How to create project management plan template

Creating project management plan for your own project is a tedious task to do.  Good thing there are free shareware templates available online and within minutes, you will be able to make your own project management plan template.

The discussion here would be based on the template of Carl Wiegers (2007) which is available for all project management plans.

I.  Overview -  general idea of the project’s objectives, success criteria, deliverables, and constraints.

A. Project Purpose, Objectives, and Success Criteria -  Define quantitative and measurable objectives.

B. Project Deliverables – List the major items to be delivered to the recipients.  You can make a table with 5 columns for deliverable, recipients, delivery date. Delivery method, comments.

C. Assumptions, Dependencies, and Constraints – This subsection describes known assumptions upon which the project is based;  any external events upon which the project depends; and the limitations of the project.

D. References – Documents used as sources of information for the project management plan.

E. Definition of Terms – Define any project-specific terms even acronyms used in the project

II.  Project Organization – defines the roles and responsibilities for the project.

A.  External Interfaces – Describe the boundaries between the project and external unit.

B.  Internal Structure – Describe the internal structure of the project organization

C.  Roles and Responsibilities – list of responsibilities of the team members (members may vary according to the type of the project

III. Managerial Process Plans – defines the project management plan  and activities for the project

A. Start-Up Plans – initial plan

1. Estimation Plan – project estimates of resources, time, cost

2. Staffing Plan – the staff required in the project

3. Staff Training Plan – training to be conducted to ensure necessary skills

4. Resource Acquisition Plan – plan for acquiring the resources

5. Project Commitments – record commitments of the people involved in the project management plan and the implementation of the project itself

B. Work Plan – specifies work activities needed to produce the deliverables of the project

C. Control Plan – how the project will be monitored

1. Data Control Plan -Describe how the project will manage its data

2. Requirements Control Plan – list of mechanisms for measuring, and controlling changes to the product requirements.

3. Schedule Control Plan -can be in the form of Gantt Chart where actual schedule is compared to planned schedule of the project management plan

4. Budget Control Plan – list of control device to measure the cost of work

5. Communication, Tracking, and Reporting Plan

D. Risk Management Plan – identifies and controls project risks.

1. Issue Resolution Plan – important issues are written into detail

2. Project Close-Out Plan – actions necessary for project close out

IV.  Technical Process Plans – lists technical approaches

A. Process Model – Describe the product development life cycle that the project will use

B. Quality Assurance Plan – standards set to the project

C. Documentation Plan – describes how the project would be documented

D. Process Improvement Plan – used to evaluate the project

This is just a sample template for project management plan.  This can be modified, improved, and used for future project management plans.