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Essential documents for project management success

Written by Laura Fields on December 02, 2022

 If you have ever handled any project independently, we are sure you have heard about the importance of documents for project management. When a project is running, it has several important and confidential documents that need to be organized for smooth operation and recorded safely for future reference.

There is a considerable role in essential documents for project management as you can overlook and understand the whole project to analyze it and make more efficient and effective decisions.

Project management considers not only external factors but also makes sure to carry out internal factors like assigning a task to the team members, meeting deadlines and much more. With the help of project templates, handling all this work is very convenient.

Moreover, if you want to have Project Management Success, keep a complete record of all the essential documents in a systematic and organized way.

We will get into the list of essential documents for project management success, but before that, let’s get familiar with the term Project Management Success.

What is a Project Management Success?

Project management is stated successful when a project manages to achieve the project objectives. Management plans should be organized so that there is a proper and balanced relationship between all the internal employees and external stakeholders, clients, and customers.

Essential documents will help you to deal with all the crucial side of a project and say no to all the plans that might not work out in the end. This way, you will not only manage the task, but you’ll also have an idea about all the risks or cons that might be present in your project.

Project management success is only possible when you can use all of the resources that are available in the best possible way throughout the project.

In simple terms, all owners, managers, clients, stakeholders, designers, and contractors should move forward together to plan and execute the project in the best possible way.

Importance of Project Management

As you know what is project management success let’s dive in to get familiar with the importance of Project management:

• Realistic Planning: From the experience of the Fox17 writing team, it is stated that project status is more clearly defined with the help of project management and project document. With the help of project management, you can know the current state and drawbacks. Finally, you can plan to carry out different project phases according to the necessity.
• Deliberated Adjustments: Project management helps to connect the bridge between business strategy and project concept. This way, project planning has ample opportunities to grow.
• Standards Control: One of the main objectives of project management is to make sure that every project is carried out in a standard way maintaining the proper quality. When a project is running on the way to getting completed there is a huge responsibility of carrying it out in the best possible way. Moreover, project management helps you to have standard control in the most effective way.

Essential documents for project management

As we already have a detailed understanding of project management success and its importance, let’s get familiar with all the essential project management documents for project management success.

1) Project Business Case

A project business case is one of the most essential documents for project success. It keeps a complete record of all project activities and status. This document is prepared to find out all the project budget, such as its total cost not, only that its reliability will help you find the alternative case only if necessary.

In a broader sense, it is beneficial for managing a project management plan as you will have a broad vision of the project’s overall pros and cons. Not only that, you will somehow have an effective vision for future projects.

2)   Project Charter

A Project Charter is a kind of formal project documentation used by the project manager during the entire project to begin work. This document is really important for the manager as it provides him/her with and authority to start and continue the whole project.

It best describes the three most important elements of a project which are the responsibilities, objectives, and scope of the project. It's only possible to project after the project charter is approved.

Project Charter is used as a blueprint for project management documents from starting to finishing time. Be free to have your own restriction and presupposition.

3)   Project Communication Plans

A Project communication plan includes efficient messages, different goals for the establishment, the audience’s needs and demands, effective outreach plans, updated information, and many more necessary information.

It is one of the most essential project documents that is made after a mutual agreement between stakeholders and collaborators. This document focuses more on internal project communication, which leads to a better form of communication as and when necessary.

This communication plan makes sure that the right piece of information is obtained by people at the right point in time without any kind of hassle. Moreover, there is a record of the communications done so you can easily trail or examine it when needed. 

4) Work Breakdown Structure

Work Breakdown Structure is a project business document that enables you to break down the whole project into smaller components as per the requirements. This document is best for a large project which has several steps that need to be completed.

It ensures that the step-by-step procedure is carried out in a much more organized and complete manner. Also, it is important to show all the project’s tasks. This way, when the tasks are broken down, it is straightforward to assign tasks to every responsible individual.

It makes communication easy due to no hassle or probability of miscommunications. Tasks can be performed more easily with an improved performance rate.

5) Project’s Budget

A project budget is used to estimate and determine the project’s total budget. In a broader sense, this essential document keeps a record of all the tasks and milestones that are to be fulfilled within a particular time.

Moreover, it is indispensable to calculate the total budget cost based on the estimation period for project management success. This document enables the manager to keep track of all the budget that is used and saved during the project. Moreover, not only budgets but also helps an individual to measure the overall team’s performance.

