Looking for new project management templates?
Whether you’re tracking multiple projects or need more insight into the project planning process, details are essential. That’s why project management templates save managers and teams alike a ton of time when jumpstarting the latest concept or project plan.
Project management templates prevent teams from starting from scratch with every new project, streamline existing processes, and help members think more proactively about how they’re carrying out their daily tasks.
Plus, they’re loaded with features to manage the heavy lifting for you. Whether it be through workflow automations, pre-built workflows, plug-and-play process documents, or tracking project deliverables, organizing tasks and documents will always create a more manageable system.
There are hundreds of templates out there to complement virtually any project management software—but not every free template will suit every project! In this article, we’ll cover everything project management templates can do for your team, the must-have features, and 20 customizable templates to enhance your project management process in ClickUp!
- What is a Project Management Template?
- 20 Free Project Management Templates for Project Managers
- 1. Project Management Template by ClickUp
- 2. High-Level Project Management Plan Template by ClickUp
- 3. Project Management Timeline Template by ClickUp
- 4. Project Manager Template by ClickUp
- 5. Project Schedule Template by ClickUp
- 6. Project Charter Template by ClickUp
- 7. Schedule Blocking Template by ClickUp
- 8. Project Management Status Report Template by ClickUp
- 9. Agile Scrum Project Management Template by ClickUp
- 10. Project Management Meeting Tracker Template by ClickUp
- 11. Creative & Design Template by ClickUp
- 12. Budget Project Management Template by ClickUp
- 13. Project Management Playbook Template by ClickUp
- 14. Construction Project Management Template by ClickUp
- 15. Project Plan Template by ClickUp
- 16. Project Checklist Template by ClickUp
- 17. Gantt Timeline Template by ClickUp
- 18. RACI Matrix Template by ClickUp
- 19. Communication Plan Template by ClickUp
- 20. Work Breakdown Template by ClickUp
- Features to Look for in Free Project Management Templates
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat is a Project Management Template?
Project management templates are designed to help teams save time and work more efficiently with pre-built workflows, project views, and tasks to expedite the early stages of your project through to completion.
Kind of like the most complicated Mad Lib you’ll ever find, project management templates make it easy to plug your information into tailored project management structures so your team can simply start.
The best templates are also customizable, align seamlessly with your current processes and tech stack, and help create a standardized approach to all of your projects going forward.
These templates are also rather complex with ready-made frameworks for creating tasks, project schedules, and proper documentation. You’ll reap a laundry list of benefits to continue streamlining and scaling your project management best practices including:
- Increased efficiency through better organization
- Effective time management to stay on track
- Consistent documentation to align teams on current projects and make sense of past work
- Improved collaboration between members, managers, and stakeholders
Summarize this article for me please20 Free Project Management Templates for Project Managers
Use the features above to consider your team’s needs and typical project requirements to determine the project management template that serves you best! With the 20 customizable and free project management templates listed below, you’re guaranteed to find the perfect template for any use case.
1. Project Management Template by ClickUp
Failing to plan equals planning to fail in project management, but the Project Management Template by ClickUp simplifies this hefty challenge with a designated and pre-built Space to manage your work in organized Folders broken up by project phase. If you’re brand new to project management, this template might feel a bit overwhelming, but we’re here to break down this comprehensive resource so you can:
- Visualize and track your project resources
- Assign, manage, and prioritize your tasks with multiple workflow views
- Sync with stakeholders and work with the team without breaking a sweat
And more! This free project management template is your all-in-one solution with a flexible List and Kanban-like Board view to plug in your task information for immediate progress tracking. Plus, there are six custom task statuses to convey whether any action items are in progress, open, or done.
Productivity really comes into play with this template’s additional ClickApps! Access seven key functionalities by viewing or opening tasks including:
- Time tracking
- Priorities
- Tags
- Custom Fields
- Dependency warnings
- Multiple assignees
- Email sync
And more—no matter what pricing plan you use!
2. High-Level Project Management Plan Template by ClickUp
The High-Level Project Management Plan Template by ClickUp is designed to define and track your team’s long-term goals, KPIs, and final product from a bird’s-eye view.
This beginner-friendly project management template keeps things a bit simpler than the first project management template but still packs a major punch with its List view. With three custom statuses and five pre-set Custom Fields for stages, approvals, and progress toward completion, managers can visualize a comprehensive pulse-check on the project status, even from a single glance.
