The Project Manager’s Toolkit contains:

• A Power Point file ready for your information based on the formats below

• An Excel file for easy Project Planning, Budgets, KPI’s with built in calculations

• And the PM ToolKit Reference Guide with completed document examples

Want to be an effective and efficient project manager?

A Project Toolkit is an essential tool to: 

• organize all the critical information in one place in a single point of truth.

• be accessible to the entire team in digital form and with version control

• provide current and up-to-date project information for team and stakeholder meetings

What is a Toolkit?

A snapshot of your Project in one place available from any Digital source. Ready to update as changes occur. This capability is the secret to the success of good Project Management.

A Toolkit enables you to keep an eye out for issues without having to remember them. Maximize your efficient and effectiveness by logging the issues, actions and mitigations as they come up. 

A digital version of the Toolkit can also help you share this content with others immediately. But more on that later. New managers or managers working with small projects, often choose to use with excel or editable PDF’s since they are easy to use and share.

These points seem simple, but they are not always carried out. The importance of having a Project Toolkit is that it needs to be used every day. The style may vary, but the actions and outcomes do not.  

I have seen experienced managers fail from lack of oversight. New managers succeed because they understood the balance between project management document “hygiene” and this idea of a single source of truth. A Toolkit allow you to keep track of a project's various moving parts. 

So, what is in a Project Manager’s Toolkit? The Secret to a Project Manger’s Success!

What should be included in a project managers Toolkit?

Below is my list of "must-haves" for project oversight start-to-finish. Of course, how much of the Toolkit you use is up to you. Here are my suggestions for the top 11 documents:

What Project Management Workbook is best?

There are a lot of great online tools and apps available today. I will break down a few and the pros and cons:

Trello — A tool I use a lot. Easy “kanban” style to-do list. Make the planning of tasks and work allocation easy. Everyone can access it. Available in online and app format for free use. Suitable for scrum processes. But does not include all of the project set up (Charter, Staffing, Budget) needed for full-on Project Management. I have a short tutorial on this in my Project Managers Workbook video.

Clickup — One of the better full projects management online tools. It is integrated with Google products and can handle almost any type of project needed. It can be pricey for small projects. Some projects may worry about data privacy since data is stored in a public cloud.

MS Project — The old standby for waterfall work breakdown Gantt charts. It can do almost everything in terms of tracking. All the critical project members need a copy of the software to use it, and it requires a learning curve. Plus regular document updates and maintenance and sanity check to make sure it makes sense. 

Word and Excel documents — Simple to use, free to access. An word and excel file can be accessible to everyone. Creates an end-to-end overview quickly (especially with my Toolkit which has word and excel documents ready to use and set up with calculations and graphics). These files are easy to share and update. Used together with online tools, they can provide some of the tools not generally available with the low cost or free version.

Get started today with the free reference Guide and Toolkit!

What did you think of the Workbook scope? Do you agree? What process do you use?

Did you try to use the Workbook or make your own? I would love your feedback.

Please answer in the comments below.