Before Demir and I started Lifehack Method, I was a brand manager in the consumer packaged goods industry. My team worked on upwards of 60 new products at any given time.
Needless to say, I know what it takes to plan and execute projects like a champ 💪
It all starts with taking the time to create a project plan.
And today, I’ll teach you how to do exactly that.
Ready to dive in? Let’s go!
What is a project plan?
A project plan is a formal project outline that includes everything the team needs to know about the project, including goals, scope, timeline, and tasks. It helps keep the project on track, within budget, and running smoothly.
Think of it as a roadmap that guides you from point A to point B while clearly outlining all of the objectives, deliverables, milestones, resources, and responsibilities your team should be aware of.
I’ll tell you more about why it’s so important to create a project plan in the next section, so keep reading!
And in case you prefer video, I also talk about project planning here:
Why do you need a project plan?
Here are just a few reasons why it’s a good idea to create a project plan.
Productivity
Project plans offer a structured approach to tasks and deadlines. Think of it as an effective to-do list that increases team productivity, helps avoid missing deadlines, and makes sure all available resources are being used.
Flexibility
With built-in flexibility and contingency plans, teams can overcome obstacles or challenges without losing focus or precious time.
Overview
Project plans provide a clear overview, helping everyone see how everything fits together and aligns with team goals.
Clear objectives
A project plan offers clear objectives, which are essential if you want to guide your team and make sure everybody is working toward the same goal.
Accountability
Creating a project plan involves assigning tasks to team members, ensuring accountability as they know their responsibilities and feel ownership and commitment towards their tasks.
Quality control
When you create a project plan, you make your standards clear. And because of it, you can make sure deliverables meet expectations and resolve any issues quickly.
Budget management
A project plan is more than just deadlines and tasks – it’s a way to make sure you use your money wisely and don’t overspend.
Decision-making
Project plans provide essential information like timelines and resources, which help teams make better decisions.
Risk mitigation
When you create a project plan, you anticipate and address uncertainties early to prevent them from escalating and disrupting the project.
Team alignment
A clear project plan makes sure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to goals and timelines, which enhances teamwork and communication.
So, how do you create a project plan? I’ll show you in the next section, so keep reading!
How to write a project plan in 10 steps
To create a project plan that’s effective, you have to make sure it clearly outlines all parts of your project. That includes your goals, tasks and milestones, timelines, and deliverables while providing clarity and accountability.
It sounds like a lot, right?
Well, here’s an easy way to create a project plan:
- Establish scope and metrics
- Identify stakeholders
- Define deliverables
- Decide on milestones and tasks
- Create a schedule
- Allocate resources
- Plan your budget
- Identify risks
- Communicate
- Monitor and adjust
1. Establish scope and metrics
Establishing scope and metrics when you create a project plan is important because it sets clear boundaries and tells people what needs to be done and how.
Scope defines your project’s boundaries. It outlines what’s included and what’s not, which helps prevent scope creep and keeps you focused on the core objectives.
On the other hand, metrics establish measurable goals and criteria for success, which helps the team understand what needs to be achieved.
Together, scope and metrics create clarity and direction.
I’ll use the example of a recent project my team executed for Lifehack Method.
We decided to launch Masterminds for our Lifehack Tribe community. These Masterminds are niche interest groups where members who have similar interests have the chance to meet and discuss how to solve any problems they’re having.
When we set out to create a project plan for it, we knew the final project specifications would be:
- Launch 5 Mastermind calls in March for Lifehack Tribe members (scope)
- Promote these calls to the community ahead of time (scope)
- Provide opportunities for member feedback on these calls (scope)
- Host notes and replays in the Tribe library (scope)
- Create opportunities for buddy matching within the call (scope)
- Generate positive feedback and achieve specific attendance metrics (metrics)
Depending on the complexity of your project, you could have just one final outcome, or you could have a laundry list. I usually write this in the Summary section of your project management software, like Asana, so you can refer back to it whenever you want.
But before you do that, the very first thing you need to remember about your project is to set an end date. Every good project needs a start date and a clear end date — when it can be called “done.”
If your project is ongoing, it’s not actually a project. It’s a SYSTEM.
2. Identify stakeholders
A stakeholder is any person, group, or organization that is either impacted by or is involved in your project. It might be a client or customer, but it could also be an employee, supplier, investor, or community member.
Regardless of who your stakeholders are, it’s crucial you know who they are before you create a project plan.
That way, you’ll keep their needs, expectations, and interests in mind throughout the project and be more likely to gain their support, manage expectations, and address potential problems early on.
3. Define deliverables
When you create a project plan, think of the deliverables as the “what” of your project – they’re the result, whether tangible or intangible.
So, clearly defining them is crucial because it helps establish clear objectives and outcomes from the start. It helps with more effective timeline, resource, and budget planning, as well as better decision-making and risk management.
