Project documentation: 7 essential project documents

Starting and completing a project can quickly turn into a real headache. Between deadlines to meet, resources to manage, and the unexpected that arises, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and lose control. This lack of organization can lead to stress, frustration, and loss of time. Objectives are moving away, motivation is crumbling and the project risks deviating from its initial trajectory, or even failing.

Fortunately, there is a simple and effective solution to stay on track: the establishment of complete and structured project documentation. By using the right project management document, you can clarify your goals, plan your actions, track your progress, and communicate effectively with your team. Discover now the 7 essential documents to successfully manage your projects and reach your goals with confidence.

What is a project management document?

A project management document is a formalized medium used to plan, organize, execute, monitor, and close a project. This document can take various forms such as text, a table, an image or even a graph.

Why do you need project documentation?

Project documentation is critical to the success of any project, regardless of size or complexity. This documentation will improve communication and collaboration by centralizing information and ensuring that all stakeholders have access to a common and reliable source of information. In addition, it makes it possible to identify and document the risks inherent in the project from the initial stages. At each stage, documentation is then essential to make informed decisions, identify trends, and make the necessary adjustments.

Documentation is also a great way to improve processes over the course of projects. In fact, it provides a knowledge repository that can be used later to train new members of the team or ensure consistency between the various projects.

What types of documentation are required in an IT project?

Within an IT project, documentation makes it possible to monitor progress or communicate effectively as in a traditional project, but also to ensure the maintenance of the system once it is operational.

The planning and management documentation then integrates elements such as the project charter, the project plan or the communication plan. However, the IT sector must also integrate design documentation (system architecture, database and user interface design), development documentation (source code, API documentation) as well as user documentation (user manual, tutorials, or FAQs) and maintenance documentation (change log and troubleshooting documentation).

How do you manage your project?

For your project, you can opt for different project management approaches. The standalone project approach is an ongoing process. By following established procedures in advance, you can assign known resources to complete tasks. These projects are relatively simple. Therefore, the project manager can operate independently.

In the case of projects included in a program, several projects are managed within a group of projects, which allows you to plan your strategy globally. However, note that coordinated management of all projects is necessary and that the person responsible for each project must interact effectively with the program manager.

Even more comprehensive, project portfolios are used to manage multiple programs simultaneously. They are relevant for large-scale businesses that are in a position to coordinate significant human and financial resources.

What are the phases of a project documentation process?

• 1st stage: preliminary draft or initialization of the project. It is the definition of the objectives and the scope of the project. The essential document is then the specifications which will make it possible to formalize the essential points.
• 2nd stage: preparation or planning of the project. The objective is then to break down the project and define the essential milestones. The project plan or communication plan is then drawn up.
• 3rd stage: the execution of the project. This refers to the implementation of the project plan. The team carries out the tasks and a scrupulous follow-up is then put in place. The key documents are the regular reports on the progress of the project.

The post-completion or closure phase is essential to ensure in particular that the deliverables meet the requirements defined at the beginning of the project. The project completion report and the technical documentation of the deliverables are part of the documents for this final phase.

How do you write specifications for a project?

The specifications are a fundamental document within your documentation. This document will serve as a road map and a common reference for all stakeholders, so it must be prepared carefully.

Start by presenting the project with its purpose, context, and expected results. Note the constraints and requirements, not to mention the deliverables and the criteria that will allow them to be validated.

Focus on defining the roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder in order to ensure smooth and efficient governance throughout the project.

How to effectively use a documentation template in project management?

Using a documentation template effectively can improve organization and communication within the team. To make sure you're on track, follow these few best practices.

1. Choose a document template adapted to your project and don't hesitate to get inspired by examples.
2. Standardize the process in order to deploy a clear and concise document process. To do this, involve the team to gather their feedback on the usefulness and relevance of the model.
3. Centralize documentation and facilitate collaboration by exploiting the potential of collaborative work platforms like Wimi. You will thus gain in efficiency and fluidity.

What sections should I include?

Each project document that you will include in your documentation must necessarily include certain sections.

Start by describing your document by defining its purpose and target audience. Note the access path precisely as well as the access rights to the document.

Then for each document, remember to determine the associated deliverables, not to mention the name of the manager, his role and responsibilities in relation to this document.

What elements need to be documented?

For the project manager and his team, it is important to keep a written record of all aspects of the project they are working on. This documentation process should take place throughout the project lifecycle. Even if this work may seem tedious and time-consuming, it is essential to the success of your projects, because it will allow you to be more efficient and save time, especially when you are looking for accurate information.

