The marketing industry moves at a faster pace every day, which raises the importance of making the most of your organization’s limited resources. Huge potential benefits await teams that can make the fastest, most informed decisions, which starts from the project selection process.
This is where a project request form comes into play—by establishing a streamlined selection process and criteria, alignment, and efficiency are achieved from the earliest stages of your project.
What is a Project Request Form?
A project request form is a document that outlines the information required to initiate and execute a project. Like a project proposal, stakeholders use this to assess the feasibility and select projects based on their projected value. An effective project request conveys a clear vision of the project and how it would benefit the organization, which makes it likely to be approved by your organization.
Why are Project Request Forms Important?
A highly-underrated factor of a project’s quality is the team’s ability to achieve clarity and alignment in any and all stages of the campaign. A project request form helps with this by allowing the following:
1. A standardized process
A project request form makes it easier for stakeholders to effectively select and prioritize projects, as this is based on a consistent set of information. This puts every request on an even playing field, making it easier to identify higher potential ROI.
2. Efficient resource allocation
With more informed project selection criteria, teams benefit from a clear direction on which projects require more resources allocated for it, from manpower to effort. This allows your team to manage costs on the project against the potential benefits skillfully. Naturally, selected projects that are of higher priority are likely to be given more resources to ensure success.
3. Effective communication between stakeholders
A good project request form clarifies who is involved in the project, and how their presence contributes to its success. This also establishes clear lines of communication between all stakeholders—not only does this save time in terms of handing over work from one member to another, it reduces or, ideally, eliminates redundancies in the process. When the stakeholders move in one direction—the right direction—the chances for success rise significantly.
4. Optimized execution
Tying all of the above benefits results in projects that are executed in the most optimal way possible. Because tasks are successfully accomplished with minimal error, time savings accumulate to increase the ROI at the end of your campaigns.
Project Request Form Best Practices
Now that we know the concept and understand the importance of project request forms, here is a list of essential information to add when creating your first form:
- Name & description of the project: Focus on keywords that best illustrate your desired outcomes for this project. The description should clearly convey the vision, and ideally, be able to explain how achieving this vision benefits your organization.
- Stakeholder information: Who are the different teams and individuals involved in the project? What are their responsibilities in the process? This includes you, as the person requesting/proposing the project, as well as your contact information, in case the stakeholders require clarification or added detail to make a decision.
- Project type: This is essential, especially for marketing teams—what kind of campaign are you trying to run? Is this a content push, a sales campaign, a rebranding, or something else? Consider whether an integrated marketing strategy should be outlined here.
- Deadline: Outline important dates to monitor progress. Most importantly, when can final results be expected?
- Budget: Provide an estimate to the best of your ability; breaking down the cost for known requirements also helps. A ballpark is essential, so your stakeholders can begin measuring the value of investing in your project.
- Scope and limitations: It’s important to clearly define what is included and excluded from your project, to better inform your estimated budget, as well as further clarify the necessity of each stakeholder you listed, and how they can add value to the project.
- Target audience: Last but not least, a clear target audience is essential for marketing campaigns. This sets the tone for whether or not the kind of project makes sense to do, in the same way, that it will influence all further action on the project, as your campaign needs to delight the customer in order to achieve the most marketing and/or sales goals.
Get Started With Our Free Project Request Form Template
For your convenience, we’ve come up with a free sample project request form template—feel free to download or make your own copy using our Google Doc. You may also copy and paste the text fields into your own document to start.
Project Request Form Example
Here is an example of a filled-out project request form using the template above:
Turn Your Requests Into Returns with Workamajig
An effective project request form clearly illustrates how a project adds value to your organization, as well as the investment required to achieve these results. A seamless project management tool helps complete the loop by turning the details of your chosen project into a functioning process from start to finish.
With Workamajig, the premier marketing management software, you have an all-in-one solution for effectively managing your tasks, deadlines, and resource allocations in service of your chosen project requests. Easily adjust your schedule or modify task requirements to ensure timeliness and feasibility, and use native reporting tools to measure your progress, as well as identify and address roadblocks along the way.
