Project documentation is an essential part of project management. It covers key project details and activities happening over the course of a project. The document includes project proposals, plans, status reports, budget plans, and other such information that project teams need to execute and monitor projects successfully. An ideal project document is well-structured, with all project details organized systematically in categories and subcategories. It is easy to navigate with relevant articles linked together and a breeze to search as project information can be accessed quickly with a search bar.
The large volume of paperwork involved in project management can be overwhelming for project teams, making project execution and monitoring more chaotic. Online project documentation brings clarity to the process by keeping all essential information organized at a central location for quick, 24x7 access.
When everyone in the team and across teams has access to the same project documentation, collaboration in terms of assigning tasks and monitoring progress gets a lot easier. Discussions and decisions are in alignment, and work doesn’t get duplicated.
With a centralized information resource, all team members have access to project timelines, milestones, budget, status, progress, and deliverables, leading to more transparency and less confusion. This keeps everyone on the same page and well-informed about what’s done and what’s pending.
Project documentation gives a complete and transparent picture of project goals, deadlines, budget, team workload, and more. With all information documented, project managers can refer to the document and trace each and every activity. This makes it easy for them to analyze what worked well and which areas need improvement.
There is no limit to the content you can include in the project documentation. Add as much information as you want but ensure that it is project-specific and useful for your teams. An ideal project document should cover critical project information such as:
Putting together project documentation can feel overwhelming given the sheer volume of information there is to manage. Our project documentation template can take some pressure off your shoulders. It is diligently designed with a table of contents and pre-defined sections to make documenting a breeze for you. This template for writing project documentation is a good starting point. As your project evolves, you can keep adding more categories, pages, and articles to keep it organized and structured.
What do you want to accomplish with a project document - team collaboration, transparency, or are you creating it to keep clients updated about every activity? Discuss with your team how and where a project document can help them. This will help you figure out the ultimate goal of the document, making it easy for you to decide the next steps.
Creating an exhaustive document requires the collective effort of multiple people who write, edit and manage the whole content creation process. When you create a team, assign all members specific roles considering their skills and capabilities. Some can be writers and editors, and others can take care of the administrative work.
There should be enough information to create the perfect document that can be really helpful to project teams. Collect all important documents - paper docs as well as online files. Add them to the document. With project documentation software, importing word docs, PDF files, PPTs, and excel sheets is a matter of a few minutes - so no hassles and headaches of putting content together.
Writing or importing content is just half the job done. You need to structure all information into different sections and subsections, add headers and footers, and interlink relevant articles together. Anyone referring to the document should be able to get information quickly, which can happen only when it is well structured.
Once the content is written and structured, go ahead and publish it for your project teams.
This project documentation template can get you started right away and save you tons of time. It is super simple to use. Just add your brand name and logo. Customize the template to make it better aligned with your branding. And then start adding content. Add images and videos that go well with the information you provide to make the document more engaging to read. It’s not hard and fast to follow the same structure. This free template for project documentation is completely customizable, so you can alter it according to your needs.
Sure, you want to keep your documentation comprehensive, but not to the point that it turns overwhelming for those reading it. No one would want to read a lengthy document where finding anything seems like climbing a mountain. Keep your project document as simple and concise as possible. Craft useful content keeping in mind your purpose and audience.
It is not possible for a single person to manage the documentation from start to finish. The collective effort of multiple people with different roles and responsibilities is required to make content creation faster and better. While some can be assigned the role of writers, those at the senior level can be editors or administrators.
The primary purpose of project documentation is to facilitate easy access to all project information and keep teams on top of all activities. For that, the documentation tool you use should have a powerful search system that delivers relevant results as soon as someone types in the search bar.