Here are the elements that you must document when managing your projects.

• The basic information of the project: It is a question of specifying the purpose of the project and how it will take place. This includes the project objective (s), the schedule, the various milestones, the various milestones, the budget, the deadlines to be respected, the guidelines to follow, etc. In case of doubt, the members of the project team will be able to consult this information at any time. They are also essential for briefing a new person who joins the project team along the way.
• Legal information: some projects require specific information that must be verified by the legal department of your company or client. Find out in advance to gather this information at the start of the project and ensure that it is available as soon as the legal teams request it.
• Anything related to the customer: his requests, the requests for change, the decisions taken, the meeting reports, etc. Documenting all of your customer's discussions and requests helps you clear up doubts or resolve a dispute about a decision. Remember to include the date, time, and people involved each time to avoid future misunderstandings.
• All the changes made to the project: A project rarely takes place as it was originally defined, as it is often subject to change for a variety of reasons (budget restrictions, varied demands on the part of the client, decrease or increase in resources, adaptation to the market, etc.). It is therefore important to document all the changes made and the reasons that led to these changes.

The 7 essential project documents

Here are 7 essential project documents that the project manager and his team should write.

1. The opportunity study

Also called an opportunity note or Business Case in English, this document is a kind of feasibility study carried out before the start of the project in order to ensure its viability, and to convince the customer or the company to carry out the project successfully.

The opportunity study is used to validate the purpose of the project, the context, its relevance and the expected benefits by taking into account the resources and costs involved. It allows the project to be authorized or not and is used at the end of the project to assess whether the objectives have been achieved.

2. The project charter

It is a formal, fairly brief document that presents in detail the main project lines. The project charter describes the main aspects of the project such as objectives, project scope, expected results, and stakeholders. It is used throughout the duration of the project, in particular to control changes made to the initial project.

3. The project plan

The project plan is more elaborate than the project charter. It's about the waybill which determines how the project should be managed by the project manager. It is written based on the specifications that define the needs and requirements of the customer.

It contains the objectives to be achieved, the project schedule, the tasks to be performed, the milestones and expected results for each, the participants as well as their roles and responsibilities, the resources required, the budget allocated, not to mention the deadlines to be respected.

The purpose of the project plan is to help the project manager and his team to stay on track.

4. The project communication plan

Communication is essential for the success of a project, whether it is external communication with the client or other stakeholders or the internal communication within the project team. Communicating well helps to avoid misunderstandings, misunderstandings and unsaid things that can damage relationships and the success of the project.

The project communication plan is essential to set up effective and transparent communication between all the actors in the project, and throughout the duration of the project. The latter allows you to define what you want to communicate, to whom, when and how.

5. The risk management plan

In project management, zero risk does not exist. You should therefore provide a document that identifies the potential risks that the project may face and that assesses their impact as well as the probability that they will occur.

The risk management plan describes how the project team anticipates these risks and what actions are planned to eliminate them, reduce, or correct their negative effects on the project.

6. The project schedule

The project calendar lists all the tasks to be completed, their duration and the resources allocated, the various milestones and the project deliverables. It also indicates the start date of the project as well as the expected end date.

7. Project Closing Report

The closure of a project should be carefully documented so as not to forget anything. It's time to take stock. You must then write one last document: the project closure report.

This document is important because it allows, among other things, to:

• Confirm the delivery of the deliverables to the customer;
• Close accounts and contracts related to the project;
• Evaluate the success or failure of the project;
• Manage the sharing and transfer of knowledge;
• Archive project documentation;
• Measuring the satisfaction of stakeholders.

In addition, writing this final proposal document is an opportunity to build on what you and your team have learned during this project.

What features should you use for your documents?

To maximize the performance of your documentation, use software tools adapted to collaborative work and offering certain essential functionalities.

In particular, Wimi allows you to easily share your files with your colleagues. Among the essential functionalities, we can mention co-editing, the addition of comments or even the chat function, which makes it possible to facilitate exchanges concerning these documents.

With the shared agenda, it becomes easy to plan project meetings in relation to each document and coordinate the actions of all collaborators more finely.

Finally, Wimi task management can be used to create task lists and assign them to a collaborator, define priorities and monitor the progress of each task in detail.

To write and centralize all your project management documents, you can count on the help of the all-in-one collaborative platform Wimi