Different project owners also get project management tools to make the project’s budget in a proper way. So, if you are a beginner, you can also use project management tools to reach project objectives.

6) Project Schedule

A project Schedule is one of the essential documents for a project which enlists the overall outline of all periods.  Along with time every individual involved in the project can keep a record of the cost and all the resources that are involved in each and every task of the project.

This way, you can keep track of the overall performance and make changes if necessary. Projects are prone to have more progress as they will have a clear idea about all the task records.

Basically, there are three types of Projects Schedules. They are as follows:

• Master Schedule: A master schedule is a schedule that includes an overall summary of everything, whether they are deliverables or structures, or different milestones of the project.
• Milestone Schedule: The milestone Schedule makes sure to provide more detailed information about every single milestone achievement. This schedule also makes sure to complete the work in a specified period of time.
• Detailed Schedule: This schedule is primarily created for every project and team. It has a clear focus on deadlines, resources, and tasks, along with the proper track of time. It is one of the clearest and simple schedules that are easily understandable without any sort of hassle.
  
  

7) RACI Matrix

RACI Matrix is a document of project management that is composed of four important documents: responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed.

• Responsible: An individual that is assigned the responsibility of a task develops the overall activity in a complete way. The responsible person is usually business analysts, project managers, and much more, who are also called the doers.
• Accountable: Accountable person’s responsibility is to ensure that the work is completed in a suitable and timely manner. Business owners, Steering Committee, and key stakeholders are the responsible party.
• Consulted: A consulted party is the one from whom the feedback is obtained. It is essential to ensure that everything has been considered from their perspective before giving the result or making any decision.
• Informed: Those individuals who are not part of any decision-making process or the ones who are kept in the loop are known as the informed ones. They are just called to during essential meetings or while showing demos of the project.

It has a chart that presents every assignment matrix in the project management process.

Moreover, it brings kind of clarity to the different roles of stakeholders while a project is being run. This matrix makes sure to boost confidence among different parties involved in a project as it brings much more clarity.

It maps out all the responsibilities and activities of a project in a more organized and systematic way.

8) Change Request Management

Change Request Management is one of the most important for a project management success as it enables you to adjust/change/modify a certain project or system of the project as per the requirements.

This document is best as it makes sure to increase the desired product after reducing the product cost of the unnecessary ones. It usually contains the name of the person from the project who wants to change the request.

9) Risks Log

The risks log is the best document that helps you prepare for the uncertain risks that you need to deal with while making the entire project. It is usually created before beginning the project or in different phases of the project by the mutual agreement between the manager and team members.

You can analyze the risks, identify them all take the necessary action, so you don’t need to bear many risks.

The details mentioned in this document can be viewed as and when necessary. You can estimate the impact of risks, which will help you to face difficulties in the future while making a project without much difficulty.

10) Actions and Issues Log

While the Risks log makes sure to track the issues, actions and issues log, make sure to track all the events in chronological order while the project is running. It addresses all the issues that are faced by the team during a project’s conduct, along with the response and its final results.

It is regarded as a perfect document that can be used to communicate information along with its reporting. This document can be used as a note to make sure that all the necessary reporting is done while the project is going on.

Not only, the positive side, but it can also be used to record the negative side that’s affecting a project, track it, and find the ultimate solution.

11) Learned lessons

This document is prepared in order to analyze all the key factors after having a meeting with the team. Moreover, it summarizes and presents both positive as well as negative experiences of a project.

There is a different process that is created along with addressing the keyword. The key points are gathered throughout the project, and in the end, it is used to create a report that is much more organized and detailed.

Wrapping Up:

This is the end of our article “Essential Documents for Project Management Success”. We hope this article helped you to note out all the essential documents that are a must if you are thinking of carrying out your project in a systematic and organized way.

If you have any questions or suggestions, do let us know in the comment section below. We would be more than happy to receive your feedback.

Project Management Success always doesn’t come your way easily so make sure to take every necessary step while running a project.

Author Bio: Laura Fields is an enthusiastic blog owner who owns a private website. She makes sure to post different content that interests her. She and her professional team research different amazing essay writing services online and give honest feedback/reviews/opinions. She loves reading and is very much passionate about writing.