Plan a small project with tasks and dates

This prompt asks the AI to act as a project manager and turn your project into phases and dated tasks with owners. It marks the tasks that would delay everything and lists the top three risks with a fix for each.

text-small-project-plan — chatgpt — 109 words

Act as an experienced project manager. Help me plan this project.

Project: [WHAT, e.g. move my online shop to a new website]
Finish date: [DATE]
Who is working on it and how many hours a week: [PEOPLE + HOURS]
What is already done: [ANYTHING]
Biggest worry: [e.g. getting content from the client on time]

Break it into phases and tasks. For each task give an owner, a start and end date, and what it depends on. Mark the tasks that would delay everything if they slip. Show it as a table I can paste into a spreadsheet, then list the top three risks with one way to reduce each.

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Ask for the table as CSV if you want to paste it straight into Google Sheets or Excel.

Get a better result

What you will get

A project plan in phases and tasks, each with an owner, start and end dates and dependencies, the tasks that would delay everything marked, a table you can paste into a spreadsheet and the top three risks with a way to reduce each.

Common mistake

The task dates need more hours than your team has.

Fix: Add “add up the task hours and compare them with our weekly hours. Tell me if the plan does not fit by the finish date.”

Also watch for

The dates start from no real day, because the AI does not know today. Put today’s date at the top of the prompt so every start and end date is calculated from it.
The table breaks when you paste it. Ask for “CSV text with the columns Task, Owner, Start, End, Depends on, Critical”. CSV pastes cleanly into a spreadsheet.

Try a variation: Friday check

Add “a 15-minute Friday check-in checklist with three questions: what finished, what slipped and what is at risk next week”. Short regular reviews catch slips early.

Still not right? Reply with this

Today’s date is [TODAY]. Add up the task hours against our weekly hours, flag where it does not fit and give the plan again as CSV with a Critical column.