Project Description: This Is What You Should Consider for Your Project Success

1. What is a project description?
2. How is a project description structured?
3. What you have to pay attention to before the project description
4. Creating the project description
5. Do you always have to write a detailed project description for every request to external parties?

You probably know it, the project description. It is created to engage service providers, third party providers, freelancers and co. It is a document that can fundamentally influence the success of a project . Therefore, it is of great importance that all important information is included in such a project description.

During her research, our author Nina came across countless templates that can be helpful in creating a project description. She noticed, however, that there is still no explicit guide on how you can obtain the relevant information.

In this article, you'll find out how she approaches the process of creating a project description as a project manager in the event industry. She shares her step-by-step tips with you, so that the project description ultimately contains exactly the information that gives the recipients a good idea of the project.

But let's start with the basics:

What is a project description?

Some projects already include the description in their title. For example, you understand right away what needs to be done under the title 'Household chores'. As soon as a project becomes more complex and you do not have enough lines available in the title, the project description provides the foundation that explains the project in an understandable way.

In project management itself, it sometimes happens that service providers have to be requested for the successful implementation of the project. Depending on the size and scope, more or less external support is needed.

In event management, for example, I engage third-party providers, like catering companies, technicians, hostesses and more. For this, you need a foundation. This is provided by the project description. The document is aimed at both internal employees and external companies.

It is intended to inform the recipients about what the idea and goal of the project are, what the initial situation looks like, who the participants are and other framework conditions that are relevant for the recipients of the document.

How is a project description structured?  

There is no right or wrong way to structure the document. However, it can be helpful to include the following aspects in each project description:

• Frame data for the project: title, short description, planned start and end date of the project (processing time + completion date), information on clients (company name, industry, etc.)
• Role distribution : How is the project team structured? Who keeps an eye on the budget? Who mainly communicates with the customers and who is responsible for which area of responsibility? And who are the stakeholders?
•  Idea & goal : If two things are of particularly high importance, it is the idea and the goal of the project. The recipients must know where the collaboration is leading and what you want to work towards together. The acceptance or rejection of the recipients can depend on these two aspects, so a good dose of persuasive power can be helpful here.
• Target group: What target group does the client have and is the target group involved in the project?
• Process: Excite with a cool description of the project process! I can only say from an event manager's point of view that a program sequence that is well described picks up the recipient of the project description even better. So: Write down a detailed project process, so that your contact persons can exactly imagine what is planned in the coming weeks and months.

For example, at our last event, we tailored the requests to the processes of the trade. This way, the respective contact persons knew when to set up, when the participants would arrive, how something would be done, etc.

For the implementation, we wrote a detailed running order that recorded the to-dos of the entire project team. Everyone knew where they had to be and what had to be done.

What you have to pay attention to before the project description

Next, I will explain my personal procedure. How I can write the project description in a targeted manner so that the project gets the support it needs.

To illustrate this clearly, let's take an example where you have a complex project with 500 participants ahead of you. For this, you urgently need external support for specific task areas.

Step 1: Convert concept into project plan

In the beginning, there is the concept, which is pitched to the customers. As soon as they approve the concept, it goes into the preparatory time of the project management phases . Here, a  project plan needs to be created.

First of all, you should define the goal. In project management for events, this could be conditions, such as having 500 participants on site, achieving a no-show rate of less than 25 % or generating reach. It helps to divide the concept into task areas.

These can be different areas, such as location, catering, photo and video documentation, speaker support, technology, furniture or artist support.

These areas have certain wants and needs. Wants are the goals we set. Needs are the things we need to achieve these goals.

These could be, for example, food trucks, which we would call wants at lunch. The needs in this case would be the providers, safety precautions, power connections, etc. All of this is worked out in detail and the corresponding to-dos are created. This process results in a project plan that defines the task areas as well as the to-dos themselves.

Step 2: Set up internal project team and create needs analysis for the project description  

You know as well as I do that we can't do everything alone - that would just be too much. Therefore, it is very important to set up a competent team. In most cases, there are internal colleagues who are willing to dive into certain topics and have the time capacity for it. The genius thing is that you already have your first contents for the project description automatically here.

As soon as you have distributed the tasks internally, you can write down the role distribution in the project description.

It is important to first assign the task areas defined in Step 1 to the internal project team to then see where further support is needed.

And voilà - you already have the first criterion for the project description. The task areas that are still vacant can be taken over by third party providers. This way, you know exactly what to look for.

Step 3: Digitize project management

So you have defined the team and know where you still need external help. Now the question is, how can you work together efficiently, record the workflows, and know exactly who is working on what?

In my team, I have recently started working with a  project management tool like ZEP or awork . This helps everyone to know when something is being done and what content updates there are. Especially in today's fast-paced world, one meeting follows the next. Therefore, it is particularly important to build a structure in project management that makes the process flows more efficient and automatically keeps every project member up to date.
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⁠Tools that help with the implementation include:

• Asana
• monday.com
• Trello
• Notion
• Jira
  
• ZEP
• awork

More project management software can be found on OMR Reviews.

For more complex projects, like the example of the event with 500 participants, the use of a digital tool is essential. In such, you can communicate the task distribution and execution more clearly by creating and assigning to-dos. 

A project management tool helps you immensely to keep an overview of complex projects, to give precise status, to search more targeted for third party providers - for example, by displaying the capacities through the tool - and to work more efficiently. 

When you have gotten this far and have completed the project team, a personal or digital  Kick Off Meeting with all participants often helps as well. In this, you can finally distribute the tasks and brief everyone on the project.

Creating the project description

Have you done everything up to here? Then you know from the concept to the project management what contents the project has, what task areas there are, where and what kind of help is needed and what or who you still need.

From the concept, you know how the program sequence of the event looks like, through the needs analysis you have been able to find out that you still need to ask service provider X or a person Y. Thanks to the project management tool, you have the ultimate overview of the complexity of this project.

Now you are ready to write the project description and send it to stakeholders. They will thank you for the detailed, targeted, and accurate description and know exactly how they can now help you.

Do you always have to write a detailed project description for every request to external parties?

It is important to mention that with service providers, like catering companies or similar, I send a slimmed down version of the project description in an email.

In this email, I list the most relevant data and facts in bullet points. This helps the service provider to create a suitable offer and directly get a good overview of the respective requirements. Often, only a few pieces of information about the entire project are necessary.

However, as soon as a person/company is directly involved in the project team and actively participates in the implementation of the project, such requests should be more extensive and detailed.