FREE Project Overview Template
Master project overview timelines with our intuitive project overview gantt chart templates.
Get started for free
Master project overview timelines with our intuitive project overview gantt chart templates.
Get started for free
Planning and managing a project require lots of legwork and preparation. You need documentation, tools, and vision, as well as the right people in the right places within the project. One of the tools you’ll need to guide your team forward and to communicate with other stakeholders is your project overview.
A project overview is one of several foundational documents in the project management process (others include the project outline and project timeline). It provides a bird’s eye view of the project, its deliverables, the tasks required, the resources necessary, the team members involved, and more.
Ultimately, your project overview summarizes essential details about a project. It also serves as an elevator pitch, quickly conveying critical information. Whether you’re presenting to stakeholders, team members, or clients, a well-crafted project overview sets the stage for successful project management.
The challenge is creating a unique project overview without spending too much time or attention. This is where a project overview template can help.
A project overview template is a skeleton that allows you to add project-specific information without having to reinvent the wheel. Using a template can save you time and sanity while reducing errors and labor.
You may have used a Word-based project overview in the past. Perhaps you created a high-level project plan PowerPoint template during your project management training. Both Word and PowerPoint can help you flesh out your project-related thoughts, but neither is ideal for creating a project overview. Instead, choose a project overview Gantt chart, like Tom’s Planner’s.
What makes a Gantt chart a better option than a project plan PowerPoint template for free? Simply put, Gantt charts were developed to help transform data into visual formats. You can create visual timelines, connect milestones to resources, assign tasks to team members, and more, all of which help you create an accurate, flexible project overview.
A Gantt chart like Tom’s Planner’s helps ensure that you’re able to accurately plan your project while communicating with stakeholders, team members, and anyone else who needs to be involved.
Not sold on swapping out your project overview template PPT for a Gantt chart? Doing so can offer some pretty important benefits. Gantt charts play a vital role in project overviews for several reasons:
Gantt charts offer a clear visual depiction of tasks, timelines, and dependencies. You can also color code tasks, milestones, and more for greater visibility and impact. The point of a project overview is to communicate essential information, and a Gantt chart does that better than other document types.
Most projects require tasks to be completed in a specific sequence. Understanding the interrelationship between those tasks is essential for team members, as well as other stakeholders.
Gantt charts help you optimize resource allocation by visualizing task overlaps and simplifying the process of resource planning throughout the project.
With a Gantt chart, you can track progress and meet deadlines effectively. It’s all about visibility into tasks, milestones, and deadlines and keeping everyone on the same page.
Share project updates with stakeholders seamlessly with a Gantt chart. This also helps drive engagement and ensures that everyone’s on board with what the project entails.
Don’t assume that your project overview Gantt chart is set in stone. You can easily adjust task durations and dependencies as needed to accommodate changes to the project.
As you can see, using a Gantt chart for your project overview presentation ensures agility, flexibility, and improved planning accuracy not just during the initial stages, but throughout the project. However, you’ll need to know how to craft a successful project overview.
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Curious about how to write a project overview? You’ll need to know what a typical one page project summary template includes. A comprehensive project overview typically includes the following elements:
Clearly state what the project aims to achieve. These communicate the point of the project to help team members remain aligned, but also to help with stakeholder engagement and buy-in.
Define the boundaries of the project—what’s included and what’s not. The project’s scope is more than just what you intend to accomplish. It includes all the tasks that you’ll perform, those that need to be completed but that you won’t perform, resources required, labor estimates, and more.
Specify the tangible outcomes or results expected. Doing so succinctly and yet compellingly is a critical consideration for getting stakeholder buy-in, funding your project, and communicating the ROI that the project is expected to deliver.
Highlight key milestones and estimated completion dates. However, remember that the timeline should be flexible because the project will evolve once things are in motion.
Identify potential challenges and how you plan to address them. All projects come with risks, and yours is no exception. What challenges do you anticipate? What strategies will you have in place to mitigate those risks?
List key individuals or groups involved in the project. Stakeholders can be anyone from team members and managers to C-suite members. In some cases, you may have stakeholders outside your organization, like customers or contractors involved in the project.
Tom’s Planner’s project overview templates give you the ability to address all these concerns and more in a flexible, customizable framework.
Wondering how to write an overview of a project? It can seem pretty daunting. However, we’ve got several actionable tips that will simplify the process and help ensure that you create an accurate, compelling overview that communicates essential elements to stakeholders, team members, contractors, and more.
Clearly define the project’s boundaries and what falls within its scope. Without an accurate scope, you’ll find planning your project is impossible.
Anticipate potential challenges and gather relevant information. List the risks your project faces, as well as plans to mitigate them.
Identify the client involved with the project. Understand that “clients” can refer to people outside your organization, but it can also refer to those within your organization. Whoever the project is for is the client.
You’ll need to share drafts and gather feedback for revisions. While you’ll need to maintain job roles and duties, communication across the entire team is essential. Specify the how, when, and where of collaboration.
Be succinct while covering all essential points. Your overview should highlight all salient points regarding your project, but it should do so concisely. Let other foundational documents expand on these points and provide more details.
Creating an accurate project overview is important. First, define your scope, then research unknowns. You’ll need to create an outline based on the information you gather, but make sure it’s concise while including goals and projected value. Consider sharing the overview draft with team members for feedback and then revising.
A project overview should be structured to provide basic information about the project, a statement about the problem that it is designed to solve, and your proposed solution. It should also include goals and objectives, timelines and milestones, and resource requirements.
The point of a project overview is to provide a concise summary of essential project details. Think of it as an introduction or teaser. You’re whetting your audience’s appetite with concise, factual information. The goal is to persuade decision-makers that your project is the right way to solve the problem in question.
A project overview is just that - an overview of the moving parts within your project. It should include high-level information, such as goals and objectives, a problem statement, your proposed solution, timelines and schedules, resource requirements, and potential risks that your project might face.
A project overview is designed to provide a concise summary of the project, along with essential details, like who the project manager is, as well as a brief description of the project’s goals and projected value. A project outline is a foundational document that formally defines the project and acts as the blueprint for other foundational documents.