9 Types of Artifacts in Project

Management
ByElizabeth HarrinLast updated:26 September, 2022
In this article we’ll look at the types of artifacts in project management, typical documents for
each type. There’s also a checklist of project artifacts by phase at the end, which you can use as
an aide-memoire for creating your own documentation.

In this article: [hide]
 What is an artifact?
 Artifacts in the PMBOK Guide – Seventh Edition
 But what if you don’t use PMI methods?
 1. Strategy artifacts
 2. Logs and registers
o Is it a log or a register?
 3. Plans
 4. Hierarchy charts
 5. Baselines
 6. Visual data and information
 7. Reports
 8. Agreements and contracts
 9. Other
 Project management artifacts by phase
 FAQ
o What are some examples of an artifact?
o What is meant by mandatory artifacts?
o What are the types of artifacts in project management?

What is an artifact?
An artifact is something you create. In project management, artifacts relate to documents,
templates, outputs or a specific deliverable.

Mostly, the term refers to the project documentation you produce that defines and supports the
work you are doing. In all cases, artifacts relate to the work of managing the project, not the
thing you are creating as the output of the project.

For example: a project management artifact is the project closure document. The project
deliverable is a new app.
Artifacts in the PMBOK Guide – Seventh
Edition
Artifacts are categorized in the PMBOK® Guide – Seventh edition into 9 different types and
that’s what this article is going to look at.

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11/13/2022 10:00 pm GMT 

But what if you don’t use PMI methods?

Documents are documents. Whether you subscribe to the PMI way of thinking or use another
approach based on your background, skills, experience, certification or the expectations of
management, I’m pretty sure that you’ll have to create project documents.

Although this list draws on PMI materials, it’s still going to be useful to you even if you use a
different approach. And yes, agile project management artifacts get a mention.

9 Types of project artifacts

9 Types of project artifacts
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The 9 types of artifacts are:

1. Strategy
2. Logs and registers
3. Plans
4. Hierarchy charts
5. Baselines
6. Visual data and information
7. Reports
8. Agreements and contracts
9. Other – a bucket category for anything else.
Let’s look at each of those in more detail. You’ll see that for each category, some of the really
obvious stuff is not called out because it’s generic or obviously required for management
purposes. Industry-specific artifacts are not mentioned either, so if you work in a highly
regulated field then some of the standard documents you’d expect to produce might be missing.

Also, if the artifact is the result of some other project management method or tactic, it won’t be
mentioned here. For example, an estimate is the obvious output of the estimating process, so
estimates aren’t mentioned again as a separate project artifact.

The authors of the Seventh Edition are keen for there to be no duplication and for the approach to
be simple!
OK, let’s get to it: here’s the list of project management artifacts.

1. Strategy artifacts
The first category is documentation that relates to strategy and project initiation. This is not an
exhaustive list:

 Business case
 Project vision statement
 Project charter
 Roadmap

These documents are developed at the start of project and don’t normally change. Having said
that, I’ve worked on projects where they have changed, because a lot depends on how the project
evolves, and you know something is always going to be different. Still, in principle, this category
relates to the high level strategy stuff on the project and isn’t something you’d need to update
often once it’s done.

Note: you’ll use these artifacts for project management across all the three performance domains.

2. Logs and registers

This category relates to the various project management logs and registers we have as part of the
daily management of the process. You can grab the set I use here.

 Assumption log
 Risk register
 Backlog (see, agile project artifacts are relevant too)
 Stakeholder register

These documents represent a set of continuously evolving documents. They will be updated
throughout the project.

Is it a log or a register?
Who cares? As long as you know what you are talking about, you can use either, or both
interchangeably.

3. Plans
The third category of project artifact relates to the different types of plans produced. That
includes:

 Comms management plan

 Release plan
  Scope management plan
 Iteration plan
 Test plan
 Quality plan
 Logistics plan

They are developed to help you work out how to run the project and can either be all in one
document or separate documents. Typically, they are written out documents i.e. a bunch of
words, but you could have visual plans if it makes sense to use diagrams to show the flow of
work. I can see that being particularly relevant for things like a release plan.

4. Hierarchy charts
Next up, we have hierarchy charts. These describe the relationships between various parts of the
project.

 Work breakdown structure

 Product breakdown structure
 Organizational breakdown structure
 Risk breakdown structure

You might not need all of these and you might have various versions of each of them.

Basically, they show high level info that is decomposed into detailed sections. The upper levels
encompass all the information covered by the lower levels.

Typically, these are progressively elaborated as you go through the project, so you can come
back to them and edit/update as required.

