VP/CIO PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Guideline: Project Plan
Purpose: The Project Plan is a document that defines how a project
will be executed. It may be summary or detailed and may be
composed of subsidiary plans or other planning documents.
Last Modified Date:
May 11, 2011
The Project Plan is a document that explains what is going to be accomplished in the project, who will
perform the work, when the work will be started/completed, how information will be communicated,
what the process is for managing change, what is the criteria for project acceptance, etc. The plan is
developed with input from the project team and stakeholders. Many times the plan will reference other
documents as components of the plan. For example, after completing the Communications Plan
Template you could reference that plan in the overall Project Plan to describe your communication
approach for the project. The Project Plan is a living document. As things change the plan should be
updated. This document and all of the Project Management documents are developed for the benefit of
the Project Manger and the project team. Note: Remember to include all phases of your project in the
plan. For example, make sure your cut-over/go-live phase is included in your project plan.
Project Management Plan Data Element Description
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Task – the task column is a detailed listing of all tasks that will be needed on this project. The
tasks should be units of assignable work.
Assignee - the individual/group assigned to this task.
Target Start Date – the date the task is scheduled to begin
Target Completion Date – the date the task is scheduled to be complete
Status – the status of the task for example, completed, in progress, not started
Comments – a space to provide any clarifying information about the task. Examples,
dependencies, links to documents, etc.
The Project Plan template provides a basic template for the plan. You are free to adapt the template to
your project’s needs. For more complicated medium or high complexity projects, you may find it helpful
to use Microsoft Project.
Timeline/Milestones
The Timeline/Milestone tool is summary document that provides a list of significant dates and
deliverable/events of a project usually derived from the project plan. Normally on medium and large
projects and occasionally on small projects you may need to develop a document for
Timeline/Milestones. This document makes visible the high-level schedule/phases for a project and
what deliverables/events are expected at each date/phase. The Timeline/Milestones document can be
a graphical representation (Powerpoint), a Word document, an Excel spreadsheet or any other tool that
is appropriate. A very simple approach is to review the Project Plan document and select significant
deliverables or events and the dates they are scheduled to be completed.