New Templates in Project 2007

  • Article

There is a vast number projects being managed in the world and many Project Managers may not be aware of how they could use Project to help them manage these projects. Templates are a way to help Project Managers get started with Project. The goal of the templates is to give you an idea of how you may want to structure your project. Each template suggests milestones, dependencies, and generic resources to give you a starting point. Obviously, you may change the proposed work breakdown structure to fit your needs.

In Project 2007, we have added about 25 new templates to cover additional project scenarios. To give you an idea, these are some of the new templates that will available in Project 2007:

  • Annual Report Preparation
  • Develop Skills Needs - Hiring Plan - Hiring Forecast
  • Finance and Accounting System Implementation
  • Human Resources Information System Implementation
  • Marketing Campaign Planning
  • Marketing Event Planning and Execution
  • Performance Reviews
  • Product Development Planning
  • Product Evaluation Post Launch
  • Six Sigma DMAIC Cycle
  • SOX Compliance and Technology Options
  • Strategic Merger or Acquisition Evaluation
  • Vendor Evaluation and Consolidation
  • Customer Feedback Monitoring
  • Financial Service Offering Launch
  • Internal Readiness Training
  • ISO 9001 Management Review
  • Managing Incoming Request For Quotes (RFQs)
  • Vendor Request For Proposal (RFP) Solicitation

These templates are well structured to help you understand what tasks can occur concurrently and see what the critical path of the project is. We have also made sure that the generic resources match a skill that will help you define what type of resources you will need for the project. In addition, we added a number of notes to tasks to help you understand why a that task is needed or important related information.

Here is a sneak peak at the Vendor RFP Solution template:


(Click to enlarge)

Note that the durations for all tasks are marked as estimates (have a question mark). We did not attempt to estimate task durations as they will widely vary for each project.

If anyone has template suggestions, it would be great to hear (though new ideas would not likely make it into Project 2007).