Blog 4 Techies Being a project manager can put a lot of weight on your shoulders. Apart from ensuring that the project goes through successfully, you also need to ensure that everyone on your team is well, as they’re the ones who will work hard to provide a successful output.
Since your team has a project to complete, you must get your game face on to ensure everything goes smoothly from start to finish. Proper management allows you to foresee possible issues and prepare any possible solutions to resolve the problem immediately. To help you become a more effective manager, below are some ways to achieve successful project management:
Table of Contents
Identify Project Requirements
Before planning for the project, you must fully understand what it’s all about. You should know what kind of result the owners, directors, or clients expect, along with the possible features they’d like to have. During your meeting about the project proposal, you should ask your client about their list of requirements. However, expect those things to get a bit lengthier as the project goes on, especially if they suddenly decide they’d want to add a specific feature during the process. To avoid these inconvenient scenarios, try to lay down the possible attributes they’d like to have that you’re confident they’ll eventually add later.
After listing the requirements, you can start creating your initial timeline and identify the areas you need to prioritize. Doing so will also give you a hint if the timeline is possible for their requirements or if you would need to create adjustments.
Utilize Project Management Software
While you can try to be independent with how you manage your people, it’ll be best for the company if you could use project management software to track everyone’s and the project’s progress. With project management software, you can have an accurate status report about the project’s progress and see if you’re still within your set timeline or if you need to rush some areas as there could be lacking activities that you need to re-prioritize.
There is plenty of project management software you could try. To identify which would be the best for you, checking the comparison of project management software online would help. Doing so will give you an overview of each software’s strengths and weaknesses and determine which would fit your project requirements.
Set Goals
After identifying your project requirements and acquiring project management software, you can begin setting goals and creating a detailed timeline for the project. It will help you have a proper schedule for every task needed.
Ideally, you should set long- and short-term goals for every milestone. You can begin by listing your main goals and slowly narrowing them down into smaller actions that are vital in the process. As you set your goals, ensure that they’re realistic and achievable as you consider the number of people you have and how long you plan them to complete those actions.
For the best management scenario, it’ll be best if you consult with your team about the timeline and let them decide what would be the best approach they should use. As they lay out their suggestions, see if they’ll benefit the project and team. Moreover, you should also lay out the timeline and be as specific as possible. This includes how many days a person can work on a task, which includes planning and implementation. Consulting with your team means you respect their opinions and want their input on how you should proceed with the project.
Furthermore, you should also consider your timeline for the testing phase. It’ll be great if you could add extra free days to your timeline in case of sudden adjustments that you haven’t anticipated in the first place.
Create The Perfect Team
If you have the power to assemble your team before starting a project, you should be careful with deciding who you’d like to work for the project. If you’re working on a delicate and high-priority project, you should gather everyone who’s an expert in the field. However, if it’s a low-priority project, you can mix up your seniors and juniors to let everyone learn from each other.
As you gather up your team, it’s best to identify their strengths and weaknesses and combine the perfect mix that’ll allow for a successful project.
Encourage Open Communication
Communication will always be the key to successful project management. Even if you’ve already set your goals with the team, if you don’t communicate with everyone about any pain points and success, you might not be able to get where you’re supposed to be, which might risk the success of your project.
From the beginning to the end of your project, you should always communicate with everyone by gathering all necessary updates from every team member. They should indicate their percentage of completion for the task and what their next steps would be moving forward. If any issues suddenly happen, they should flag it with the entire team to create a workaround to turn it into something functional. Ideally, you should create a daily team huddle wherein you discuss updates and ensure everyone’s on track. It shouldn’t take too long as the updates would only take 15 to 30 minutes of their day.
Always Test Every Deliverable
After your team has reached a milestone, you need to thoroughly test what they had done. Be as complicated as you can be to ensure that there are no loopholes or hidden errors within your project. It will help you to move forward with your project without worrying about any possible errors in the future. Otherwise, it can hold you back as you need to do some quick repairs instead of focusing on the next steps of your project.
Takeaway
Achieving successful project management would never be a walk in the park. But with the right software, planning, strategy, and communication, you should be able to find success at the end of the road. While the process might get exhausting and frustrating, proper planning and creating the perfect timeline gives everyone enough room to breathe as they know what they’re supposed to do and when they should finish each task.