How to create a project

timeline in 7 simple steps

Jump to a section:

1. Outline your

project brief

2. List out all of

the steps you need

to complete your

project

3. Estimate how

much time each step

will take

4. Map out

dependencies and

sequence of steps

5. Draw your

timeline

6. Share it with

stakeholders

7. Manage and

adapt your project

timeline after project

kickoff

Common

questions about

project timelines

Create your next

project timeline

confidently

Managing a project? Viewing work in a timeline—instead

of a spreadsheet or disorganized to-do list—is one of the
benefits of project management. A timeline can show
you how all the pieces of your plan fit together. So, why
haven't you made one yet? Without the right technology,
creating a project timeline can be messy and manual.

Fret no more. Here’s a step-by-step example to creating a

project timeline—no matter what your job title, industry,
or department is. Follow these steps and learn how to
build project timelines that put you in the driver’s seat
and build your own project timeline template.

[Explore: 50 Asana templates for any type of project]

1. Outline your project brief,

including goals, timeframe, and
dependencies
To keep all project stakeholders aligned on the plan, every
project should start with a project brief. It serves as a
roadmap and is a way to explain the purpose, goals,
milestones, and vision of the overall project. Here are a
few questions to answer in your brief:

What are your goals for the project, both internally

and externally?

Which internal and external stakeholders are a part of

the project? What are their roles?

What is the timeframe for the project?

What are the key milestones of the project?

Let’s put this step into practice. You’re responsible for

planning this year’s client appreciation dinner. Your
personal goal for the event is to be as organized,
productive, and efficient as possible. You’re confident
you can do it, and understand it all starts by putting
together a cohesive brief for your event. Your answers to
the four questions listed above are:

What are your goals for the project, both internally and
externally?

The internal goal is to plan a high-impact client event

under $15,000. The external goal is to achieve a 50%
RSVP rate and 80% attendance rate.

Which internal and external stakeholders are a part of

the project?

The internal stakeholders are the event’s planning

committee (John, Sam, Tara, Linda), the VP of Client
Success, and the Marketing team. Externally, the
stakeholders include all current clients, and certain
vendors (catering company, event venue, etc.).

What is the time frame for the project?

The project planning kicks off on January 15 and the

event is scheduled for August 30.

Which tasks should be considered milestones in the

project?

Publishing the registration page, securing the venue, and

signing certain vendors.

Once you have your project brief and goals outlined,

you’ll be ready to work backwards and figure out all of
the steps you need to take to get there and you can start
creating a project timeline.

2. List out all of the steps you need

to complete your project
In order to have a successful project timeline, you’ll need
to create a list of everything that will need to happen
throughout the project planning process all the way to
your final deliverable, whether it is a report or an event.
Think both big and small in terms of steps. Any tasks that
will help you get your project completed on time and on
budget should go on this list.

At this point, don’t worry too much about the order of all
of your steps or when you need to get them done—we’ll
cover that later.

For example, the breakdown for our client appreciation

dinner might look like this:

Write an event plan

Finalize budget

Confirm event venue

Select catering

Choose event theme

Design creative concepts for event

Set up an RSVP page

Send invitations

Advertise event

Order swag

Test A/V

Finalize presentations

Prepare all event collateral and swag

Day-of checklist

For longer or more complex steps, break them into

smaller, easy-to-digest subtasks. Not only will it help you
figure out the true scope of a step, but it’ll also ensure
you don’t forget any small detail and make tackling it
more manageable.

In our event example, to make the “Select catering” step

less overwhelming, we would split this part of the project
into digestible pieces:

Create a list of possible caterers

Get quotes from each caterer

Compare quotes and menus

Meet with top picks

Choose caterer

Finalize contract

3. Estimate how much time each

step will take to build out your
timeline
Once you have a comprehensive list of every step in your
project, you’ll then allocate an amount of time each will
take to complete. When doing this, balance giving your
team enough time to get tasks finished and staying within
your overall time frame. Once you know how much time
each task will take, you’ll be able to properly schedule out
and sequence each task to create a project roadmap.

