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Project Management, Project Planning, Templates and Advice

  • Concise, focused guide that cuts through the clutter
  • Step-by-step instructions for creating a project plan in under a day
  • Master essential skills like work breakdowns and task sequencing
  • Real-world troubleshooting for 20 common scheduling challenges
  • Rapidly get up to speed if you're new to Microsoft Project
  • Includes glossary, support resources, and sample plans
The cover of the book 'Essential Microsoft Project: The 20% You Need to Know'

Project Management tools and resources

by | reviewed 2023-08-23
Project Management Articles by the Experts! These articles are written by specialist in Project Management who have many years experience managing projects across all industries.

Auditing projects

Project Audits are a fact of life for Project Managers. This article gives an overview of the auditing process and what you can expect at each stage.

The Business Case

The project Business Case is one of the first and most important project documents, because it sets out the justification for the project. Read the ultimate guide to the Business Case.

4 Quirky Ways to Gain the Best out of a Project Calendar

Project scheduling plays a major role in organizing the projects for maximum efficiency and saving time in the process. Learn how to use a Calendar to manage your project

How to use ChatGPT to manage your projects!

Are you a busy Project Manager? Do you want to be more productive and efficient? Then help is here! This guide will show how you can use generative AI to manage your projects. With 6 examples of how you can use chatGPT to help you plan, and manage your projects.

Configuration Management

Configuration Management is essential for the successful delivery of a project. This article gives a brief overview of the need for, and scope of configuration management.

Construction Management

What is Construction Management? Learn the the key components of managing construction projects and the role of the construction manager.

How to Delegate

Learn how to delegate using this simple, but effective process for trouble free delegation of project tasks. Project Funding - How can you fund your project? There are a wide variety of funding options for projects. This article gives an overview of key funding sources including short term funding, PFI and grants.

Project Planning checklist

This 15 point checklist ensures that your project plan is workable and realistic. It is fast and easy to use, and FREE to download in Word and PDF. The top checks are summarised in an infographic.

PID

Learn about the purpose, contents and importance of the Project Initiation Document (PID).

10 Awesome Project Management apps

These 10 apps offer the functionality you need to manage a project, coupled with the convenience of online collaboration and a shallow learning curve.

Project Management Methods vs Tools and Techniques

By Tim Bryce. The term "methodology" is being bandied about by just about every software development vendor and consultant imaginable. But like many things in the Project Management industry, the terminology is getting sloppy and it is becoming apparent the true definition of "methodology" is being bastardized.

Project Milestones

In Project Management milestones are key points in a project lifecycle. They might be target dates that must be met or delivery of important work packages or markers of progress. This explains the definition, purpose and sources of Project Milestones.

Project Monitoring and Control Techniques

Monitoring and control techniques can be split in to four areas: project plan monitoring, project budget monitoring, monitoring through regular status and/or stage reporting and monitoring carried at different levels by the project team. This guide gives an overview of each area and describes key project monitoring techniques.

Project Definition: The Nature of Projects

It is important to have a complete understanding of the nature of projects. Project management is a specialized, multidisciplinary, and cross functional discipline combining management, business administration, strategy, specialized subject areas, and other fields toward the achievement of project goals.

10 tips for online project meetings

Online and remote project meetings are becoming the norm. Experience has taught us a few simple things that you can do to make your online project meetings successful. Here are our top ten tips for your next virtual team meeting.

Project Risk Assessment Template

You know the risks within your project, but do you know the risk level of the project itself? This template is designed to help you assess overall project risk through a series of questions covering project organisation, planning, technology and planning.

Project Manager Salary

What is the average Project Manager Salary? Well it depends on your country and town or city, your experience, the industry you will be in and your level education. Find out what factors impact salary and how to research the typical salary you can expect in a Project Manager role.

Project Success Factors

By Fakher A. Omezzine. A well-researched and comprehensive literature review of Project Success Factors. The nature of nowadays Large-scale Complex Projects necessitates the application of appropriate and adequate Project Management models, as well as full knowledge of PROJECT SUCCESS drivers.

Task Management’s best kept secret – MeisterTask the awesome app you haven’t heard of

Task Management’s best kept secret. MeisterTask is designed to be the most intuitive task management app on the market.

Project Teams

Project Teams, meaning and definition. A project team is a temporary team created to deliver a project.

