Project management is a lot more challenging than it appears.
As a project manager, you’ve probably faced a lot of issues while running a project for your company. Be it field service management, manufacturing, SaaS, product delivery, or any other sector, the intricate challenges of project management always keep you on your toes.
Research shows that more than 70% of projects fail to deliver what was promised to the customers. Experts say that the failure occurs mostly due to the absence of an effective project management strategy. To keep everything in order, you must have proper planning, effective strategies, and accurate project evaluation in place. The implementation of a systematic management process can reduce the failure rate by up to 20%.
Surely, the usual tasks in project management are challenging enough. You need to ensure the pace of the project while making sure that it stays within budget and on track. Managing resources is no less cumbersome either. But the funny thing about project management is that you never know what is going to happen at the very next moment. Every day you might face unprecedented challenges without having a clue how to deal with them. But you must not let this deter you from achieving your goal. So, what do you do under those circumstances?
There is, however, no single plan that can ensure success in project management. But there are certainly ways to achieve the goal. If you want to manage a project successfully, the first thing you will need is a comprehensive project management strategy. But how do you develop those strategies?
If you have landed on this article, this means you are looking for an answer to the same question. and we are here to help. To provide deeper insight and assistance to project managers, we have taken on thorough research, reviewed case studies, and finally come up with five effective tips that you can leverage to develop an efficient strategy. So let’s talk about them without further ado.
1. Take Time to Understand the Project Inside Out
The first thing you need to do as a project manager is to understand the project as accurately as you can. Of course, you are on a tight schedule and have to meet the deadline. But if you fail to grasp the nitty-gritty of the project, you will never be able to achieve the desired results. The key to successful project management is to lay a strong foundation on which the whole structure can be erected. So, take your time.
To understand the project better, try to deconstruct the idea and analyze each component carefully. Identify the clients and stakeholders, pinpoint their interests and expectations regarding the final outcome, and take note of their preferences. Identifying the project requirements is also of utmost importance in this regard. With this knowledge, develop a solid project plan with defined goals and objectives.
Once you have a clear understanding of the little details, it becomes easier to get the whole picture. Besides, it also helps you make your team understand their roles and responsibilities better. To this end, it is also beneficial to establish scalable success criteria, comprehensive performance metrics, and tangible goals. You might also incorporate the 5 Ps of marketing and leverage the outcomes in your favor.
The 5 Ps of marketing, also known as the Marketing Mix of 5 Ps, are an effective tool to help you choose the right marketing strategies for your business. It involves five integral aspects of the business, namely-
- Product
- Price
- Promotion
- Place
- People
When executed effectively, the 5 Ps enable businesses to correctly determine target customers and convert them into a loyal customer base. However, the importance of this strategy is not just limited to marketing efforts. It can also help project managers to choose right strategies as well. Incorporating them into the workflow enables project managers to identify the weak spots in the process and eventually come up with strategies to change or improve them. It also helps project managers keep tasks on track, provide clarity among team members about the project goals, and meet customer needs more effectively. In other words, the 5 Ps provide project managers with an enhanced framework for better decision making and developing a process that creates value for the shareholders.
2. Set A Plan in Motion
As soon as you understand what you want out of the project, think of ways you can successfully achieve the goals. This will help you develop a feasible, pragmatic plan. However, developing a project plan is much more than entering data on a software application. All your deliverables must be defined, along with the necessary tasks in the process. At this stage, you should also try to identify risk factors so that you can work around them to develop your plan, or at the very least be prepared to deal with them if they arise.
Once you have come up with a plan, it is time to build a team that can execute it as per your vision. Resources play an integral role in project management. No matter how brilliant a plan you might develop, it would never come to fruition if you lacked the right talents to make it happen. But as is often the case for small businesses, your team is limited to a few members, and so is your talent pool. So, you’ll have to assign roles carefully. In either case, assign roles and responsibilities clearly and carefully. Set accountabilities and goals for each team member. Communicate tasks and deliverables aligned with appropriate deadlines. The assignment of tasks should also incorporate risk management activities. And most importantly, make sure every team member is on the same page about the end goals and objectives. As you delegate the tasks and responsibilities, you set the plan you developed in motion. Therefore, it is important that the team members stick to the plan but leave room for emergency changes and adaptations as the need arises.
3. Manage the Project Scope Carefully
Now coming to the part we have been talking about all along—the sudden changes in plan— To counter this, you need to manage the project scope with utmost care. The project scope is usually defined earlier in the planning stage, during goal setting. It would be nice—and, of course, desirable—if the scope never changed. But that is not how the real world works! A project involves various factors, so the course might shift from time to time. Therefore, the project manager should always be alert.
It is important not only to identify the shift on time, but you must also make sure to adapt to the changes effectively without compromising the end goal. This is perhaps the biggest challenge in project management. The only way to navigate this situation is to maintain clear communication with your team members. The project team should be monitored closely and briefed on the adjustments from time to time. Management, vendors, and clients may also ask for updates, so it is of the utmost importance that the project manager is aware of all the changes, progress, and risk factors of the project. In general, you must develop and establish well-defined communication channels across the board and determine the type and frequency of communication to maintain transparency.
4. Avoid Multitasking
As you try to manage a project effectively, you seem to get overwhelmed with a series of never-ending tasks. With limited time and resources at your disposal, multitasking seems to be the best way to get things under control. But there is one major problem—multitasking never really works. In fact, it would only create more confusion and conflict than smoothening things out.
Accept it or not, the human brain is not wired to focus on more than one task, or at best two tasks, at a time. Researchers at the American Psychological Association indicate in several studies that switching between tasks and multitasking can cause up to a 40% loss in productivity, rather than speeding up the project. Therefore, it is never advisable to take on multiple tasks at once and should be delegated effectively instead.
The best way to avoid multitasking in project management is to devise a solid time management strategy. While your project plan must already include the projected timeline and schedule, you must also make sure that you assign a clear and achievable deadline for each task.
Just like multitasking, another great peril to successful project management is micromanaging. It does not just cause you to lose focus on your tasks, it could be highly demotivating for your team members. Micromanaging employees causes an absolute loss of trust and confidence, bringing down the productivity of the whole team. In general, micromanagement is a bad management strategy.
5. Pick the Right Tools
Choosing the right project management tools like Xebrio is just as important for project management success as choosing the right team members.
With the advent of modern technology, the traditional way of doing business has undergone a massive transformation. Now, digital tools are considered the biggest competitive advantage for any organization. Automation can add more efficiency, scalability, and transparency to your process. As a result, it is only logical that you use these tools to your advantage.
This is no different for project management. The current market is overflowing with hundreds of digital tools that could boost your team’s performance and productivity to an unprecedented level. With tools like work order management software, scheduling and dispatching tools, estimating software, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, you can now automate every step of project management. Project management tools enable project managers, administrators, and business owners to manage tasks, track progress, streamline communication, monitor employee performance, and even have a deeper insight into the project with advanced reports and analytics.
However, to make your project a success, you need to choose the tools very carefully. To this end, identify your project needs first and then pick accordingly. You must also take your budget into account while choosing the software and apps. Instead of signing up for multiple software solutions, choose the one that provides you with all-around automation support.
Final Thought
To sum up, successful project management requires effective leadership. As a project manager, you need to develop a team, plan resources, and delegate tasks to achieve the goals and objectives on time. However, the key component in this regard is planning and execution. Incorporating these tips into your planning will enable you to glide through seemingly impossible situations with unprecedented ease.
Author Bio
Joy Gomez
I am a self-taught, process driven programmer. I created Field Promax to pursue my natural born expertise.
0 Comments