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- Project Schedule
Project schedule template
The standard five-phase project schedule, built as a working Gantt chart rather than a diagram. Twenty-four tasks, thirty dependencies and a baseline milestone at the point where the plan stops being a draft. This is the one to take if you want something to actually run the project from.
- 5 phases
- 24 tasks
- 4 milestones
- 30 dependencies
- About 4 months
What is in this template?
| Phase | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Initiation | Charter, stakeholders, business case and kick-off, ending on Project approved. |
| Planning | Scope, work breakdown, schedule and budget in parallel, then risk, resources and communications. Ends on Baseline agreed. |
| Execution | Team onboarding, two parallel workstreams, then integration and Build complete. |
| Monitoring and control | Weekly reporting and change control as long bars running alongside execution, plus the quality and risk reviews at the end. |
| Closure | UAT, fixes, handover documentation, training, lessons learned and Project closed. |
Why the baseline milestone matters
The Baseline agreed milestone at the end of planning is the most useful marker on the chart. Before it, changing scope is free. After it, a change costs time or money and should go through the change control bar that runs underneath execution.
Teams that skip this point tend to discover halfway through that nobody agrees what was promised. Putting it on the chart makes the moment explicit, and gives you something to point back to when the conversation comes up.
Two workstreams, one integration
Execution is deliberately drawn as two overlapping workstreams that both have to finish before integration starts. That shape is worth keeping even if your work divides differently, because it is where schedules usually go wrong: the integration task gets estimated as though both streams will land on the same day, and then the later one drags the whole project.
How do you adapt it?
Click Use template and a copy lands in your account with the whole schedule shifted to start on the coming Monday, gaps and links intact. Then rename the two workstreams to whatever your project actually splits into, set real durations, and delete any governance tasks your organisation does not use.
If this feels heavier than you need, the project timeline template is the same idea with far fewer rows, and the simple Gantt chart is the smallest version.
Common questions
What is the difference between a project schedule and a project timeline?
A schedule is what you run the work from: many tasks, real durations and a dense web of dependencies. A timeline is what you report from: a handful of long bars and the milestones. This template is the schedule; the project timeline template is the reporting version.
Does it follow a particular methodology?
It uses the five standard process groups, which is the shape most project management training assumes. It is not tied to any certification and you can rename any phase.
Why does monitoring run alongside execution instead of after it?
Because that is when it happens. Status reporting and change control are long, low-intensity bars that run for the whole delivery period, not tasks you do once at the end.
Can I add my own phases?
Yes. Once the schedule is in your account each phase is an ordinary group you can rename, reorder, delete or add to.
Breeze
Timen