Project Tolerance

Understand the concept of project tolerances, and how they are used. See a real world example of project tolerances for time and cost. Time, Cost and Quality - The Project Triangle - Project Management is all about balancing three constraints: time, cost and quality. This is one of the most important concepts in project management. This article provides an overview of the key variations of the triangle and explains how it helps you to manage your projects.

Top 10 Project Management Tools

By Asya Karapetyan, tech writer and blogger. There is a wide array of applications for project managers that fit their specific requirements whether they are team collaboration, time tracking, chart drawing, note-making or troubleshooting. In this article you will find the TOP 10 tools used by project managers.

What are the Three Types of Resource in Project Management?

Explore the three essential types of resources in project management: human, physical, and financial. Learn how to effectively manage and utilize these resources for project success.

Variance Analysis - The Basics of Monitoring & Controlling for New Project Managers

By Mark Romanelli. What is the best approach to monitoring and controlling a project? Variance Analysis is a simple but powerful approach for monitoring the project schedule, scope and cost.

Weighted Scoring Model – Project Management Tools & Techniques

By Mark Romanelli. Decision making processes can become complex when there are multiple criteria involved to be. When this is the case, a useful tool to help put things into a more clear, objective view is a weighted scoring model.

What is programme management

By Steve Twine. What is programme management and why is it important? Steve Twine, Director at Focus-on-Training defines programme management and explains why it is so important in today's complex world were organizations have to rapidly evolve to changes in technology and the changing needs of their market.

What is a Project?

Learn how to describe a project and understand the diference between a project and operations or business as usual.

Why productivity for small business is easier done, than said

By Rebecca Leitch. Productivity is the number one driving force for small business. Yet the biggest challenge is how to find the time to increase productivity. The key is to manage projects properly and effectively, thereby freeing up more time to work on product development. Rebecca explains how. Rebecca Leitch, Content Manager for ESI International

Why Project Management Fails

By Tim Bryce. Tim gives his answer to the question 'Why does Project Management fail?' and explains the importance of embedding project management into the corporate culture.

Why we need project managers

This video footage is taken from a Grand Designs episode that beautifully illustrates why professional Project Managers are important on any project.

Change Management

Change Log Template

This is a Change Log Template in Excel. This is a FREE Change Log Template for tracking all of your changes during the project lifecycle. The Change Log aligns with the Change Management Plan and Change Request Form.

Change Management Plan

Download a FREE Change Management Plan Template. The Change Management Plan is a PMBOK document which defines the change control process and describes how it will be managed.

Change Management Process

See a real world Change Management process for logging, assessing, reviewing and implementing change requests.

Change Management RACI

View an example RACI that sets out who is responsible, accountable, consulted and informed in Change Management

Change Request Template

This Change Request Template is the perfect tool to ensure changes are successfully managed. It includes the change description, the reason for the request, the options that have been considered and an analysis of the impact.

Project Management Dictionaries

Agile Dictionary of Terms

ITIL Dictionary of Terms

Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) Dictionary

PRINCE2 Dictionary of Terms

Project Management Dictionary of Terms

Project Office (P30) Dictionary

Management of Risk Glossary of Terms - A - Z

Project Jobs

How to answer the Top 5 most common Project Manager interview questions

Project Manager Job Description (Free Download with applicant notes)

Project Assistant Job Description FREE download

Digital Project Manager Job Description

IT Project Manager Job Description

Project Services Manager Job Description

Senior Project Manager Job Description

Project Planning

How to Plan a Project - a quick guide to planning a project

Work Breakdown Stucture - how to create a work breakdown structure

Project Network Diagram - how to create a project network or precedence diagram

Estimate task duration - how to estimate task duration on a project

Resource Plan - allocating and scheduling resources for a project

Crashing project plans - should you reduce task durations to fit a fixed end date? This is sometimes known as crashing plan

Fixing Start dates - why you should never fix start or finish dates in project planning

Gantt charts - Gantt charts are often cited as the foundation of project planning. Read this brief overview of Henry Gantt and the method he developed for organising work.

Task Sequence Dependency - In project scheduling understanding Task Sequence Dependencies is key to developing a realistic project plan.

Timeline Maker - make beautiful, simple and readable timelines using Timeline Maker. This guide explains how to download, install and use Timeline Maker. The timelines are created in PowerPoint so they are easily incorporated into project reports or client presentations.

Example Work Breakdown Structures - use these example work breakdown structures to help plan your project.

