ProjectConnections Print View
888-722-5235
7am-5pm Pacific
Monday - Friday
We'd love to talk to you.
Learn more about ProjectConnections and who writes our content. Want to learn more? Take a site tour and compare our membership levels.
Become a Member »
Project Plan Signoff Checklist
Quick Summary
This checklist helps the project manager and other stakeholders ensure the plan and high-level design are truly complete before officially signing off on the design and planning phase of a project. Though this form is designed for Information Technology use, it can easily be adapted for use on other types of projects.
What this is
A checklist for officially completing the High-Level Design and Planning phase of an Information Technology project. (Note: The form can easily be adapted for use on other types of projects.)
Why it's useful
The goal is to ensure that critical activities have truly been completed with the appropriate planning, assessment of user and IT staff impacts, and reviews by sponsor and team members. The form specifically calls out where executive/sponsor-level review and signoff is needed.
The How section below specifically describes how to sequence offline team and sponsor reviews with an efficient final "team meeting approval," while sanity-checking and acknowledging together that the right things have been done in this phase and it is acceptable to move to the next phase of development.
How to use it
Include the Project Manager, Program Manager, Sponsors, and program team members (as required).
- Complete high-level designs and related user impact and IT staff process impacts, as called for in your high-level design and planning phase workflow.
- Complete project plan components, including the risk list, schedule detail, project budget, communication plan (including customers and stakeholders) and team roles list.
- Review those documents with the project and program team and sponsors.
- When the Project Manager believes that the high-level design and related impact assessments -- as well as resulting project plan components -- have been completed and reviewed, and all issues have been addressed, use this form as a checklist to be sure. Complete the form for all listed items, and add any project-specific items if necessary. Review the checklist with the Program Manager, as a final sanity check.
- Using the group's phase signoff process, bring this form to the next Program Team meeting and review it briefly with the team. If the Program Manager and sponsors are included in the meeting and it's appropriate given your checklist status, you can agree on sign-off in the meeting. Otherwise, follow the remainder of the standard signoff process after the meeting to address any last minute issues with the Program Manager and Sponsors then complete the signoff.
Project Stakeholder/Influencer Assessment and Communication Plan
Use this assessment form to identify the individuals and groups that may influence your project outcomes–stakeholders, information sources, even other PMs—assess their potential impact (for better or worse) and document your plans for how and when to communicate with them.
Team Roles and Responsibilities List
This file contains formats and example contents for a Team Roles and Responsibility List.
Project Budgets
Spreadsheet formats for documenting the projected costs of a project and for high-level cost tracking.
Project Charter
Once your project idea has been evaluated and approved for further investigation, you need to communicate the major parameters and high-level information. This template for a succinct project charter helps you summarize that critical information.
Plan Development: Identify Tasks and Create Schedule
This guideline covers the steps for developing a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to identify all the activities required to complete a project.
Project Risk Checklist
This risk checklist prompts your team to consider common risks across a wide variety of categories, to reduce the odds of missing one of those dreaded "unknown-unknowns."
IT Process and Staff Impact Assessment
This document provides a concise way to assess and summarize how the operations and support processes used by various IT staff will be impacted by what a team is deploying via their project.
User Impact Assessment (IT)
This template guides the team through an assessment of the user impacts of technology changes, to enable better planning and communication and a smoother deployment experience for everyone.
©Copyright 2000-2013 Emprend, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
About us Site Map View current sponsorship opportunities (PDF)
Contact us for more information or e-mail info@projectconnections.com
Terms of Service and Privacy Policy