5 Templates That Will Fast-Track Project Management

Project management is important for any growing business. The Project Management Institute (PMI) defines it as, “The application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements.” In other words, it helps facilitate prioritization, status updates, budgeting, the allocation of resources, team collaboration and improved reporting. Effective project management allows teams to align on strategies, tasks, set expectations, and share any roadblocks. It’s the glue that holds everything together and keeps things on track. According to the PMI, organizations and businesses that skimp on project management report an average of about 50% more of their projects failing. Fifty percent is a lot, especially if you’re trying to scale your business. Maintaining a realistic schedule, budget, and plan for each project, and sharing that with the team, helps ensure a more successful outcome.

In our current remote environment, being able to communicate project updates with stakeholders or managers is crucial. And with less office time, project management has gone virtual. Creating presentations for team stand-ups, company all-hands, and board meetings has become key in providing status updates and reporting on completed projects or campaigns. Beautiful.ai makes remote project management more seamless with our easy-to-use Smart Slide templates. With over 60 templates to choose from, there is something for everyone, every team, and every meeting. Simply plug your content or data into the template of your choice, and we’ll handle the design heavy lifting. 

Still don’t know where to start? These 5 presentation slide templates will help you master project management. 

Gantt Chart

A Gantt chart is a visual view of tasks scheduled over time. Invented by Henry Gantt, an American mechanical engineer, it's a type of bar chart that shows the start and finish dates of several elements of a project that include: what the project tasks are, who is working on each task, how long each task will take, and how tasks group together, overlap, and link with each other. A Gantt chart is the most common chart used for project management. 

Gantt charts are usually used for:

• Project management to track tasks and milestones
• Marketing planning to ensure deadlines are met
• Product roadmaps to manage deadlines and deliverables.

Timeline

A timeline is a visual representation marking all major events over a period of time. Timeline slides have many versatile uses—everything from project plans, to status updates, to “next steps” can be communicated using a timeline. They are most often used for business purposes, and can also be useful for better illustrating the timeline of a new project.

Timeline slides help us to conceptualize past, present and future events. If you want to give your audience confidence that a project’s plan or a process has been thoroughly vetted and is well-articulated, a timeline is very effective.

More great uses for a timeline include:

• Keeping teams up to speed on project deadlines
• Arranging nonlinear events in chronological order
• Reflecting historical project data visually
  

Flowchart

A flowchart is a diagram that shows the sequence of steps and decisions needed to complete a project successfully. Each step in the sequence is noted within a diagram shape. Steps are linked by connecting lines and directional arrows. This allows anyone to easily and logically follow the project from beginning to end.

Some of the use cases for flowcharts include:

• Project documentation
• Auditing a project for inefficiencies or malfunctions
• Mapping algorithms

Process Diagram

A process diagram is a type of flowchart that illustrates the relationships between major components of a project. It can be used to document, improve, or model steps or milestones for project management. Process diagram templates are a crucial part of every business because they make even the most complex, detailed projects more understandable, clear, and concise — this helps to not overwhelm anyone learning or joining a new project.

You can use a process diagram in slide presentations to:

• Standardize a process for optimal efficiency and repeatability
• Document a process or project for better understanding, quality control and training of employees
• Model a new process for employees and teams

Cycle Diagram

A cycle is a circular, recurring process with multiple steps. While we’re all familiar with the cycle of seasons, there are also cycles within our projects that we need to break down.

You might use a cycle template in a presentation to explain how your company should respond to a problem, or what the cycle in an upcoming project looks like. In most cases, a cycle includes how your company identifies the problem, develops solutions, implements a solution, studies its outcome, makes adjustments, then evaluates the results. It can also be used to show the plan or action items for a project so that everyone is on the same page. 

Use a cycle template to:

• Display a continuing sequence
• Explain stages of a repeating process
• Expand on different steps in a project
  

Didn’t see what you were looking for? Check out our full collection of presentation slide templates here.