In addition to including your project objectives, your executive summary should also include why achieving your project objectives will add value, as well as provide details about how you’re going to get there. Your executive summary should contain and expand upon your project objectives in the second part ( Outline the recommended solution, or the project’s objectives). While you can include your executive summary in your project depending on what type of project management tool you use, it may also be a stand-alone document. There should be a direct line of sight between your project and your project overview. However, your project overview should be directly attached to your project. Project overviews and executive summaries often have similar elements-they both contain a summary of important project information. Read: Proof of concept (POC): How to demonstrate feasibility Executive summary vs. Think of the absolutely crucial things your management team needs to know when they land in your project, before they even have a chance to look at the project plan-that’s your executive summary. Project plans will include your goals, success metrics, stakeholders and roles, budget, milestones and deliverables, timeline and schedule, and communication plan.Īn executive summary is a summary of the most important information in your project plan. project planĪ project plan is a blueprint of the key elements your project will accomplish in order to hit your project goals and objectives. Here’s how executive summaries stack up: Executive summary vs. If you’ve never written an executive summary before, you might be curious about where it fits into other project management elements. Finally, include any relevant next steps. It can also be helpful to reference your audience and how your solution will solve their problem. Wrap up with a conclusion about the importance of the work. This is another opportunity to reiterate why the problem is important, and why the project matters. Outline the recommended solution, or the project’s objectives. How is the project going to solve the problem you established in the first part? What are the project goals and objectives?Įxplain the solution’s value. Once you’ve finished your project, what will happen? How will this improve and solve the problem you established in the first part? Start with the problem or need the project is solving. Why is this project happening? What insight, customer feedback, product plan, or other need caused it to come to life? The same four parts apply to an executive summary in project management: But for an executive summary in project management, you want to cover what the project is aiming to achieve and why those goals matter. For example, to write an executive summary of an environmental study, you would compile a report on the results and findings once your study was over. The main difference between an executive summary in project management and a more traditional executive summary in a business plan is that the former should be created at the beginning of your project-whereas the latter should be created after you’ve written your business plan. Read: 15 creative elevator pitch examples for every scenario Think of it like a project’s “ elevator pitch” for team members who don’t have the time or the need to dive into all of the project’s details. In project management, an executive summary is a way to bring clarity to cross-functional collaborators, team leadership, and project stakeholders. Wrap up with a conclusion about the importance of the work.įree cross-functional project template What is an executive summary in project management? Start with the problem or need the document is solving. In general, there are four parts to any executive summary: You’ll often find executive summaries of: Imagine it this way: if your high-level stakeholders were to only read your executive summary, would they have all of the information they need to succeed? If so, your summary has done its job. In the document, you’ll want to share all of the information your readers and important stakeholders need to know. The length and scope of your executive summary will differ depending on the document it’s summarizing, but in general an executive summary can be anywhere from one to two pages long. What is an executive summary?Īn executive summary is an overview of a document. If you’ve never written an executive summary, this article has all you need to know to plan, write, and share them with your team. The best way to do that is with an executive summary. Instead, you need a concise way to share the project’s main points-without losing your reader’s attention. But sometimes, new project members or executive stakeholders want a simplified view of your project. Oftentimes, it’s helpful to have this information available at-a-glance. One of the best things about project management is that it provides a way to plan, manage, and execute all of your team’s work.
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