Continuing on with our client appreciation event

example, let’s take the “Select catering” step, along with
each of its subtasks, and estimate how much time the
individual tasks will take.

Select catering (9 weeks)

Create a list of possible caterers (1 week)

Get quotes from each caterer (3 weeks)

Compare quotes and menus (1 week)

Meet with top picks (2 weeks)

Choose caterer (1 week)

Finalize contract (1 week)

Based on our time projections, the process of selecting a

catering company will take a total of nine weeks. By
working backwards you can determine when you need to
start on this particular step and fill in your project timeline
with actual dates.

4. Map out dependencies and

sequence of steps
As you’re running a project, some steps can be worked
on simultaneously—especially if different teammates are
responsible for each of the overlapping tasks. However,
others cannot be started or completed until another step
is finished. In other words, some steps are dependent on
others getting completed first. For instance, you can’t
order food before you’ve selected the caterer. This is one
of the many reasons why a timeline is so important.
Visually seeing each step, how the steps overlap, and the
amount of time each one takes will keep you on course.

This is also the time to figure out who’s responsible for

each step. Assigning who’s responsible for what to every
part of the project early on will help you spot and adjust
timing or resource conflicts, and avoid future surprises
and delays. In Step 6, you’ll learn how to share your
project timeline with those involved, making
responsibilities crystal clear.

[Read: Your guide to getting started with resource

management and delegation]

One of the tasks for our example event is to send out

invitations. While this particular step seems like an easy
one, there are several other things that need to happen
before we can even think about sending invitations. The
invites must be designed, and we can’t design them until
a theme has been chosen for our event. One task needs
to occur before another starts. For example:

Event theme (Event Planning team) → Design concepts

(Linda) → Choose design (Event Planning team) → Create
invitation (Linda) → Send invitations (Tara)

It’s worth the time to map out each dependency and the
sequence (or order) of each task. You’ll quickly start to
see your project puzzle coming together. Deciding who
will do what is critical as well. Who will be working on
finalizing the event theme? Who will design the
invitations? Don’t wait until it is time for a task to start
before assigning it to someone—get everything ironed
out early to avoid conflicts or hiccups.

The good news is the invitation process and catering

selections can be happening at the same time (which will
be shown on our project timeline).

5. Draw your timeline

Are you beginning to visualize what your project timeline
could look like? While it’s not practical to keep that
image (and all those tasks and due dates) in your head, it
is realistic to get them down on paper (or on screen). Your
first instinct might be to open up an Excel spreadsheet or
powerpoint—but wait. Since neither were designed to
plan or manage projects, you’ll run into some challenges
you could avoid by choosing a better tool.

Instead, opt for a project management tool that’s

designed to build and manage project timelines—like
Asana. Not only will it save you time drawing your
timeline (since you won’t have to attempt to hack merge
cells and add formulas to turn a spreadsheet into a
project timeline), it will allow you to continue managing
your timeline after the project kickoff. Dedicated project
management tools allow you to easily adapt your
timeline as you work, and update your stakeholders on
changes and progress.

With the right tool, your timeline will be tied to your

underlying work and will always stay up to date. It can be
the difference between a project running on track and
one going haywire.

How to draw a timeline in Asana

Use Asana’s Timeline feature to create your own project

schedule:

1. Enter all of your project steps as tasks in a list

2. Add start and end dates to each task

3. Add a task owner for each one

4. Draw dependencies between tasks

5. Click “Timeline” view to see your list translated into a

visual timeline.

Tip: If you’ve already created your plan in a spreadsheet,

you can quickly import it into Asana using our CSV
importer integration, and skip to step four.

[Download guide: The ultimate guide to managing

events with Asana]

Project timeline templates to get you started

The easiest way to set up a project timeline quickly is to

start with a project template. Below are a couple of
project templates, created by Asana, that you can use
now. Each project starts as a list view, but you can click
the “Timeline” tab to convert it into a Timeline:

Product marketing launch template: Create a

marketing plan for your next product launch.

Event planning template: Before you start planning

your next event, make a workback schedule and
project timeline that will keep your team on track.

Product roadmap template: Map out and share your

timeline for your next product roadmap.

