It is important to capture all of these actions and tasks, in a central place which is easily shareable with your team and your customer. Often a simple Excel spreadsheet is the best & easiest option because it is flexible, widely known and easily shared. Unlike project management or team collaboration software, Excel doesn't require logins or battling with VPN & firewalls.
Download our FREE Project Task List in Excel. It has been used on numerous real-world project and is designed to be shared with your customer and jointly updated.
See what is in the Template! Check out the Contents complete with Hints and Tips on how to use.
A real-world example of how this template can be used
Orion - a project to configure & install sales force software for 60 sales reps, selling research and consulting services across EMEAAt the project kick-off the project manager and customer discussed how to capture the ad-hoc tasks that would be required to complete the project, but wouldn't necessarily be in the project schedule. A simple task list in Excel was agreed upon.
The master task list was held by the customer project manager. It was reviewed and updated at the daily project meetings, when the project manager would share the list on screen and update it live.
The latest version was shared with the project team and stakeholders via Dropbox.
The task list was a living document that evolved over the project's life-cycle, and as the project progressed fields were added to the spreadsheet to record additional information.
The contents of the Project Task List Template
Project Details
Document:
- Project number or ID
- Date of last update
- Full project name
- Project manager
- Project sponsor
Task ID
A unique number of ID for each task. For example, T01, T02, T03...
Status
The status of each task. This is a dropdown menu which you can change in the 'Dropdowns' tab, column B.
The example dropdown menu contains:
- Open
- In progress
- Closed fixed
- Closed won't fix
Priority
The importance or urgency of each task. This is a dropdown menu which you can change in the 'Dropdowns' tab, column C.
The example dropdown menu contains:
- 1-Critical
- 2-High
- 3-Medium
- 4-Low
Owner
This is the person responsible for the completion of the task. They might not actually do the work, but they will schedule the work and report on progress.
Customer owner
This is the person in the customer team who is responsible for the completion of the task on their side. For example, they might schedule resources on their team or just report on progress to their management.
Task Title
The title or a short description of the task.
Task Description
A detailed description of the task.
Progress / resolution
Use this field to record the progress of the work needed to complete the task. It can be helpful to date each update so that you have a running record of progress. For example:
- 13-Jun - fix scheduled for 17 June.
- 18-Jun - fix ready for testing
- 19-Jun - tested complete confirmed fixed.
- 20-Jun - agreed to close.
Category
The category of each task. This is a dropdown menu which you can change in the 'Dropdowns' tab, column E.
The example dropdown menu contains:
- Defect
- Change Request
- Duplicate
- User feedback
- User fix needed
- Won't fix
Effort
The amount of effort needed to complete the task. For example, this might be a number of hours or days.
Date opened
The date the task was reported / opened.
Target close date
When you aim to complete and close the task.
Date closed
The date the task was actually closed.
Project Task List Template
Excel download - Project Task List Template (Excel .xls)
Excel download - Project Task List Template (Excel .xlsx)
Excel download - Project Task List Template (Excel .ods)
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