What are project deliverables?

A project deliverable is anything produced from a project. These objective-focused, well-defined measurables can be internal or external, concrete objects such as a finished product, mobile app, constructed building, report, or document, or intangible things like completing employee training by a specific date. The most significant deliverable is the end service, product, or report you’re creating. Large projects often have smaller process deliverables due at specific times throughout the project, such as:

• Project scope: Defines all the work you need to complete for a successful project.
• Statement of work: Describes a project’s work requirements and design expectations.
• Project schedule: Defines the timeline of a project and delegates the workload to the team.
• Project budget: Allocates the total amount of money you need for project funding.

Process deliverables are the pathway your team takes to achieve milestones and produce deliverables. They encompass all the activities of planning projects, creating documents, using equipment, sharing information, and creating budgets. Process deliverables typically correspond to the generation of specific project deliverables. For example, if your project’s final deliverable is to build a high-performance fishing rod, creating a rod design is one of your project-oriented deliverables. One of your process deliverables will be developing the rod’s blueprint. 

Project deliverables often coincide with project objectives; however, there’s a distinct difference: a project deliverable advances a project, whereas objectives are the end goal. For example, gaining more insight into customer personas is an objective. But if you created a report to reach this objective, that’s a deliverable. Another similarity to deliverables is milestones—specific markers that define an achievement during a project’s lifecycle. When you reach a milestone, you transition to the next project stage. When you complete a deliverable, you submit the result to an internal team member or an external stakeholder, depending on the type of deliverable. 

Project deliverables are open-ended, meaning the deliverables you choose depend entirely on your industry and project; there isn’t a defined set for everyone.

Examples of project deliverables

Deliverables in project management are either internal or external, with the main difference being who sees the final product. In both cases, deliverables are typically due by a specific date. 

• Internal deliverables: Any work done within the company that stakeholders outside the organization don’t see. Time tracking reports, studies for the design team, and project budgeting reports all go through an internal review. 
• External deliverables: Any work done for clients, customers, or stakeholders to generate revenue: progress reports, initial design, final design, and final products all go through an external review.

General project deliverables examples include:

• A market analysis of current industry trends.
• Documents outlining the quality control measures for future productions.
• A gap analysis report indicating your company’s strengths and weaknesses compared to local competitors.
• Security audits that ensure customer data is safe.
• Blueprints for a future project.

Examples of internal and external project deliverables from different departments include:

• Creative team: Blog posts, website wireframes, completed print media graphics, ready-to-send email outlines.
• Marketing team: Sales copy draft, social media graphics, brand identity package, keyword research report.
• Agency team: Media plan, customized WordPress theme, content audit, social media copy.
• Product team: Completed user journey map, product roadmap presentation, finalized customer retention report, initial UI wireframe.
• Professional services team: Functional VoIP system, initial blueprint design, ready-to-sign customized contracts, completed financial reports.

What is the project manager’s role in creating deliverables?

Much of the project manager’s role is balancing the big picture with incremental deliverables and goals that ensure overall project success. When the project manager is an expert in creating deliverables, they can easily divide projects into stages and assign goals for each. As a project manager, it’s your responsibility to keep the project on time and on budget while developing appropriate process and project deliverables for your team. 

How to identify, set, and achieve project deliverables

It’s crucial to identify, set, and achieve your project deliverables. Here are six steps to project success: 

1. Create a project charter 

Project charters help you identify your project goals, scope, and stakeholders. Summarizing your project’s goals can simplify larger objectives into smaller tasks. Project charters also help you define the process deliverables to bring you to the final project deliverable. 

2. Set your deliverables

Once you get plan approval from stakeholders, collaborate with your team to produce process deliverables for completing the project on time and within budget. Delegate tasks to your team and determine how long each process deliverable should take to complete. 

3. Establish expectations

Once you’ve delegated responsibility, you should establish individual expectations. Ensure each team member knows how to track their progress to complete their tasks on time. Creating accountability improves communication throughout the project and helps you realign deliverables to stay on track when necessary. 

4. Track progress

When your team begins working on the project, track the progress of each milestone, task, and deliverable they complete. Visual aids can help you track their progress. Here’s a list of the most common visual project management tools:

• Project calendar: A project calendar keeps everything your team is working on for the month in one place so you can track production and complete daily tasks on time.
• Gantt chart: Gantt chart shows when tasks are due and how long tasks should take to complete. They also track your project’s progress, so you know if everyone is on schedule. 
• Kanban board: A Kanban board helps you visualize tasks as your team moves through different completion stages. You can also keep an eye on individual tasks that team members complete. 

5. Be transparent

Achieving project deliverables heavily relies on being fully transparent with project team members and stakeholders. Providing status reports on how your project is progressing regarding each deliverable keeps everyone on track and the same page. Consider sending status reports out weekly or more often if it suits your project. 

6. Measure effectiveness

Once you’ve completed a project, you must reflect on and measure the strategies used to produce your deliverables to determine their effectiveness. Discuss the following questions with your team:

• Did we stay within budget? If not, why did we stray?
• Did we complete the project within the deadline? If not, where did we go wrong?
• What went well? Is there anything we should change for next time?
• How did our stakeholders react to the project deliverable?   

How to develop effective project deliverables

Start developing effective project deliverables early in the process, preferably during the project planning phase and before you start allocating resources or scheduling tasks. Determining, adding, or amending deliverables after you begin the project will add time and cost to the overall result. There are four steps to creating effective project deliverables:

1. Base your deliverables around your objectives

Ask your stakeholders what they want out of the overall project. Asking questions and getting their opinions will help you narrow your project details and identify the processes or documents necessary for each step. 

2. Determine the exact criteria for each process deliverable

Define the acceptance requirements for all potential deliverables and gather the supplies and resources you need to accomplish each. Specifying the precise criteria for all deliverables will ensure each team member understands the desired end result. The more details you provide, the higher chance of having your stakeholders happy with the results. 

3. Develop timelines for project deliverables

Attaching a timeframe to each project deliverable ensures team members have adequate time to finish one before the next is due, especially since, in many cases, you can’t move on to future tasks until the earlier ones are complete. For example, you can’t start work on a building until you have all the necessary licenses and permits. Obtaining those licenses and permits is a deliverable you should complete promptly.  

4. Assess and approve each deliverable

Assessing and approving each deliverable upon completion allows you quickly to determine if they’re acceptable or require changes before you move on to the next project step.