Project Documentation ,10 Essential Key Project Documents infographic

Project Documentation – 10 Key Project Documents

PMP aspirants often ask these common questions: What is project documentation? , What is the importance of project documentation? and What are the Key Project Documents? It is obvious that Project documentation is vital for any project’s success. Typically, project teams use hundreds of project documents while they are managing their projects. All the documents are essential and they serve different purposes.

For instance, risk management documents are essential to manage risk processes within a project. Health and safety reports are used to reduce or eliminate hazards at the source. The project work schedule is vital to plan the start and end date of the deliverables in order to complete the project on time. However, project management teams use some essential project documents which are directly related to the production itself. In this article, we will discuss the importance of project documentation and review 10 essential project documents.

Project Documentation



Project managers often deal with delivering sophisticated projects. Their business does not only involve delivering the project tasks on time and budget but also perform project documentation successfully.

Documentation is a written material that provides official information regarding the project such as records, procedures, plans, and reports. Therefore project documentation should be officially written and should include the right information.

Why Do We Need Project Documentation?

Since the project documentation includes maintained or recorded material, project teams need project documentation in order to provide proof of traceability. Project documentation also helps to track the project performance which is important for decision making.

Experienced project managers always understand the importance of project documentation because it plays a key role in dispute resolution. For example, let’ say that you are managing a project and one of your subcontractors asserted a time extension claim against you. The subcontractor attached daily workforce reports to the claim file and asserted that he brought enough labor for the task. According to him, all the delays must be are attributable to you.

When you analyzed the project’s daily reports that the project team created, you detected that the subcontractor didn’t bring enough labor and material. In the view of the fact that all the delays are attributable to the subcontractor because his performance was not enough for the task.

10 Key Project Documents



Project documentation serves the purpose of providing a reference for something done. Therefore it is very important for the success of any project. There are many project documents created through the life cycle of a project. However, we will discuss ten of them below.

Project Charter

Project Charter is also known as the project definition document. Project vision, objectives, goals, business reason are defined in this document. It is an official document that formally authorizes a project. It also defines the stakeholders and the teams involved in the project.

Project Scope

The project scope involves all the works, processes, methods required to deliver the project deliverables. Project Scope is the work performed to deliver a service, result, or product. All the project requirements and the agreed scope of work are involved in this document.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

WBS is used to divide the project into manageable sections. Work packages are listed hierarchically in order to manage and organize the project’s scope. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a key document used for project planning, resource management.

Project Management Plan

The project management plan is a comprehensive document that defines how the project is planned, executed, monitored, and controlled. The project management plan includes but not limited to the management plan, configuration management plan, baseline schedule, and cost.

Project Schedule



The project schedule includes high-level details of project phases, activities, and milestones. Activities are grouped under WBS levels and resources are allocated to the activities.

Quality Assurance Plan

A quality assurance plan includes quality objectives, quality management system, standards and guidelines, quality records in order to meet the organization’s quality requirements.

Note that project documentation should be well arranged, easy to read, and adequate.

Risk Management Plan

A risk management plan is created to identify risks and implement methods to reduce them. With the help of risk management plans, risks can be monitored and controlled. A risk assessment matrix is an integral part of a risk management plan.

Work Performance Reports

Work Performance Reports collect project information and compare the actual and planned values in order to measure the project’s performance. Work Performance Reports improve the project manager’s and stakeholder’s decision-making.

Budget

A project budget is a financial document that involves direct and indirect costs, expenses, cash flows, and the prices of the work packages. Material, subcontractor, labor, and equipment costs of each work package are analyzed to calculate the overall project budget.

It is obvious that Proper project documentation is a mandatory element in managing projects.

Project Communication Plan



Establishing an effective communication system is vital for successful project management. A project communication plan includes communication tools, methods, and roles within a project.

Conclusion

As we mention in the first paragraph, all the project documents are essential and they serve different purposes. Project documents must meet the traceability and quality requirements. They must be well arranged and easy to read. Understanding the function of each document provides success in project management. In addition to that establishing a proper document control system is as important as creating and using project documents.

In this article, we discuss the importance of project documentation and ten key project documents. If you want to add or share anything related to the project documentation, please use the comments box given below.



See Also

Difference Between Project Proposal and Project Charter

External References

American Society for Quality (ASQ

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1 Comment
  1. Avatar for Wallace Celia
    Wallace Celia 5 years ago

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