The five flexible views are where this high level project management template really shines—including a ready-to-use Deliverables List view, multiple Kanban boards, a detailed project timeline, and of course, a Getting Started Guide to expedite your set-up process.
3. Project Management Timeline Template by ClickUp
And for all of our visual-first project managers, the Project Timeline Whiteboard Template by ClickUp will be your new go-to! Whiteboard project management is all the rage—and for good reason! Using this highly visual and collaborative tool, you can quickly plot your project’s major activities by stage and by week to help the team stay on track.
Plus, ClickUp Whiteboards are the only digital whiteboard software with the ability to take any text, shape, or note, and convert it directly into an actionable task. That means you can act on your workflow from your whiteboard without ever having to re-update statuses or click away from your work.
And since the work is already so neatly organized on your whiteboard, this project timeline template is the ideal resource to have on hand for stakeholder meetings and presentations so you avoid any project risks.
4. Project Manager Template by ClickUp
As valuable as the previous project management templates are, you need a solid understanding of project management best practices and fundamentals before you can use them to their fullest extent. The Project Manager Template by ClickUp is here to help you achieve that knowledge.
This ClickUp Doc template provides the framework for a Statement of Purpose (SOP) essay for those in pursuit of higher education degrees like an MBA or MSc. These programs are critical for covering the basics and the nitty-gritty of project management, and this free template is the perfect stepping stone for highlighting the qualifications, unique skills, and experience you already possess to help you succeed in such programs.
5. Project Schedule Template by ClickUp
Designing your team’s project schedule can be a daunting task—especially for more complex projects and cross-functional teams. The Project Management Schedule Template by ClickUp simplifies this task with a formatted List to break down everything from your project phase to potential bottlenecks.
While this is a List template, that’s not the only project view you’ll find applied to your Workspace. You’ll also see a pre-built Table view to assess project risks or issues, a project schedule using Timeline and Gantt view, and a Kanban board to visualize individual task statuses.
Using that Kanban board with ClickUp’s Board view, you’ll also have immediate access to key information through Custom Fields so you know the exact project status just how you designed it. So as you look at the big picture of your tasks, you can also quickly grab details like contributors, the risk level, progress rate, and more.
6. Project Charter Template by ClickUp
A project charter is a short formal document that describes your entire project and is created as you build your project plan. It plays a major role in defining your project scope, deliverables, key players, budget, and the work to be done.
This Project Charter Template by ClickUp makes this easy with a detailed outline applied directly to a ClickUp Doc. In the pre-formatted project charter template sections and tables, you’ll be prompted to fill in all of the information you need to get your project off the ground and set in motion.
7. Schedule Blocking Template by ClickUp
As a project manager, you need easy but functional strategies to keep track of your project status and timeline so you know what task each team member needs to work on and the allotted time left to stay on schedule. One of the best ways to achieve this is by time-blocking!
Use this Schedule Blocking Template by ClickUp to assist you in monitoring your past, current, and upcoming events. By applying this List template to your Workspace, you’ll instantly have access to four custom statuses, five Custom Fields, and a whopping seven project views including:
- List view for upcoming activities
- Form view for scheduling requests
- Monthly, Daily, and Weekly Calendar views for optimal time management
And more!
8. Project Management Status Report Template by ClickUp
The Project Management Status Report Template by ClickUp will keep your stakeholders well-informed and your executive projects on track through its seven flexible work views, 11 Custom Fields, four custom statuses, and more.
This beginner-friendly project status report template was created to help you better oversee multiple projects at a time, so you can quickly grab the key takeaways of any project from any view. And with so many Custom Fields in this project status report template to attach important information to every task, you can quickly filter, sort, and locate action items or things like resource allocation and project budgeting across everything with ease.
9. Agile Scrum Project Management Template by ClickUp
Sometimes it can feel like Agile teams are working around the clock to iterate, iterate, and iterate again. It requires a ton of strategic planning, a powerful project management tool, and the Agile Scrum Management Template by ClickUp to ensure everything goes off without a hitch every time!
This monster of a template applies a designated Space for Agile Scrum teams to find solutions and standardize the delivery of their products—including backlogging, sprint planning, standups, reviews, and retrospectives so you nail all project phases.