General project plan template: Not doing any of the

above? Start with this general template to create your
project plan and template, then adjust it to make it
your own.

6. Share it with stakeholders

Remember when you added a list of all project
stakeholders to your brief at the very beginning of this
process? Now that you’ve built your timeline, it’s
important to share it with everyone involved. We can
promise they will be thrilled to see how clear your plan is.
The easier you make their part of the project, the more
kudos will be coming your way throughout the process.

When you use a project management tool to build your

timeline, sharing it is quick and seamless. Forget emails
and multiple docs—in no time, your stakeholders will
know who’s doing what by when.

For the client appreciation event, we will want to share

our timeline with everyone involved in the entire project,
not just those who have immediate responsibilities. At
any time, someone will be able to track their part of the
project and its dependencies without having to ping you
for information.

7. Manage and adapt: Tips for

using your project timeline after
project kickoff
If you’ve ever worked on any project, you know things
don’t always go as planned. However, when you’re
prepared to adapt, changes don’t seem so difficult to
handle. Timelines aren’t just great for planning; they will
also help you adjust as delays or changes inevitably
happen.

Moving tasks around doesn’t have to be daunting or

disrupt the entire project. If one part of the project runs
into a delay, as the project owner, you will have clarity on
the impact of the rest of the project. Then, you’ll be
empowered to move things around accordingly so the
overall project can still move forward productively.

As The Balance Careers notes, project changes can be

managed within their own specific steps, but once the
change is final, it’s time to update your timeline. Because
timelines go out of date quickly when plans change,
relying on a project management tool, rather than email
or spreadsheets, offers a major benefit. As the project
owner, it’s your responsibility to communicate to all
stakeholders what the single source of truth is (your
timeline) and make sure it’s always updated.

Take immediate action. As soon as the change is

confirmed, update your timeline to reflect it.

Notify stakeholders. Anyone that is affected by the

change to your project timeline should understand
how it impacts them and be able to visually see the
change on the project timeline.

Determine the impact. Once your timeline is

updated, you’ll be able to see if there are time
periods that are overcrowded and stakeholders that
have too many tasks. Can you move a task to ensure
more time? Can someone else take over that
responsibility or lend a hand?

To wrap up our event example, let’s say you managed to

choose a caterer for the client appreciation dinner ahead
of schedule. You’re about to finalize the contract when a
call comes in that the catering company double-booked
themselves. Unfortunately, you must find a new catering
company.

We can use our timeline to adjust the schedule (and

anything or anyone that is impacted by this change). The
positive part of this challenge is that we’ve already gone
through several of the initial tasks and can see that
reflected on the timeline. While this is a frustrating
problem, it feels more manageable because our timeline
has kept us organized and on track.

[Explore: How Timeline helps you visualize your

projects]

Common questions about project

timelines
Knowing how to create a well-organized project timeline
is a great first step towards understanding how to use this
powerful tool, but you may still have a few more
questions. You’re not alone. Here are answers to a couple
common questions people have about project timelines:

What’s the difference between a timeline and a

Gantt chart?

Gantt charts focus more on workflow and task

dependencies. They are more linear and don’t account
for changes or multiple things happening at once.
Timelines are flexible and adapt easily to changes in
project plans. They allow the workflow to be updated
effortlessly. Both serve as visual tools.

How can you track project progress, especially if

you’re managing multiple projects?

This is tough to do in spreadsheets, but easier in a project

management tool. There are multiple views to be able to
see one project at a time, or you can manage multiple
projects through a portfolio-style view.

In other words, you can visualize when you’ll have more

time to work on specific tasks and when you’re at
capacity, then you can adjust as needed to even out your
team’s workload.

Create your next project timeline

confidently
It’s not enough to just come up with a project plan.
Determining how to execute it is just as important.
Developing a timeline or schedule of how the plan will
evolve is critical to the planning phase, and also makes
managing the project more efficient.

Using this step-by-step process for every project

management timeline will keep you on task and less
stressed. Try it out, adapt it to your business, and share it!

To take your project timelines even further, create your

next timeline using Asana.

Create your next project timeline

with Asana.
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