But they can also serve as benchmarks for success and make sure that the final product meets expectations and hits goals.
4. Decide on milestones and tasks
Think of your milestones like the shiny gold coins in your favorite video game that lead you to the final boss.
Ask yourself, if I hit each of my key milestones, would project success be guaranteed? If not, you need more milestones.
There’s no right or wrong when it comes to how many milestones you should include when you create a project plan. It all depends on the size and scope of your project.
But be careful not to assign too many – otherwise, they’ll just become tasks.
When we launched the Tribe Masterminds, the key milestones included:
- Identify the topics of each Mastermind
- Create an Agenda Template for how the calls would run
- Train coaches in group facilitation and the specifics of how to lead the calls (this became an evergreen training document with screencasts and SOPs)
- Create assets needed for the calls
- Schedule March Masterminds
- Promote March Masterminds
- Execute that first month of calls.
Each of these milestones became a SECTION inside my Asana Project. From there, I tackled the tasks.
Define tasks within each milestone
For each milestone, break down the tasks that need to be completed. Picture this as the secret recipe for your mouth-watering project. It’s all the ingredients you need.
This is another place Google and ChatGPT could be helpful, especially if it’s a project you’ve never done before.
I’ll show you how to use ChatGPT in this video:
For the masterminds, inside the “create assets” milestone we had: to write a template script, design slides, create feedback forms, and create Library pages for notes and replays.
Determine task order
You have to arrange those tasks in the right order, just like adding ingredients at the perfect moment. Order the tasks by what needs to come first, second, third, and so on. Some tasks might depend on others, so it’s important to get the sequence right.
For example, before we could design the slides, we needed to have the script done. So “create script” was placed visually higher than “create slides” inside our Asana project.
Assign tasks
For each task, assign an owner, determine a budget, and define the desired result. The owner could be you or, if you work with a team, someone else on your team.
This is really helpful as you start thinking about how much time, energy, and money you’ll need to make this a success. If you’re already running short on resources, you can trim back on your milestones here!
Inside the tasks, include relevant links and create Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) where necessary. Links could be to important documents, websites, or resources. SOPs are detailed instructions on how to perform a task, super useful for tasks that will be repeated.
I’ll show you how to do this more effectively in this guide.
5. Create a schedule
Often, people try to schedule first – but the problem with that is that you don’t yet know enough about the project to be able to do this right off the bat.
Timeline setting involves establishing a realistic and achievable schedule for each task and overall project completion.
Assign due dates to each milestone and task, but remember, flexibility is key. You might need to tweak and adjust as you go, just like a GPS rerouting you around traffic. These due dates will almost certainly need to be adjusted – and that’s okay.
And it should be a lot easier to “guestimate” these now that you’ve gotten the whole project planned out. My advice? Add at least 50% buffer time to tasks you haven’t done before or need to rely on someone else to get done.
6. Allocate resources
When you create a project plan, getting your resources in order is vital to keeping things running smoothly. That includes sorting out your team, budget, equipment, and materials.
It can be a lot, but it’s well worth the time and effort! It keeps your schedule on track, streamlines operations, helps you tackle hurdles head-on, sticks to your budget, and maintains the quality your stakeholders expect.
Most importantly, allocating resources wisely boosts your team’s performance and helps you reach your goals while sticking to what you’ve got.
7. Plan your budget
Think of your budget as a roadmap for where your money will go and how it will be spent. That includes everything, from materials and equipment to people and travel costs.
When you create a project plan, it’s important that you plan your budget as thoroughly as possible. Leave no stone unturned!
Here are a few ideas to get you started.
Some other things people tend to overlook in their budgets include hidden costs, maintenance or support, and inflation.
Creating a budget will help you manage the money you have as wisely as possible. If you do it right and stay within realistic spending limits, you won’t just have enough to cover any unforeseen costs – you’ll have enough to actually make sure your project is successful.
So, when you sit down to plan your budget, make sure you thoroughly identify and estimate all potential costs (even if you think they’re unlikely!). I recommend setting aside about 10% to 20% of your total budget for an emergency fund.
As you move through your project, remember a budget isn’t a once-and-done task. Make sure you regularly check in and adjust as needed to keep your project on track.
8. Identify risks
As you create a project plan, you have to be overly cautious when it comes to risks.
I like to approach it like this.
First, think about what could go wrong or throw a wrench in your plans. Maybe it’s unexpected costs or team members getting sick the day before a deadline. Write down everything.
Once you’ve figured out your potential risks, think about how to prioritize them. Which ones could have the biggest impact on your goals, timeline, or budget?
After that, come up with a game plan for each and every one. Think about how you can prevent it from happening in the first place and or how you’ll handle it if it does happen. For example, you might encourage team members to stay home if they don’t feel well… but if they do get another team member sick, how can you help pick up the slack?
As you progress, check to see if new ones have emerged or if any are becoming more likely to happen.
