right direction.

A project plan also helps facilitate expectation management by letting you update milestones and timelines as the project progresses. Increases transparency : With a project plan, stakeholders and team members know exactly where to look to get information every step of the way. Expectations and the project timeline are clearly defined, so everyone is on the same page about priorities and objectives.

Increases organization : Many projects have dozens of tasks, dependencies, and milestones, and it can be hard to track how everything is progressing.

A project plan makes you think through the timing of each activity and how it affects the rest of the project. You always know how much time to spend on each task and how many things you can accomplish at the same time. Leave the first row in your spreadsheet blank. On the second row, type in the headers.

You could also add more headers for extra granularity, like Budget, Cost , and more. Highlight the text and in the Alignment group, click the center icon to center the text in the headers. To format the headers for proper spacing, highlight all the text you just typed and on the Home tab, in the Cells group, click Format. Select Column Width and set the width for around so you have enough space to enter in your project information. Select a Project Template Go to Smartsheet. Click on the Project with Gantt Timeline tile, then click the blue Use button.

Name your template, choose where to save it, and click the Ok button. Customize Your Project Plan Template in Smartsheet With just a couple clicks, you can customize the appearance of your project timeline. Customize Fonts and Colors in Your Project Plan To change the font type and size, or bold, italicize or underline text, click the cell with the text you want to change.

On the left-hand toolbar, you will find all the text formatting options. To change the background color of a row, click the far left gray cell to highlight the entire row. Discover a Better Way to Manage Your Project Plans with Smartsheet From simple task management and project planning to complex resource and portfolio management, Smartsheet helps you improve collaboration and increase work velocity -- empowering you to get more done.

Top Project Management Excel Templates Find the top project management templates in Microsoft Excel that you can easily download and use for free to help you track project status, communicate progress among team members and stakeholders, and manage issues as they arise. Discover a better way to streamline workflows and eliminate silos for good. Additionally, all these project status templates are shareable, so you can email them to coworkers, place them on a server, or add them to Google Drive.

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

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

Get a Free Smartsheet Demo. In This Article. Project Status Report Template. Simple, powerful project management with Smartsheet. See for yourself. Project Summary Report Template. Daily Project Progress Report Template. Weekly Project Status Report Template. Monthly Project Status Report Template. Project Report Dashboard Template. Stoplight Project Status Report Template. Business Project Report Template. Multiple Project Tracking Template. Executive Project Report Template.

Project Postmortem Report Template. How to Write a Strong Status Report Template Successful project status report templates and dashboards provide instant insight into project progress, and they clearly show which project components are on track or at potential risk and whether to expect any roadblocks.

Though project status template types vary, they include the following universal sections: Project Name: Enter the name of the project, and ensure that the title accurately represents the project to all stakeholders. Project Manager: Enter the name of the person responsible for keeping the project moving, checking milestones, and calling out risks.

Period Covered: Enter the period of time the project will cover. This free template is ideal for creating simple project plans. With this project planning template, you can enter a start date, duration, and status for each task. This template allows you to map both tasks and milestones on a timeline. Plus, you can easily visualize task dependencies using a scatter chart.

However, please note that this is a premium template. And is only available to Microsoft Office subscribers. Looking at these templates, you might be wondering if these templates are too simplistic. And if there are any drawbacks to using these templates. Considering the disadvantages, you may want to consider using a project planning tool.

Using an online project planning tool helps you work collaboratively on project plans and saves a lot of time and energy. And, project teams can sign up for a free day trial to try it out. A few years ago, I worked with a graphic designer named Vanessa.

She was brilliant, creative, and outstanding at her job, which proved to be her undoing. Vanessa was invariably a part of our higher-stakes projects because her work was of such a high quality that she made the entire team look good.

She never. But every now and. Project teams that meet deadlines consistently are able to deliver projects on schedule. Learn 5 ways to avoid crunch time and meet deadlines consistently. Products News. Sign Up. Filter By: Featured. Download The App. Written by Jitesh Patil.

How do you create a simple project plan?