What are action items?
An action item is an event, task or activity that is agreed upon by all project stakeholders and is assigned to an owner who is accountable for the completion of the action.The core of a successful project meeting is to follow it up with clearly documented minutes of the meeting and action items that are distributed to all the meeting attendees.
| Action Item Tracker Excel |
An action item tracker helps in easy and efficient tracking of the tasks assigned to project members and is documented, updated and maintained by the project manager who coordinates with the assignee for the closure of these items.
About the Action Item Tracker Excel Template
- ID: This serves as a unique identifier for an action item and is used for reference of a particular item in a tracker. Once a task is assigned a number, it should not be changed.
- Date Opened: Date when the action item was identified and added to the tracker
- Action Item: An action item is a task that is assigned to an individual and needs to be completed within the defined timelines. E.g.: Obtain approval on the billing agreement prior to the commencement of the services to the client. In this example, the service provider requires to complete this action item before they start providing services to the client.
- Owner: Every action item is assigned to a project member who “owns” the task and is accountable and responsible for the closure of the item.
- Priority: The level of priority denotes the importance of the action item and this helps define the items which need to be resolved with highest precedence. This field has 3 values - “High” indicates High Priority; “Medium” indicates Medium Priority and “Low” indicates Low Priority.
- Due Date: The target date when the action item is expected to be closed
- % Complete: An action item has a due date for completion and this field denotes the percentage completion of the item until the due date. This will help to identify if the action item will be completed as per the agreed timelines.
- Status: This field captures the current status of the action item. An action item could be “In Progress” (Yet to be resolved), “Completed”, “On Hold”, “Cancelled” (No action required) or “Not Started”
- Completion Date: The date when the action item is completed or closed
- Comments/Notes: A brief description of the current status in terms of what progress has been made on the action item is noted here starting with the date and the most recent update on the top.
| Acton Item Examples |
Thus, an Action Item tracker is a document created and maintained by the project manager and is used to track and monitor the post meeting items and helps keep all project members updated on the current progress on an action item.
Download Action Items Tracker Excel Template
Examples of Action Items
Date Opened | Action Item | Owner | Priority |
2-Jun-17 | Obtain API documentation from Visa, Mastercard | Daisy Barker | High |
2-Jun-17 | Get connectivity details for the development, test and production environment from Visa, Mastercard | Wendy Nunes | High |
10-Jun-17 | Raise request with the network team to establish connectivity with the vendor systems | Anita Gomez | Medium |
10-Jun-17 | Test the connectivity with the vendor systems | Shane Pitt | Low |
10-Jun-17 | Development of the interfaces | Aditya Sehgal | High |
15-Jun-17 | Test the interfaces | Nicole Edward | Medium |
15-Jun-17 | Prepare API Documentation, User Manual with step by step guidelines | Tania Thomas | Low |
18-Jun-17 | Complete User Acceptance Testing | Tania Thomas | Medium |
18-Jun-17 | Prepare release notes | John Portelli | High |
18-Jun-17 | Release to Production environment | Donald Cooper | Medium |
18-Jun-17 | Send out Go Live communication | Donald Cooper | High |