9. Communicate
I can’t emphasize this enough: Open and honest communication is key if you want to create a project plan that works.
I mean, companies lose an average of more than $62 million each year because of poor communication!
So, define roles early and make it easy for team members to share ideas, concerns, and feedback.
I recommend setting up regular check-ins, whether it’s daily, weekly, or monthly. They’ll help keep everyone in the loop and give you the chance to address any issues before they turn into big problems.
Additionally, make sure everyone knows how to communicate, whether you’re using email, Slack, Zoom, or a collaborative online task manager like Asana (which is our favorite).
And remember to document everything. Writing down meeting notes, task updates, and project milestones makes it far easier to keep everyone on the same page and avoid misunderstandings.
10. Monitor and adjust
Listen, you could create a project plan unlike any the world has ever seen. But still, you can’t just set it and leave it – projects rarely go exactly as planned, after all.
Check in regularly to see how things are progressing and be prepared to tweak it if you need to in order to stay on track. If new tasks come up that you didn’t think of before or you have to change deadlines, add them to your plan and reallocate your budget accordingly.
Keep track of what’s working and what’s not. Use this information to make better decisions and improve your plan as you go. This way, you’ll be able to tackle challenges head-on and keep your project headed towards success.
Now that you know how to create a project plan, let’s take a look at one.
Example project plan
Let’s say you needed to create a project plan for your company’s website redesign.
Here’s what a simple version of it might look like:
Project Name:
Website Redesign
Summary and Objective:
Redesign the Company website to enhance user experience, update visual design, and improve functionality to boost engagement and conversion rates by 20% within six months.
Budget: $25,000
Project team members:
Project Manager (PM): John
Lead Designer (LD): Jane
Content Strategist (CS): Mary
SEO Specialist (SEO): James
Quality Assurance (QA): Robert
Stakeholders:
Company leadership (CEO, CFO, COO)
Marketing team
Sales team
IT department
Customer service team
Customers
Deliverables:
Design Mockups: July 15
Content Strategy: July 30
Homepage Development: August 20
Beta Testing: September 15
Launch: October 1
Milestones and Owners:
Requirements Finalized: John, June 30
Design Mockups: Jane, July 15
Content Strategy: Emily, July 30
Homepage Development: Jane, August 20
Beta Testing: Sarah, September 15
Launch: John, October 1
Reference Material:
Current website analytics
Brand guidelines
User feedback surveys
SEO audit report
Competitor analysis
Communication plan:
Weekly team meeting: Monday, 10 a.m., via Zoom
Progress reports: Friday, 3 p.m., via email
Ad-hoc communication: Slack
Stakeholder updates: Once a month
All other tasks, deadlines, and updates will be tracked in Asana.
You’ll find a template to use when you’re ready to create a project plan in the next section.
Template
Here’s a template to help you create a project plan tailored to your goals and will help you stay on track.
As you fill it out, be sure to customize it as needed – adjust sections, add details, and align the roles with your own team.
And be sure to come back to it regularly to update the plan as the project evolves and changes.
Project Plan Template
- Project Overview
- Project Name:
- Project Manager:
- Start Date:
- End Date:
- Project Summary: Brief description of what the project aims to achieve.
- Project Objectives
- Goal 1:
- Goal 2:
- Goal 3:
- Add more goals as necessary.
- Scope of Work
- In-Scope: Define what is included in the project.
- Out-of-Scope: Clarify what is excluded from the project.
- Stakeholders
- List of Stakeholders: Identify everyone involved in the project and their roles.
- Milestones
- Milestone 1:
- Expected Completion Date:
- Key Deliverables:
- Milestone 2:
- Expected Completion Date:
- Key Deliverables:
- Add more milestones as necessary.
- Tasks and Schedules
- Task 1:
- Description:
- Assigned to:
- Due Date:
- Status:
- Task 2:
- Description:
- Assigned to:
- Due Date:
- Status:
- Add more tasks as necessary.
- Resources
- Budget: Outline the budget and financial resources available for the project.
- Tools and Technologies: List all tools and software required for the project.
- Human Resources: List team members and other personnel involved.
- Risk Management
- Risk 1:
- Description:
- Mitigation Strategy:
- Risk 2:
- Description:
- Mitigation Strategy:
- Add more risks and mitigation strategies as necessary.
- Communication Plan
- Frequency of Updates: How often will updates be provided and to whom?
- Methods of Communication: Email, meetings, reports, etc.
- Approval and Sign-off
- Signatures:
- Date:
- Comments:
What’s next?
When you create a project plan, you’ll boost your team’s productivity and transform how you operate.
But sometimes, a project can still feel overwhelming even with a plan.
That’s why we created our Winning the Week Method, a proven system that has helped professionals across the globe conquer their overwhelm and achieve their goals more quickly.
Get started for FREE with our downloadable worksheet:
