This basic project toolkit comes standard with all versions of PD-Trak.  The following screenshot shows the tools that are included in the standard toolkit.  Click on the name of a tool for a detailed description:

 

Project Management Tools

• The Project Brief captures a summary of the project including the project charter, phase durations / gate dates, summary of key financials and a sign off section used to indicate the completion of a gate review.
  
• The Budget and Schedule Worksheet captures the project timing and project expense estimates for both non-capital and capital expenses.  Costs are broken down by phase and summed for the total project budget.  
  
• The Financial Justification Worksheet captures the expected sales and profit or savings realized as a result of the project.  This data is used to calculate metrics that quantify the financial attractiveness of the project e.g. net present value, internal rate of return, break even time etc.
  
• The phase-gate process is described by the Task Plan worksheets which capture the objectives of each phase, the tasks that must be performed, the deliverable documents that must be completed, the responsibility for the tasks and deliverables, the due date for completion, and the current status of the tasks and deliverables. This provides a mechanism for teams to review accomplishments and plan upcoming work. The task plans also define what information will be available to support the gate review decision making process that terminates each phase of the project.  The Phase-Gate Templates include populated task plans that describe a best-practice based process, or you can create your own task plans to capture an existing process definition.
• The Project Milestones Worksheet shows the completion of gate reviews and can be used to capture and track other important milestones for the project.
  
• The Action Item Register is a central location for storing and tracking action items with team member ownership and dates.
• The Decision Log is a tool for capturing key decisions made during the lifecycle of the project.
  
• The Gate Archives tool allows the entire Project File and it's related documents to be archived at each gate review thereby providing a detailed record of the project at the time of each gate in the process.  The Gate Archives Worksheet provides guidance on the archiving process.
• The Team Members Worksheet captures the names and roles of the team members.

Primary Documents

Purchased Phase-Gate Process templates include primary document templates that can be used as-is or adjusted to meet the needs of your application.  Or you can create your own document templates and add them to this column to provide some standard structure to how project data is documented.  The Standard Project Toolkit does not include any predefined Primary Document templates.

Document Storage

See Document Management.

Tools

For product development applications the Product Development Toolkit may be purchased with links to these tools placed in this column of the Project File home page, or you can add your own supporting tools.