5. Baselines
We create baselines throughout the project. They represent approved versions of whatever plan
they relate to. Here are some examples:

 Budget
 Milestone schedule
 Scope baseline
 Performance measurement baseline

Baselines will be created and updated as the project progresses and as major changes happen.

6. Visual data and information

This is a catch-all category for anything that’s not a written document in the traditional sense.
Here’s a non-exhaustive list of the types of visual data you might have on your projects:
  Cycle time chart
 Dashboard
 Flow chart
 Gantt chart
 Requirements traceability matrix
 Velocity chart
 S-curve

The point of having visual data sources is that they make it easier to understand the information.
(Especially for people with short attention spans!)

You’ll typically create them after you complete some kind of data analysis to help you absorb the
information – and the best case scenario is that you’ve got the tools to update them automatically
instead of every dashboard being a beautiful, but manual creation.

7. Reports
Project management seems to involve a lot of reports, and even with improvements in artificial
intelligence in project management, it’s still likely that the bulk of reports are going to need
some kind of manual intervention.

Here are some of the typical reports produced on a project:

 Quality report
 Risk report
 Status report
 Formal records for particular stakeholders eg a highlight report for a sponsor or monthly
reporting for the PMO

8. Agreements and contracts

You might not have agreements and contracts on your project because it obviously depends on if
you are buying anything. Having said that, you could have internal agreements with other
departments: if we had staff on secondment I’d be expected to write formally to the manager
releasing their staff member and create a specific agreement for that.

 MOU (Memorandum of Understanding)

 Fixed price contract
 Cost reimbursable contract
 Time and materials contract
 Indefinite delivery indefinite quantity contract
 Any other type of legally-binding agreement

9. Other
Here’s a bunch of artifacts that don’t easily fit into any other category.

 Requirements
 Team charter (some of the team management models in project management may suggest
creating something like this e.g. you could use it during the Tuckman ladder)
 User stories
 Bid documents

And I’m sure there are others you may have come across in the past that are useful documents
for your own projects.

The principles of managing projects are the same, regardless of what artifacts you think are most
relevant to your approach. They are documented in the Standard for Project Management.

Project management artifacts by phase

As you’re probably realizing by now, as the docs are created and updated throughout the life
cycle, the idea of project management artifacts by phase isn’t really very accurate. You create
them when they are needed and refer to and update them as necessary. It’s not like you write
them in one phase and forget about them.

However, I know that it’s still helpful sometimes to have a reference checklist, so here is my
own version of what phase relates to which artifact, and because my background is in predictive
projects, that’s what this relates to.

Project phase Typical artifacts

Business case
Project vision statement
Initiation Project charter
Roadmap
Team charter

Planning Assumption log

Risk register
Issue register
Change log
Stakeholder register
Comms management plan
Release plan
Scope management plan
Test plan
Quality plan
Logistics plan
Work breakdown structure
 Product breakdown structure
Organizational breakdown structure
Risk breakdown structure
Budget baseline
Milestone schedule baseline
Scope baseline
Performance measurement baseline
Gantt chart
Requirements and requirements traceability matrix

Dashboard
Execution Flow charts or process maps as needed
MOU, contracts and agreements (but could be earlier in the life cycle dependi

Quality report
Risk report
Monitoring and Control
Status report
Ad hoc stakeholder reports

Project closure document

Closure
Handover documents
Table 1: Typical project management artifacts by phase (from first point of creation; note that
artifacts are updated throughout the project life cycle)
For a whole host of project management artifacts templates, head over to my templates shop.

FAQ
What are some examples of an artifact?
Some examples of project management artifacts include: the project charter, business case,
dashboards, logs and registers, contracts and agreements and reports. Basically, any
documentation or visual data presentation that helps the project team understand what is required
and do their jobs effectively.
What is meant by mandatory artifacts?
Mandatory artifacts are those you have to have. Your PMO may define mandatory artifacts: a list
of project documents that you must create for each project. However, nothing in project
management it really mandatory. Another company (or even another project manager) might do
something different to you.
What are the types of artifacts in project
management?
There are 9 types of artifact in project management: strategic artifacts, logs and registers, plans,
hierarchy charts, baselines, visual data and information, reports, agreements and contracts, and
miscellaneous (for anything that doesn’t fit in those categories).
Pin for later reading:

Elizabeth Harrin
Author, mentor

Elizabeth Harrin is a Fellow of the Association for Project Management in the

UK, a trainer, mentor and author. She helps managers juggle their projects
and ditch the overwhelm, making tools and techniques work in the real world.
Elizabeth is also the founder of the Project Management Rebels community, a
teaching-led mentoring group for professionals. She's written several books
for project managers including Managing Multiple Projects.