HOW TO MAKE A PROJECT PLAN

A. What is a Project Plan?

A project plan is designed to deliver the intended scope of a project, facilitate
communication among stakeholders, and track planning assumptions and decisions. It is a
living document that can include a stakeholder list, a scope statement, a project schedule,
schedule and cost baselines, baseline management plans, communication plan, and it can
change over the course of a project. It is worth noting that a project plan is not just a project
timeline, although that is an important component of the plan.
You should always create a project plan before starting a new project. Start with what you
want to achieve from the project and break it down into the things you need to do in order
to accomplish the goal. Then, once you have a high-level plan of all the things that need to
be done, you can think about timing, budget, resources, and more.
At the very least, a project plan should answer the following questions about a project:
• Why? - Why are we starting this project? What is the problem that this project will
address or solve?
• What? - What are we working on? What are the major deliverables and goals?
• Who? - Who will be involved in the project and what will be their responsibilities?
• When? - When should the project start and end? What are the milestones?
B. What Is the Purpose of a Project Plan?
A project plan is one of the most important ingredients for a successful project. It is used
to document and communicate expectations, to control schedule and delivery, and to
calculate and manage risks. In general, it acts as a roadmap for everyone involved in the
project.
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.
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 C. How To Create The Perfect Project Plan
1. Define Your Workflow: Make a rough plan. Sketch out the overall flow of your
project from initiation to completion. Map out each project phase and the likely
activities and tasks required in each phase to complete the project.
2. Establish Your Planning Horizon: Are you being realistic? Work out how far
you can accurately plan ahead. Plan in detail only for what you know, and make
generous allowances for the rest of the project so you don’t over-commit
yourself and your team.
3. Break it down: Get into the detail. Break the project phases and tasks down into
small sub-tasks, no longer than a few days each. It makes it easier to identify if
any steps are missing, and easier for your team to estimate.
4. Ask, don’t guess: Don’t make it up yourself. Give your team the context, a
rough number to start with, and help them collaborate on estimating properly.
Share assumptions, dependencies and work out who can do what, when.
5. Question When Questioning: When your team gives you an estimate, keep
asking ‘why’ and ‘how’ to help them think through their approach, identify any
efficiency opportunities and ensure sure you understand what’s included.
6. Allow Time For Amends: Amends or changes to a project are inevitable. Make
time for review and amend cycles, both internally and with clients and key
stakeholders.
7. Plan For It Not Going To Plan: Projects never go to plan. Simply planning for
the best case scenario or Plan A, isn’t good enough – you need to bake into Plan
A, Plan, B and Plan C too.
8. Finish Well: Finishing projects properly can be a tricky business. Make a robust
plan and allow ample time for the closing phases of your project as you load
content, QA, test, get approvals, and deploy to production.
9. Post-Project Review & Optimization: Going live isn’t the end of the project.
Build into the project plan a phase for post-live testing and analysis to measure
performance, make any optimisations required, and take note of all lessons
learned.
10. Milestones & Baselines: Keep your project on track using milestones so that the
project team and client are clear about key dates. Monitor progress using
baselines to keep tracking your progress against your original project plan.
D. How to Create a Project Plan in Excel
Here are some step-by-step instructions for making a project plan in Excel. You’ll first
create the table with your project information, then we’ll show you how to make your
project timeline.
1. Add Headers to the Table
First, you’ll need to add some headers to your table.

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 a. Leave the first row in your spreadsheet blank. On the second row, type in the
headers. In this example, we’re using Tasks, Responsible, Start, End, Days,
and Status. You could also add more headers for extra granularity, like Budget, Cost
and more.
b. Highlight the text and in the Alignment group, click the center icon to center the text
in the headers.
c. 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 15-20 so you have enough space to enter in your project
information.

2. Add Your Project Information

a. Start with the Task column and enter the tasks for your project plan. You can enter
as many or as few tasks as you want. To visually organize your project plan, we
recommend adding a title for each group of tasks or each phase. In this example, we
use Prerequisites, Initiation, Development, Operations and Launch.
b. Then, enter the person responsible for each task and the start and end dates.
c. To automatically calculate the number in the Days column, click on a cell in
the Days column and type =, then click the End date cell, type the minus (-) symbol,
then click the Start date cell. Click enter. Drag the bottom right-hand corner of this
cell down the entire column and the rest of the values will be automatically
calculated for you with this formula.
d. Enter the status of each task. We use Complete, In progress, Overdue, or Not
started.
e. All the information should now be in your table, but you’ll notice the spacing is off
depending on the length of your text. To fix this, highlight all your information and
in the Cells group, click Format. Select Autofit Column Width to automatically
adjust the column width to your content.
f. To center your content, highlight the text and in the Alignment group, click the
center icon.

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3. Add Colors to Convey Project Status at a Glance
It’s easy to customize your project plan with colors and visual hierarchy. By changing the
styling and font sizes, you can highlight key information and convey project status at a
glance.
a. To change font color, click on the cell with the text you want to change. In
the Home tab, select the color you want from the color drop-down list.
b. To change the background color of one or more cells, select the cell(s) you want to
change. Click the paint bucket icon and select the fill color.
c. To format fonts, select one or more cells. In the Home tab, you can change the font
type, font size, and make the title bold, italicized, or underlined.
We recommend adding a background color to the main header and to each group or phase
of tasks, as well as your target completion date or launch date. You can also change the
font color of in the Status column to reflect current progress (in this example, red
represents Overdue, green represents Complete, etc).

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4. Create the Project Plan Timeline
You’ve already added all your project information to the table, now it’s time to make the
corresponding project timeline. Including a timeline in your project plan will help set
expectations and increase transparency, keeping everyone aligned around priorities and
due dates.
Add and Format Dates
a. On the same row as your table headers, in the next available column, enter the two
dates of your project timeline. Then, hold down Shift, select the two dates, and drag
the bottom right-hand corner across the row until you’ve reached your end date.
b. If you’d like to change the format of dates, select all the dates and right-click.
Select Format Cells.
c. In the pop-up box, select Date under the Category section and select the date type
you’d like.
d. You’ll notice that the cells are very wide. To make the timeline more compact, select
all the dates, and select a smaller font size. In this example, we’ve selected font size
9.
e. Then, select all the dates again and in the Cells group, click Format. Select Autofit
Column Width to automatically adjust the column width to the dates.

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Add Colors to Make the Project Timeline
a. First, extend the same background colors and font formatting from your table to
your timeline.

b. Now, you’ve created a type of matrix. You have a row that corresponds to each task,
and on the right-hand side, on your timeline, you can simply fill in the cells that
represent each task’s start and end date. To do this, select a cell (or more than one
cell) and click the paint bucket icon. Select the color you’d like to use.

5. Final Touches
a. To add grid lines to the project plan, select the entire project plan, both the table and
the timeline, and in the Font group, click the borders icon. Select All Borders.

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b. If you want to add more project information, select the first column, right-click and
select Insert > Entire Row. Repeat until you have 8 empty rows.
c. Then, in the first column, enter the following: Project Name, Project Manager,
Project Deliverable, Start Date, End Date, and Overall Progress. Then, fill in the
corresponding information.