Talk to employers and professors about what separates the students who succeed from those who don’t and you’ll find that organizational skills are just as important as reading, writing and arithmetic. That’s why tackling big assignments is a big opportunity to learn the key skill of project management.

Project management is the process used from construction to marketing to software design to help people make better use of their time and deliver higher quality work. It can be used for making any product that has a clear deadline and outcome. In fact, at the Partnership for Learning we use it to guide every publication, event or service we create.

The following questions teach students the basics of  project management.

I. Scope

  1. What are the requirements for the project? List deadline, page length and other criteria. 
  2. Teachers should discuss evaluation criteria for big projects before students start working and innovative teachers often allow students to create the evaluation rubric themselves. If this doesn't happen, be sure to ask  what will make the biggest difference between an “A” quality project and a “B” or “C” quality project? You can’t guarantee yourself an “A,” but you can at least make sure that you’re focusing your attention on learning and demonstrating the skills that the teacher thinks are most important for the project. 
  3. What resources will you need? List books for research, art supplies for a presentation or other materials. 

II. Process
Follow the steps below to create your own project management plan on the chart provided. 

  1. List the major phases for your project. Then put them in the order you would like to complete them. 
  2. List the tasks necessary for each phase. After you’ve written a task, ask yourself if you can break it down further into smaller steps. 
  3. Working backwards from your final deadline, create target dates for each task to be completed. Spread out your deadlines over the period of your project so that they don’t arrive all at the end. 


Download our sample project management and project management template worksheets. These tools can help you organize your next big project. 

Bryan Taylor, publisher of EduGuide, is a national speaker for parents, students and educators who addresses more than a million people annually through his writing, speaking and media work.