Creating and managing projects is crucial for the effective running of any organization. Many project teams tend to struggle to repeat the same success levels they reached in previous projects or keep on repeating the same mistakes they made in previous projects. You can trace this to the lack of a solid project documentation process.
Effective project documentation is key for recording successful new projects. Establishing a dependable project documentation process helps you emulate past process successes and minimize previous failures or shortcomings.
The job of project documentation is to help you track your project’s progress and carve out a more organized and systematic way of executing and managing your projects.
Despite its clear importance, many project managers prefer not to use it due to how tedious, repetitive, and boring the process may seem. However, what often separates a successful project from a failed one is comprehensive project documentation.
In this article, you will learn everything you need to know about project documentation.
Let’s get started.
Project documentation is the process of adequately keeping records of key project details in an organized manner. All the documents about the project process produced during the project process are what comprise project documentation. Examples of project documents range from project proposals to business cases to project status reports.
Proper project documentation ensures key documents needed for successful and prompt implementation of project strategies are readily available.
The project documentation process lists out a clear and well-detailed procedural method for the proper organization of key project documents. This ensures the project process goes on as smoothly as possible and key documents are within the reach of the project team.
Defining what is to be documented during a project process is dependent on the project description. Big projects require much more documentation than small-scale projects. But overall, some basic documents are needed irrespective of the project’s job description.
A project proposal is often the first official document created for a project process. This document serves as the project initiator. The aim of creating this document is to paint a clear picture in the mind of the key project members and stakeholders on why they should buy into the project ideas.
The project charter is a key project document that serves as one of the foundational building blocks of the project planning process.
A well-drawn-up project charter should contain the ways the project would achieve its desired results. In addition, the project charter should also detail the key requirements, budgetary allocation, and the roles and responsibilities of every project undertaker.
The project plan serves as an efficient road map for the project. A good project plan details the key project milestones and the timeline expected for its completion.
Regarded as the most flexible of all the project documents, the project plan is often subjected to changes throughout the project process.
Keeping all project stakeholders on the happenings around the project process is important. The document that does just that is the project status report.
This essential project management report is designed to provide regular updates to project stakeholders on the progress made on the project. The project status report also spells out the next step to be taken during the project plan implementation phase.
Other key project document examples include project scope statement, risk management plan, cost management plan, communication plan, and financial plan.
The importance of adequately documenting important project processes as they occur cannot be overemphasized. Proper project documentation makes the project management process much easier.
You can learn lessons from previous projects embarked on if you document the former project process properly. Project documentation helps prevent the recurrence of past mistakes.
This also helps improve on the former service delivery as the necessary documented knowledge can now be passed across to the new project.
Project documentation is an efficient guide that helps you effectively set your project goals and define the necessary steps to be taken in achieving the set goals.
Drawing up the necessary project documents needed at the project onset helps give the project a sense of clarity. Project documentation also gives the project team a sense of direction as to where the project is heading based on the project objectives and schedule already detailed in the necessary project documents.
Each project document created by a project team is designed to serve a specific purpose in the project process. These documents serve as the necessary backup for the project planning process and help improve the service delivery of the project process.
Keeping up-to-date project documentation ensures all projects are well informed of the status of the project process. Project documentation is an efficient tool project managers use to keep tabs on the project process in real-time.
Proper project documentation makes the project process traceable and accountable. This encourages transparency as all the details are properly accounted for.
Project documentation helps the project manager in his ability to successfully conduct a thorough project evaluation at the end of the project process.
The introduction of various project documentation tools has made the project documentation process relatively easier and more efficient. These tools are specially designed to assist in project documentation processes.
Monday.com is a project management software that provides users with an efficient project documentation tool. This platform is trusted by 127,000 customers including top brands such as BBC Studios, Coca Cola, Hulu, Uber, Universal, Discovery Channel, Deezer, and NBC.
Filestage is an easy-to-use review and approval software platform that specializes in efficient centralized collaboration. This platform is trusted by top companies such as ABInBev, Emirates, and LG.
Workzone is a project documentation tool specifically designed to make the project management process relatively easy. This platform is trusted by top institutions such as Boston University, Allianz, Wells Fargo, and Vizient.
TeamGantt is an efficient project documentation software that focuses primarily on visuals. This online Gantt chart maker for project planning is used by top companies such as Intuit, Amazon, Nike, and Netflix.
Smartsheet is a project documentation tool that offers users much-needed support throughout the project documentation process. This software is trusted by top brands such as Apple, Pfizer, P&G, and American Express.
Taking out time to prepare a project document and the document not getting the needed attention can be very frustrating. This is usually the case because the project document was not presented in the best possible way to project team members.
Getting the much-needed and appreciative response for your efforts at proper project documentation is vastly dependent on how you document the project process.
As the project process is ongoing, a series of documents tend to emanate from the project process. This is to ensure all the stages involved in the process are adequately accounted for.
In keeping up with these developing stages, project documents are created. These documents tend to become cumbersome due to their volume and it might overwhelm the project team.
Creating an orderly arrangement for the project document and collating them in one centralized location for easy access helps to simplify the project documentation process.
Generating interest from your project team regarding important project documents is a necessary factor to the success of the project process. Key project documents need to be easy to read and understand by all project stakeholders.
Making these key project documents easy to access by all project stakeholders will go a long way in generating much-needed interest.
For ease of convenience, you can also include a search function tool that specifies the particular project document required from loads of project documents available to the project team.
You must ensure your project document is not bulky and too detailed to ensure the document is easy to understand by the project team. Irrespective of the fact that your project document needs to be well-detailed, it should be restricted to key details that affect the project process.
Long pages of project documents prevent the project team from going effectively through them. This grooms a lack of interest. You should ensure your project document is as concise as possible without directly affecting the project’s document efficiency.
Your project document should be kept neat, readable, and presentable at all times during the project process. Changes are likely to occur during the process and your project document should be flexible enough to adapt to these changes as they arise.
You should consider making your project document digital so that you can easily make significant changes without damaging the presentability of your project document.
Several popular but necessary project documentation templates can help you in your project documentation process.
Project business case document template is a key project business document that ensures all the necessary business points as regards the project process have been adequately accounted for in the project document.
The project charter document template is used primarily during the project creation stage. This acts as an efficient guideline which your project team refers to from time to time.
Work breakdown document template is designed to create an adequate project document that meets the specific requirements of your project specification.
Risk and issue log document template ensures there is a significant cover on the likely risk and issues that may arise during the project prices
This project documentation template ensures all the specific requirements of the project process are strictly adhered to and met.
The communication plan template helps in ensuring there is effective communication among project stakeholders. This template also has the necessary tools to ensure prompt and timely dissemination of information.
