A project outline is a crucial document that is used in project planning and project management. They work as a summarized version of a project plan. 

It offers an overview of your project at a glance and is a useful tool for project managers. With a project plan, you intend to satisfy project deliverables, who is with you, and what resources are needed. 

Whenever someone needs to be brought into the loop, they can do so by reviewing the outline. It ensures that all the project team members and the managers are on the same page.

It’s important to create a project outline at the beginning of your planning process. It comes in handy in both an internal and external way. 

From an external perspective, a project outline can act as a project proposal and be presented to new stakeholders, sponsors, any sort of key players, and any new client that may appear. It will help bring the right people to the project and secure funding and resources. 

Internally, project outlines are useful to guide your project team. 

It establishes workflows and helps organize the early stages of your planning process. You can use the project outline as a roadmap for your team members and come back to this file as a reference point later on.

You can keep track of all the items you need to do and how they should be done. You can provide clarity on what you need to reach certain milestones. Lastly, it helps on keeping an eye on how the project progresses.

Every project outline shares some common elements, even though it can be very different in the details. Some of these topics are the following:

Project Description

The very first step of a project outline is to describe the project itself and provide all the essential details needed. 

It can be a small paragraph and should contain information such as the project name, date, who is the project manager, all the team members assigned key stakeholders, and any other relevant detail related to the project. 

Project Summary

In this summary of the project, you ensure that the team has an idea of what they are going to deal with.

You can emphasize the meaning of the overall project outline and explain all the significant sections in a few sentences. 

Project Objectives

Now is the time to determine your project goals and objectives. It will be the base of your project outline and guide you through the process. 

Here you will define what you wish to accomplish at the end of the project. State the major milestones that you want to reach throughout the project in terms of numbers and metrics. 

This helps you to evaluate your company’s performance against your mission and see how well you are doing in achieving them.

Project Scope of Work

Establish the statement of work on the project outline by describing what needs to be completed and how it should be done. 

It mostly contains key deliverables, project milestones, timelines, and the end products. You need to decide who would be involved in the project, what steps need to be taken, what is required, and mention the cost of everything. 

Additionally, you can state the approach you will take and which methodology you will use to finish the project. 

Project Timeline

A project outline must have a general project timeline so everyone can be on track. It’s crucial that you stress a time frame with a focal point on deadlines and other important dates for finishing tasks within your project. 

You can provide specific dates and a timeline breakdown so your team can understand how long it will take to finish each task and complete the project.

Some businesses use graphs (mostly Gantt charts) to dump all this information, especially when dealing with complex projects. 

Project Budget and Finances

At last, establish a budget to know how much you can spend on your projects. 

You can separate your expenses and compare them with previous projects. Once you do it, determine your budget range and ensure that you provide some “extra space” for any unexpected expenses and potential risks that may appear.

Once everything is set in stone for your project outline, your next step is to assign specific tasks within the project to your team members. 

Make sure that everyone is involved and suited for the responsibilities you set for them. Check that everyone is capable of carrying on the expectations. This will ensure that the project goes out smoothly. 

It’s important to determine any sort of problem that may arise during the project. You can list them and warn the team to address them to mitigate the risks once they occur. 

Then, there are several tips that will help you along the way in making the project outline. 

Be Simple

You want your project outline to be understood by anyone, or those who would be interested. 

Keep your writing easy to digest and clear. Don’t “overdo” your text or flourish them. Whoever you send the outline should catch it immediately, without any extra difficulty.

Brainstorm With Your Team

Throw out questions that someone could ask during your pitch. Any obstacle that may appear, how you would deal with the project management, anything that could help your project proposal clear any doubt. Assemble all the key members of the project and ask them for feedback. 

Also, keep your objectives realistic. Don’t be too ambitious with the project goals, and don’t dive into committing to things that could not be possible. Be pragmatic and truthful when it comes to elements of your project outline.

Do a Proofread Before Finishing

And when everything is finally done and cemented…do the last proofreading. Ensure that all the major points are intact and the message is clearly delivered.

Check for any grammatical mistakes, typos, or any sentence that may end up hard to read. You can ask another colleague to double-check the work.

With the ideas in mind, you need to write them down on a proper document. But perhaps you don’t get how to draw the structure of the project outline.

Luckily, you don’t need any special software to drop all the information. Using Microsoft Word would be enough, as it’s a reliable program for creating a project outline. And there are plenty of project outline templates that you can get for free, so you can modify them to fit your needs.

If you need a key for Microsoft Word, you can get one at a low price in RoyalCDKeys that comes with the whole Office 2021 package, which is the latest version.

Simple Project Outline Template

With this one-page blank document template, you will address all the basics and essentials to establish the project background. It helps to ensure that your project outline remains brief and focuses on the important details.

You can download the Word version for free from Smartsheet.com.

Research Project Proposal Outline Template

This template brings a basic outline for a scientific, academic, or any other kind of research project outline. Use the numbered headings as a guide and fill out each portion of the outline.

You can discuss the research problem and the significance of the study, describe the hypothesis, and lay out the research methodology. 

It will help organize your project proposal, and you can get it free from Smartheet.com.

Business Project Proposal Template

This template is ideal for your business project proposals as it has a field at the top for entering project details, a section to list objectives, all the resources that an outline needs, and much more to present to your key stakeholders and key players in the company. 

You can download it for free on Smartsheet.com.

Design Project Outline Template

This template covers key elements of a design project. But it is less comprehensive as it provides a high-level overview of the project’s purpose and process. 

Use this template in the initial stages of client communication or for in-house planning. You can download the template on Smartsheet.com, too.

Business Project Outline Template

This template can construct a detailed outline for any business project. It provides example headings for each section alongside tables for listing subtasks and bullet points. 

You can get it for free from Smarthsheet.com. There are also Excel versions of some of these templates if you want to check them out.

Now you know how significant a project outline for the project itself is and know how to create one. 

These documents are crucial for management and contribute significantly to the project's success. It is worth investing time, effort, and money as it will improve a lot the overall work on the project and lead it to a successful path.