Project planning calendar template free with Excel is just what you need when you need to create a project plan for your business. This project planning calendar template with excel is very simple and easy to use by anyone, even when they are new to the world of project management.
Developing a calendar template for project management will help to keep you on the right track. It is like having your own personal assistant to remind you of events, meetings and other activities. There are lots of variations to these templates, each with their own unique characteristics that do not overlap. If you are looking for a way to stay organized this article will provide some guidance.
A project management template is a sheet with placeholders that help you document various project activities, like:
- Project planning
- Setting goals
- Creating work schedules
- Managing costs
- Assigning tasks
- Tracking project status
Why Do You Need a Project Management Template?
Excel templates can make it really easy for you to start working on projects, especially recurring projects that are similar in nature.
If you create a project outline manually, every time you start a new project, you won’t have any time left to actually work on your assignments!
Using Excel for Project Management
Project Managers working on small to midsize projects can use Microsoft Excel to visualize, plan and track their projects. This may be a simple project management spreadsheet an Excel project tracker or something even more complicated like an Excel project management dashboard. For important client and executive communications Excel data can also be converted into PowerPoint slides.
Knowing your daily priorities and ability to execute them timely ensure that you will never miss any deadline. You can track the project progress on a daily basis and if any discrepancy is visible in the progress then immediately a remedial plan can be initiated. It allows you to set timelines for the priority deliverables, allocates resources and efforts required for every task, It also helps in provisioning for additional time reserve in order to handle any kind of unforeseeable delays. Streamline and track every work unit, effectively with this project planner.
How to use Excel Project Planner
The simplest template that is available for breaking a complete project into tasks and setting achievable timelines for each task thus reducing the complexity of a large project into various simpler manageable and achievable targets. The template provides a complete picture about the overall progress of the projects.
Firstly, you need to initiate the project plan by specifying a Project Name and allocating a team. The team can have a Project Manager and various other team members. The manager is solely responsible to manage the entire team throughout the project life cycle right from project initiation to planning, execution and closure. The setting sheet can be used to capture the basic information about the team members like their Email Id’s and Contact numbers for a handy access. This sheet acts like a mini database for the Project Planning main sheet.
On the project planning main sheet simply mention the project start date and the preferable choice of the first day of the week. The week start date can be selected from the drop down list of the seven days. Project Managers can breakdown the entire project into sub tasks. Each sub tasks are allocated to a specific resource. The deadlines and accountability are set for each task individually.
The first row under the table column names provides the summary of the entire project. This summary helps the mangers to get a wholesome view of the progress and they can take appropriate actions accordingly. This simple yet detailed schedule can be used by the project manager to plan, execute and monitor the project progress at all levels.
You can capture project related information like:
- Project Name.
- Project / Task manger.
- Project / Task duration- number of days allocated to the entire project under the summary field and the days each task needs to be completed in.
- Project / Task Start Delay- to take into account the delay in starting the project / task.
- Actual Duration- helps to analyze the number of days that a task actually requires for completion. This helps in analyzing and reviewing the work progress.
- Complete Percentage – helps in reviewing the amount of work completed
- Remaining – populates the remaining number of days automatically once the complete percentage is entered.
- Gantt chart to track the progress of the project.
You can add or remove rows, if your project has more of less number of tasks.
We recommend you not to change or delete the pre-defined formulas of the template. By doing so the entire template would get altered as the various fields have interconnected formulas and the results in such a scenario would be doubtful.
Function used in template
- IF(logical_test, [value_if_true], [value_if_false])
- SUMPRODUCT ( array1, [array2, … array_n])
- MAX( number1, [number2, … number_n])
- MIN( number1 , number2 , … number_n)
Gantt Chart Template
Schedules are made up of tasks—a lot of tasks. The crucial step in scheduling any project is organizing those tasks. You need to estimate their duration and set a priority for each so your team knows what to do, and when to do it. A task list can start this process, but you’ll quickly find yourself hitting a wall unless you use a Gantt chart.
Gantt charts are visual tools that take every project task and place them on a timeline. You can see each task in relation to the others, since they’re represented as bars. Our Gantt chart template helps you set start and end dates, shows dependencies between tasks and breaks up the phases of your project by color to easily differentiate one from another. It’s an ideal project schedule template.
You can discuss building the Gantt with your team, who’ll help you better estimate durations. Then, once you’ve created the schedule on your Gantt, share the chart with your stakeholders. It will provide a map of the project and help to orient them when you regularly update them throughout execution.
If you import your template into ProjectManager, you’ll get even more power from your Gantt chart. ProjectManager has real-time project data that feeds into your Gantt chart, so as your team completes their tasks, the schedule automatically updates. Plus, you get access to advanced features like schedule baselines, task dependencies, milestones and critical path calculations. Try our project management software for free today.
Simply enter your tasks and the template will create a Gantt Chart showing when the tasks need to happen, it will also tracking progress. This template enables you to: Enter tasks and activities Create a unique ID for each task Track planned start and end dates against actual end date Enter task duration or work days planned See Work Days Elapsed Calculate Work Days remaining View Work Days Overrun
This template is pre-populated with typical project phases and tasks including: Initiation, requirements, design, development, testing and operations. You can edit, add and delete tasks easily, and the template will format and update the Gantt chart automatically.
Conclusion:
I am sure you must have heard your friends talking about project management template free download, excel project management templates or project planning calendar template for word; they are the most trending words on the internet. If you are working in an HR department or if you are a professional like me who generally take care of projects within the organization, I am sure you must be looking for Excel project planning templates free download along with free project planning calendar.