Project plan Gantt chart template
A project plan Gantt chart needs phases, tasks with dates, and a milestone wherever someone has to approve or receive something. This template runs about seven weeks in four phases (initiation, planning, delivery and close), with two placeholder workstreams to rename, and suits any project that doesn’t have a more specific template.
- Initiation
- Project brief & goals
- Stakeholder alignment
- Project approved
- Planning
- Scope & deliverables
- Schedule & budget
- Risk review
- Plan signed off
- Delivery
- Workstream A
- Workstream B
- Progress reviews
- Deliverables complete
- Close
- Handover & documentation
- Retrospective
This is the actual template. Durations count working days; weekends are skipped. Drag any bar to reshape it once it’s open.
When to use it
- Your project doesn’t match a specific template and you want a sensible structure to start from.
- Sponsors need to see from day one when they’ll be asked to approve something.
- The work splits into parallel streams, say a system change and a training rollout, that finish around the same time.
- A proposal or business case needs a Gantt chart by this afternoon.
What’s in it
- 01
Initiation
A project brief with goals, then stakeholder alignment, ending at Project approved within the first week. The brief can be a page. It needs to say what done looks like and who decides, because a project with two sponsors who want different things is usually discovered here or not until the end.
- 02
Planning
Scope and deliverables, schedule and budget, then a risk review, finishing at Plan signed off around day 15. The risk review comes last so it can look at the schedule you’ve drawn: which tasks have no slack, which rely on one person, and which wait on someone outside the team.
- 03
Delivery
Workstream A runs about two and a half weeks and Workstream B about three, starting a few days later, with progress reviews across most of the phase. The phase ends at Deliverables complete.
- 04
Close
Handover and documentation, then a retrospective. Both get cut when a project runs late, and both cost less than relearning the same lessons on the next one.
Adapting it to your project
Rename before you add
Break the workstreams up
Name an owner on every row
Turn on progress tracking
Questions
What should a project plan Gantt chart include?
The phases of work, the tasks in each with start and end dates, the milestones where something is approved or delivered, and who owns what. Many plans also show progress. This template covers phases, tasks and milestones; add owners in task names or by colour.
What are the phases of a project plan?
A common structure is initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and closure, from the standard project management life cycle. This template folds monitoring into delivery as progress reviews, which leaves four phases: initiation, planning, delivery and close.
Is a Gantt chart the same as a project plan?
It’s one part of it. A project plan also covers scope, budget, risks and roles, usually in a written document; the Gantt chart is the schedule. Most people attach or link the chart from the written plan.
Can I reuse this structure for every project?
Yes. Once it matches how your team runs projects, save it as your own template and the next project starts from your phases and milestones instead of ours.
Related
Start your project plan plan
Open it, drag the bars onto your real dates and rename anything that doesn’t fit. Sign up when you want to keep it.