Published 10 Feb 2023
What is a Project Management Template?
A project management template is a document used by project teams as a framework to standardize project management processes. With a project management template, project leads are able to set their team for success and avoid project management pitfalls. Teams are able to improve communication between levels of management, allocate resources precisely, save time and achieve milestones on time, reduce project risks, and reinforce well-documented and archived processes.
Project Status Report
This project status report template, sometimes called project progress report, can be used regularly to track the progress of a business project. This template can be used by project managers and inspectors to document status on project performance areas: time, quality and budget, and determine roadblocks along the way. The template was converted using SafetyCulture (iAuditor) and can serve as a guide for inspectors to perform the following:
- Provide details on the project performance areas if the current status was behind, slipping or on track;
- Document roadblocks, risks and potential hazards identified;
- Create a summary of the project status by providing a completion rate: 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%;
- Validate audit by affixing a digital signature;
- After conducting all project status reports, you can export all your audits as CSV and then transfer data in a separate sheet to have an overview of the project.
In this article
- Why use Project Management Templates?
- 5 Phases of Project Management
- Project Management Shouldn't Be That Hard—With the Right Tool
- Featured Project Management Templates
Why use Project Management Templates?
Project management templates aid project leads to avoid project management pitfalls such as poor project planning, weak resource management, and ineffective communication, which cause almost two-thirds of projects to fail. Moreover, project leads are able to achieve the following for their projects:
- Improve communication at every level of management
Communication may sound elementary, but it is arguably the most important project management element that many lacks. In fact, 28% of a web survey involving more than 1,000 respondents cited poor communications as the top cause of project failure. Having project management templates allows leads to account for all the communication requirements of a project and plan for a communication strategy that encourages collaboration among all levels of the project team. - Precisely scope projects and allocate the right resources
Poor resource allocation, or the process of assigning and scheduling the best available project resources, is cited to be the second most frequent cause of project failures. With a template (e.g. project charter template), it is easier to have a uniformed process of scoping projects across an organization and ensuring that the right resources are identified and allocated before starting a project. - Save time and achieve project milestones on time
The initial project setup can be time-consuming, especially if project managers have to always create project management plan templates for every new venture. The availability of project management templates can significantly help improve efficiency from the get-go by eliminating the extensive amount of time to think about what or what should not be included in the template. - Reduce risk
Project leads know that all projects have risks, (e.g. delays, schedule conflicts, emergencies, fortuitous events, and client reviews), but also recognize that they have to be identified and managed so that their negative impact on the project will be minimized. A project risk management template, for an instance, can help guide leads to know where to immediately look at, assess the level of an identified risk, and assign it to a responsible person who can be accountable for it. - Reinforce the need for documented processes
Utilizing a project management template underpins the need to have a process that is well-documented and archived. Having secured data readily available at any time can be essential for the success of current and future projects. The template can hold all relevant information that interested parties can easily access and refer to help deliver their projects successfully.
5 Phases of Project Management
The Project Management Institute (PMI) have originally developed five phases of project management:
- Project Initiation
A project is formally started, named, and defined at a broad level during this phase. Project sponsors and other important stakeholders due diligently decide whether or not to commit to a project. Depending on the nature of the project, feasibility studies are conducted. Or, as it may require, in an IT project – requirement gathering and analysis are performed in this phase. In the construction industry, a project charter is completed in this phase. - Project Planning
This phase kickstarts the creation of a project management plan, which accounts for the cost, scope, duration, quality, communication, risk, and resources necessary for a project. Some processes that are often completed during this stage are the development of Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), the definition of deliverables and tasks, milestone charts, and modes of communication. - Project Execution
This is when a project deliverable is developed and completed, adhering to a mapped-out plan. Teams are involved and informed of their responsibilities. Majority of tasks during this phase capture project metrics through tasks like status meetings and project status updates, other status reports, human resource needs, and performance reports. - Project Monitoring and Control
Occurring at the same time as the execution phase, the monitoring and control phase deals with measuring the project performance and progression in accordance with the project plan. Scope verification and control occur to check and monitor for scope creep, and change of control to track and manage changes to project requirements. Calculating key performance indicators (KPIs) for cost and time are done to measure the degree of variation if any, and in which case corrective measures are determined and suggested to keep a project on track. - Project Closure
A project is formally closed. It includes a series of important tasks such as delivering the product, relieving resources, rewarding team members, and formal termination of contractors in case they were employed on the project. It also involves project leads to conduct a post-mortem of the project to evaluate and document the learnings they gathered from the project and experience.
Project Management Shouldn’t Be That Hard—With the Right Tool
Paper based project management checklists not only take up plenty of space, and are susceptible to damage and loss, and worse, may be accessed by unauthorized personnel.
SafetyCulture (formerly iAuditor) is a digital tool designed to help project managers coordinate with team members and ensure that goals are met on time while also managing resources and budget. The importance of proper project management cannot be overstated because without it, a company’s long-term and short-term goals become increasingly difficult to achieve. SafetyCulture can help make project management easier through the use of customizable smartforms, mobile assignment of actions, and fast reporting.
Easily create and customize smartforms for project management templates and share with the entire organization
Create and customize project management templates in minutes, convert existing paper templates to digital format via smart scan in seconds, and download pre-made templates from our public library to get you started instantly! Include a variety of different field types in your templates to fit your project management needs and collect the right data. Finally, share templates across sites to ensure that everything is standardized and best practices are followed.
Assign tasks to team members via the Collaborative Actions feature
The collaborative actions feature lets project managers assign standalone actions to team members, which will notify them through the app once said action is due. Each action has a built-in chat feature where team members can add photo evidence, communicate, and write comments to provide visibility from the time the task is assigned until its completion.
Generate and share reports instantly for maximum project visibility
With SafetyCulture, you no longer need to write progress reports. Instantly generate and share reports in a variety of formats including PDF, Word, and CSV with the tap of a finger. Generate project audit reports and status reports in minutes to keep sponsors, team members, and stakeholders in the loop.
Featured Project Management Templates
Project Audit Questionnaire
A project audit questionnaire is used as part of a project audit to interview project team members to identify concerns, challenges and opportunities related to the project. Conduct the interview by capturing the following information:
- Gather general feedback on the project including understanding of objectives, senior communication, collaboration and safety (if required)
- Ask questions related to concerns of the overall project and challenges faced in daily work
- Ask the team member to identify opportunities for improvement within their role or others
- Provide any additional notes and takeaways from the interview
- Gather signature from the project team member
Project Closure Checklist
A project closure checklist is a detailed document prepared by project managers to assess the success of a project. Use this template to gather information and share a report with business sponsors when formally closing a project. This template also allows users to:
- Provide project background, overview, and budget
- Describe how the project team was able to adhere to governance criteria
- Check if an implementation review was conducted
- Recognize unaddressed issues along with their risks, status, lessons learned, adequate arrangements, etc.
- Determine the overall performance of the project by detailing baseline scope and approved change
Project Risk Management Template
This Project Risk Management Template can be used to monitor risk management activities throughout the project. Identify the risks, likelihood, and consequences. Record how risks will impact the project. Identify the symptoms, triggers, strategy, and contingency plan to eliminate the risk. This template uses SafetyCulture (iAuditor)’s Dynamic Field to allow you to ask recurring questions. Generate comprehensive reports and highlight the current status of risks with SafetyCulture (iAuditor).
Project Management Checklist (Construction)
Use this punch list template to follow construction guidelines for project implementation. Get safely back to business by evaluating 3 major components of the project cycle: materials, manpower, and machinery.