Use this Interactive Project Proposal Template (and Ditch Microsoft Word)

Do you need a project proposal template?

If so, we’re happy to help!

When getting a project approved, you need to submit all pertinent information to stakeholders and then get their approval to start. This means listing the project’s background, timeframes and expenses in an easily digestible document.

Traditionally, this has been done in Microsoft Word or on paper, but by using Process Street you can generate as many proposals as you like just by running a checklist of this template and filling in the form fields. When the stakeholders sign off on the document, all they need to do is click the checkbox next to their name, and Process Street will log the activity.

Check out the project proposal template below, and when you’re done, scroll down for a breakdown of the steps and how it all works:

Want to get started straight away?

Hit ‘Give me this checklist’ on the embed above to add it to your account.

This will create a copy of the template inside Process Street, like this:

… And those are the basics!

Some organizations might require special additions to project proposals, but if you’re happy with the details of the proposal, you can go right ahead and run a checklist of the template.

When you run a checklist, you can imagine it being like printing out the template and filling it in. Checklists are single-run instances of templates. No matter what you do to the checklist, the template will stay the same.

Starting a new project proposal

Here’s how you run a checklist to start a new project proposal. First, click the Project Proposal Template from the Home screen, like this:

Next, you’re going to need to click ‘Run checklist…’ to start a new project proposal.

Filling in the project proposal information

The name of your checklist should be the name of the project you’re proposing, just to make things clear when you’re sorting back through proposals. Name it, and hit ‘Run checklist’ to confirm.

Here I’m proposing and AdWords campaign to the head of marketing, so I’ve named it the marketing channel plus keyword I’m going to target.

Once inside the checklist, I start filling out the form fields, like this:

When I’ve finished off a task, I tick it off using the task list on the right side of the screen.

Repeat this step until you’ve worked through the whole checklist and filled in as many form fields as you need.

Setting dates for the project timeframe

When you get the the project timeframe section of the proposal, you’ll notice you can use the date fields to set the start and end date of each section:

Our date form field makes it easy to select the right dates quickly with a visual calendar for reference.

Fill in the rest of the timeframe.

Estimating the project budget

Project budgets are broken down into two parts:

• One-time costs
• Monthly recurring costs

Our project proposal template has fields for both of these parts. Fill in the $ amount in the first, then a description of the costs, bullet pointed if it’s more than one item.

Next up, we’re going to fill in the project stakeholders

Fill in project stakeholders

Whether you’re just writing a project proposal to your manager, or if there are more parties involved, in this step you need to type the names of these stakeholders in the form fields, like this:

State how the project will be evaluated and monitored

Every project needs should be proposed with a way that assures stakeholders it will be able to be deemed a success or failure. For this, you need to state how you’re going to evaluate and monitor it.

Use the paragraph field in task 5 to bullet point the different parts of the project that will be evaluated, and how:

Getting approval on the project proposal

For the next step, you’re going to need to loop your stakeholders into the process and get them to tick off whether they approve the project.

Let’s break this up.

Adding stakeholders as members to the checklist

First of all, you need to add your stakeholders to the checklist. They’ll get a notification that they need to come in and approve the proposal.

If the stakeholders are part of your company, you should add them as members of the organization by clicking the organization name near your display picture (mine’s Nero Inc. here). Then just type their names to add them in.

Commenting to notify the stakeholders

To send an email notification to the stakeholders, it’s a good idea to @mention them in a comment, like this:

After that, it’s just a matter of waiting to get the project approved!

The benefits of using an interactive project proposal template vs paper or Microsoft Word

When you use a template in Word to make your project proposal, there are inherent frustrations with writing text in without breaking the formatting, but that’s not all. There’s the fact that it’s a rudimentary format which either has to be saved locally and shared (without tracked changes) version by version, and that it’s a waste of paper if you need to print it.

By using our template, you get a document added to your Process Street account that you can access from any computer or mobile, and just run a new checklist and add collaborators for each new proposal.

What could be simpler than that?