Doing good project management can be arduous when dealing with enormous projects with multiple tasks. Before you assign tasks to a team member, everything must be well-thought, from the project details to the task calendar.

This is why a project calendar helps managers deal with many different projects or more complex tasks. Not only does it facilitate task management but also helps to visualize the performance of each team of your business.

Along with the guarantee that the project will be delivered on time, there are several reasons why project managers worldwide use project management calendars. One of the main reasons is the optimization of resource usage.

The project calendars can help a lot in saving resources and time. Instead of just trying multiple times until it works, the project calendar will give you a direction to follow, allowing you to get quicker results.

Project calendars are also useful tools as they allow one to schedule tasks and provide the overall progress of the project. Having a project calendar to look at and see the progress happening daily encourages people to do their best.

Now that you know the main objectives of a project management calendar, it is time to start creating your own template. The categories and tasks may vary depending on the kind of your project, the size of the project team, and many other details.

Taking a deep analysis of the project and all the tasks that need to be completed is indispensable for the project calendar to work. No matter if you are the project manager of a complex project or a simple one, each project must be individually analyzed for the tool to work.

Although the project management may vary, some categories and fields should be included in the template, regardless of the business type. Here are some of the main categories that should be included in your project management calendars:

List the Tasks

First, list all the tasks you have to do during the project. Don’t forget to organize and highlight the interdependencies between them.

One of the most important points when writing the project tasks is to write down the estimated time to complete each task. This helps to directly evaluate the performance of the team member assigned to it.

The more information you put into it, the clearer it gets for the person responsible. For example, you can divide them into subtasks and add priority levels to them. 

Start Dates and Due Dates

Another vital topic to include in your project timeline is the dates for each task and part of the project. The due date may be the most important, but it is definitely not the only one. 

It is crucial to take note of the date when the project team started performing each task. This way, you can evaluate the performance at the end of the project, seeing how much time each one spent doing specific tasks and comparing it to the time expected to complete them.

It is also important to predict problems and challenges along the way. It avoids surprises and the need to change the due dates because of them.

Goals and Milestones

Along with the tasks and dates of your project management calendar, you might also want to include goals and project milestones. They help the project managers and the teams involved to see the progress more clearly and how long it takes until it is completed.

Adding milestones to a project planning calendar is more complex than creating a random goal and putting it into the template. The milestones must be well-thought-out, considering the essential steps of the project and with even space between them.

Goals and milestones also have another significant impact on the project schedule. Once a milestone is reached, people feel more motivated to continue the journey because they effectively see the results of their hard work.

Team Members

After deciding on the previous categories, the next step of your project calendar is to assign the teams and members responsibilities. The project manager must carefully determine each team's size and duties.

Having a well-planned team distribution can be a game-changer for your management calendar. This part can be even more challenging when dealing with multiple projects since the person responsible for the project management must consider factors such as availability and skills.

Revision and Adaptations

The last part of your project calendar will be the final revision and the possible necessary adaptations that will come after it. The project schedule must be analyzed a second or even a third time to prevent mistakes and problems along the way. 

Everything will have an impact, and seemingly insignificant issues can make an enormous difference when dealing with complex projects. Even an uncalculated holiday in the resource calendar can generate many problems in the other project calendars.

No project calendar is fail-proof, so changes may be needed at any step of the project progress. When trying to create a project calendar, you must be ready for this kind of situation.

There are several tools and tips that can help your project calendars to look better and more optimized. Even the project management software you choose will impact its performance.

Here are some tips to get the best out of your project calendar. Be sure to check each one and see if they fit in your task management template.

Use Different Colors

When creating the different tasks and milestones, choosing different colors for each of them is good practice. This way, you help the team visualize each task separately, creating clearer and more optimized communication.

Choose the Correct Template 

No matter if you are creating your own project calendar template or using a ready one, you must analyze it and see if it meets all your expectations and needs. From specialized project management tools to more general software that allows the creation of templates, each has its pros and cons that must be considered before choosing.

Update Everything Immediately

For the project calendar to work properly, every team must compromise to update it as soon as the task is completed. It is essential to do it because this way, you will have more accurate information about the completion time of each part of the project and the performance of the team members.

There are tons of different project management calendar tools available online, from specialized software with paid subscriptions to more general software.

Each tool has a different focus and set of features offered to the customers. With this, deciding which one to use can be a tough decision.

Between all the project management calendar platforms available online, we highly recommend the usage of Microsoft Excel. Not just because it is an industry standard for most tasks but also because most businesses already have it. This way, you save lots of money that would be used just for specialized software.

Another reason Excel is a great choice is the massive set of tools available for doing almost anything on the platform. You can personalize your template however you want, adapting it to any need.

If you don’t have a Microsoft Office Key, you can buy one at RoyalCDKeys for a considerably lower price when compared to Microsoft Store. Buying it there will grant you access to all the tools available in the software and help you save money, with a price way lower than the one found at Microsoft Store.

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