Taking a project from the concept stage to positive outcomes in the real world is a complex & dynamic process. As you navigate your way around limited resources, risks, and delays – you feel the constant pressure of executing your project plan in the most time and cost-efficient way possible.
So if you too are looking for a way to improve the implementation efficiency level of your project – you must learn to streamline your planned activities in the form of an Implementation Schedule. As a live document, a schedule lets you stay on top of which tasks are important, who is accountable for them, and when you can expect to be started and completed.
Now, let’s explore how our Implementation Schedule template can help you with all that and more:
Project Overview
Right at the top of our template, we identify details such as:
- Project name
- The person responsible for leading project activities (usually, the Project Manager).
- The scope of the project wherein it is clearly stated what the project wants to achieve, by when, and under what budget.
- The deliverables of the project: In this section, list down the concrete outcomes or key outputs you expect the project to produce once it has been successfully executed.
Action Plan
In our spreadsheet, we use a phase-by-phase breakdown of individual tasks to help you plan and track your project activities. Create an itemized numbered list of all the tasks that you must complete within each project phase such as initiation, planning, or execution – and then add the following details against each task:
Responsible Resource
In this column, sort tasks by human resource. In other words, it’s time to figure out who is doing what. Enter the name and professional designation of the person(s) or team(s) who shall be assigned to complete each specific task.
Each action must be assigned to the right member of the team. Project leads must assess the talents and abilities of individual team members to ensure they are a good fit. For example, an IT-related task will be assigned to a member of the IT team, and so forth.
Priority Assigner
While some tasks may be a client’s top priority, with the destiny of the entire project at stake, others, such as minor bug fixes or responding to irrelevant emails, may be better left on the back burner.
In this column, we use a color-coded system to assign a priority level to each task by assessing its importance in light of project needs or client demands. Our drop-down menu lets you choose from three options: ‘High, ‘Medium’ and ‘Low’. However, we have attached a configuration sheet in case you want to use different categories to suit your own project context.
If you want to learn more about how to prioritize individual tasks within a project, feel free to check out our Prioritization Matrix template!
Status Checker
In this section, we simply want to get a sense of which tasks have been completed, which are currently in progress, and which ones need to be reviewed or approved, etc.
In our template, we have used a color-coded system where you can check the status of your plan using one of seven options:
- Not Started
- In Progress
- Complete
- Need Review
- Approved
- Overdue
- On Hold
If you want to customize this list, you can do so in the configuration sheet.
Start and End Date
These two columns are an integral part of most project planning documents, such as a Project Timeline, as they place every action inside a predetermined time frame, thus ensuring the project is carried out in a time and resource-efficient way.
When identifying a start and end date, always think about how urgent or critical the task is as well as the logical task dependencies that might connect one task to another.
Wrap Up
And there you have it! A free, customizable template that you can easily tailor to the implementation needs of your project regardless of its nature, size, and complexity.
At WordLayout, our team conducted in-depth research into the most sought-after implementation plans out there. Based on this exercise, we developed a series of customizable templates to suit a variety of different project needs and organizational contexts. Click here to check out our complete collection of implementation plan templates, or maybe even learn to make your own!
Our editable template can be instantly accessed in .xlsx, .xltx, and .ods formats.