This project planning template starts you off on a structured ClickUp Whiteboard to map your user flows and team workflows. From there, you can begin creating, delegating, and tracking tasks using 30 loaded task statuses! Not to mention, you’ll also have access to 13 ClickApps for sprint points, time tracking, priorities, work-in-progress limits, time estimates, dependencies, Custom Fields, and much more.
10. Project Management Meeting Tracker Template by ClickUp
Meeting minutes are extremely helpful for remembering your next steps and key takeaways, but tracking your meetings in a flexible list ensures a smoother planning and preparation phase when managing any project requests. The Project Management Meeting Tracker Template by ClickUp is perfect for staying on top of important check-ins like quarterly reviews, weekly 1-1’s, project kick-off meetings, and more.
11. Creative & Design Template by ClickUp
Creative and design project management is where things start to get a bit dicey!
Project details pivot and design or creative teams face multiple rounds of feedback to ensure stakeholders are pleased with the results. And since design requests can be interpreted a thousand different ways—the edits can get a bit extreme at times.
The Creative & Design Template by ClickUp is a must-have Folder for all creative teams.
This creative and design template starts with a collaborative ClickUp Whiteboard and guides you through the entire creative process with pre-built end-to-end workflows to document and execute requests of any kind.
12. Budget Project Management Template by ClickUp
In project management, determining the project budget is crucial for any project’s success.
Project budget templates can help a project manager analyze expenses, make strategic resource allocation decisions, and identify risks when managing multiple projects! That’s why it’s so important to have a resource like the Budgeted Project Management Template by ClickUp handy for every new concept.
Think of this template as the best-kept secret for numbers project management. This user-friendly and intuitive tool is ideal for tracking project schedules and multiple activities so you stay within the pre-defined resources and requirements for any project.
13. Project Management Playbook Template by ClickUp
We’ve seen plenty of List and Space project plan templates already, but the Project Management Playbook Template by ClickUp has a bit of a different approach to handling project plans! With a pre-made Folder for your Workspace, this beginner-friendly plan template will be your project manager’s new best friend for standardizing the preparation process for any type of project.
It hinges on aligning your project goals with your company’s overall objectives and traditional operations, so all team members feel ready and qualified to tackle their tasks at hand. This is especially true for cross-functional team members who must accommodate a range of daily processes.
The simple project playbook template works like a playbook and will set consistent expectations and bring some much-needed predictability to everyone’s daily schedule.
14. Construction Project Management Template by ClickUp
Like any software team, construction project management professionals have a ton on their plates, all the time. The Construction Project Management Template by ClickUp was designed for all construction site managers to oversee complex builds, updates, dependencies, and schedules.
But that’s not the only person who’d benefit from this template! This Space-level template brings an advanced set of features like 30 task statuses, 14 Custom Fields, 11 ClickApps, and five project views to help contract admins, draftsmen, and contractors streamline their planning and scheduling processes.
15. Project Plan Template by ClickUp
The Planning a Project Template by ClickUp uses your Workspace to its fullest potential by creating tasks in any List and then easily moving them to other Lists.
Project planning templates help teams achieve their goals within the given scope, schedule, budget, and resources. It enables stakeholders to easily track project status through visually appealing and easy-to-understand project schedules so they best plan around changes while proactively managing risks.
ClickUp’s free project plan template helps project managers keep their project on track from start to finish. Use this template to ensure everyone on your team has access to the same information, expectations, decisions, and assumptions.
Bonus: Excel project management templates!
16. Project Checklist Template by ClickUp
ClickUp’s Project Checklist Template is designed with project managers in mind to simplify complex project processes into approachable tasks. This template is your essential tool in maintaining alignment across team activities, ensuring timely project deliveries, and adhering to the planned budget.
Here’s what the Project Checklist Template can do for your team:
- Facilitate the creation of a project, along with task assignment to team members.
- Encode task deadlines and amend as needed through ClickUp’s dynamic calendar feature.
- Keep tabs on the status of each task and leverage ClickUp Dashboards for an overall view of project progression.
- Incite brainstorming sessions and guarantee thoroughness by covering every minutiae – be it scheduling emails, assigning tasks, charting timelines, or establishing milestones.
Effortlessly manage your project processes and bring efficiency to new heights with ClickUp’s Project Checklist Template.