Quality Management

Quality Assurance checklist

Over 50 checks to make sure your project is healthy and on track for a succesful delivery! Download our FREE Project Quality Assurance Checklist.

Quality Audit Template

This is a FREE template which you can use to document your project's quality audits. It prompts you to identify good practices to share, areas for improvement, and to create an action plan for any deficiencies.

Download Quality Management Plan Template

Download a FREE Quality Management Plan Template. This PMOBK template sets out how quality will be managed on the project. It includes the objectives, standards, roles, responsibilities and control procedures.

Quality Metrics Template

Quality Metrics Template in Excel. As you develop the Project Requirements you need to decide what measures you will use to check if the deliverables are of good enough quality.

What is Quality Planning

Explore the essentials of Quality Planning in Project Management. Learn why it's crucial, how to effectively plan for quality, and the best time to implement these strategies for project success.

What is Quality?

Explore the essential role of quality in project management, including real-world consequences of quality failures in iconic cases like the Ford Pinto, Challenger Space Shuttle, and more. Learn effective strategies for integrating quality into your project lifecycle, from defining standards and metrics to implementing quality control measures and stakeholder engagement.

Project Management Templates

Generic project management templates - free templates in Word or Excel.

Simple Budgeting Worksheet

FREE download. This is a Simple Project Budgeting template in Excel and PDF. Track materials, labor, tools actual and estimate costs.

Conference Project Plan

This interactive mindmap covers planning a conference from start up, through delegate management, venue procurement, conference packs, and tasks for the event itself.

Excel Project Plan, FREE template

Planning a project? Download this free Excel project plan template to kick start your schedule.

Prince2 2009 templates

Download in Mindmap, Word, PDF. Free downloads.

Microsoft Project Templates

Managing a project and don't know where to start? These MS Project plans have been used to successfully deliver real world projects and programmes.

Project Manager Job Descriptions

Examples of job descriptions for project managers. Includes an Senior Project Manager, IT Project Manager and a job description for a Project Assistant.

RACI Template

FREE RACI Template in Excel. Download a template for completing a RACI chart - responsible, accountable, consulted, informed.

Project Start Up Report

This simple, but effective report is an 'at a glance' summary of a project which can be delivered on Project Startup to any group overseeing corporate strategy for example the Company Board, Large Projects Steering Groups or Strategy Groups. Download the Start Up report in Word and PDF.

Software Project Plan template

Are you starting a new Software Project but don't have time to to work what tasks have to be done? Use our ready made Software Implementation Plan.

Work Breakdown Structure Template

Create a Work Breakdown Structure online. Use this online WBS template to create rich, interactive work breakdown structures, suitable for any project.

Excel WBS template FREE

Create a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) using this simple easy to use Excel template.

Example Work Breakdown Structures

Example work breakdown structures from real projects, along with generic examples, and prince 2 examples.

Managing Risk

Risk Management

These guidelines give an overview of risk management drawing on best practice from PRINCE2, MSP and APMP. They define the standard procedures that all project managers should follow to identify, analyze, mitigate, monitor and control risk on their projects.

The Top 50 Business Risks and how to manage them!

How to manage the TOP 50 BUSINESS RISKS. All businesses face risks around strategy, profits, compliance, environment, health and safety and so on. Download this FREE list of the top business risks with steps to manage each one.

Construction Risk Management

Overview of Risk Management in the Construction industry. Looking at the risk management process and procedures in light of the 2001 Turnbull report.

Risk Management Reporting

Learn how to write an effective Risk Management report. Mohammed Nassar Barakat, Consultancy Director at CAREweb explains how to complete a constructive risk management report that will have a powerful influence on business decisions.

Project Risk Management

All projects face risk. That's why risk management is an important part of project management. But what exactly is project risk management and what can a project manager do in order to manage risk?

NHS Risk Register

On the 27 March 2012 the draft NHS transition risk log was leaked to the press. This review measures the NHS risk register against project management and risk management best practice and identifies what might be expected in future versions.

Risk Register of Common Project Risks

This is a Complete risk register that contains 20 common project risks with mitigating and contingency actions that you can take against each one.

Risk log/risk register (FREE)

Risk Logs are used to document project and program risks. They should contain a description of the risk, an analysis of the risk by likelihood, impact and severity, and any mitigating actions. Free Risk Register download in a choice of MS Office programs.

Risk Responses

This article gives a summary of the responses that an organization or project can take to manage a risk.