17. Gantt Timeline Template by ClickUp
ClickUp’s Gantt Timeline Template offers a unique, interactive way to navigate your operations from a daily, monthly, and yearly perspective.
Capable of adapting to any project environment, this Gantt Chart template comes loaded with five distinct views, thus ensuring optimal flexibility and utility for your project visualization needs. This timeline’s versatility covers a broad range of use cases so that, regardless if your focus is engineering, marketing, or any sector in between, this template will be a practical solution for you and your team.
Best of all, the Gantt Chart template is ideal for beginners making it a fantastic choice for any team members, irrespective of their experience level with project management software. Experience a seamless project management journey today, start with ClickUp’s Gantt Timeline template.
18. RACI Matrix Template by ClickUp
Designed to streamline your project management framework, the ClickUp RACI Matrix Template is user-friendly and can turn potential project confusion into a well-oiled operation. Here are the exciting features you’ll find in this RACI matrix template:
- Clearly track progress with intuitive statuses like Blocked, Complete, In Progress, Internal Review, and To Do
- Present and categorize attributes in a simplified manner to better visualize roles and responsibilities
- Access critical information through multiple views like Project Status, Project Leadership, Project Team, and External Resources
- Improve tracking and task management with tagging, automated processes, and dependency warnings
With all these functionalities at your disposal, this template can effectively help you maintain transparency, improve delegation, and avoid duplication of effort.
19. Communication Plan Template by ClickUp
Keeping stakeholders or clients in the know about your project is absolutely central to your project’s success. And that can be efficiently managed with the help of ClickUp’s Communication Plan Whiteboard Template. It helps in creating succinct communication pathways, goal setting, and carving out paths for disseminating your crucial project messages effectively to your target audience.
This template is useful when when:
- You’re spearheading a multifaceted project that necessitates clarity in role delineation among diverse team members.
- You’re in charge of cross-departmental coordination for a corporate initiative and need to rule out any potential misinterpretations.
- You’re orchestrating a large event where precise task allocation and judicious decision-making are critical for its smooth running.
The Communication Plan Whiteboard Template by ClickUp aims to smoothen your communication journey by providing a visual structure for your plans and ensuring your project remains on track!
20. Work Breakdown Template by ClickUp
This Work Breakdown Whiteboard Template by ClickUp is a game-changer for product teams wanting to graphically illustrate the scope of a project by breaking it down into manageable deliverables. Tracking project deliverables for each phase has never been simpler!
Our Whiteboard feature has been integrated into this template to enable you to modify, add, or eliminate visual elements to perfectly align with your team’s requirements. Make sure you are on top of all the different components of your project with this straightforward, easy-to-use template!
This free Work Breakdown Structure template from ClickUp is an excellent solution to your project management needs. Now, managing a project timeline and deliverables of all sizes and complexities can be done effortlessly.
Summarize this article for me pleaseFeatures to Look for in Free Project Management Templates
There may be a plethora of project management templates to choose from, but not all pack the same punch! There are several key features to keep an eye out for to ensure your template will lead your team to success.
These features are critical for creating a proper project plan, project prioritization, tracking, and task management—and they can come in many forms!
When searching for your next project management template, invest in the template that provides the following features (and more!):
- Project scope and objectives to document the key goals, deliverables, and overall process
- Multiple project views including Gantt charts, Kanban boards, project timelines, interactive checklists, calendars, and more to manage projects from every angle
- Resource management and allocation to stay on top of your project budget and materials
- Task prioritization and management to organize your workflows and keep track of your project progress all the way to completion
- Clear project controls and reporting to ensure the project team is on track to hit your project management KPIs and that stakeholders stay informed
- Team collaboration tools to help project members stay connected, improve team relationships, and boost the overall quality of work
- Tons of integrations to bring all of your other work tools into your project template for more informed updates and easy access toward a successful project
Summarize this article for me pleaseStart Project Planning with Simple Project Management Templates
Any one of these 20 templates will get your project where it needs to go—because they were all designed by ClickUp!
ClickUp is the only productivity platform powerful enough to centralize all of your work across apps into one, collaborative workspace. With dozens of free project management features, an ever-growing Template Library, and more than 1,000 integrations, ClickUp can create solutions for teams of any use case.
Get started with any of the templates to tackle your next project plan or to take control of your project timeline when you sign up for ClickUp today!
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