Tip of the Week: Three Best Practices for Project Management

Any project that your business undertakes will have its success defined by the particular goals you have set for it. This means that each project will be different, its own concerns and considerations coming into play. However, when it comes to managing these projects, most of them benefit from largely the same practices. For this week’s tip, we’re reviewing three that every project should incorporate.

1. Establish Good Communication Habits

If there’s anything that the success of your project will directly rely upon, it is how well you communicate with everyone involved. This will require you to not only have reliable communication solutions, but to actively put them to use.

From the very beginning of your project, make sure that everyone involved is sharing all of the information that is appropriate to be shared, with whom needs to see it. As the person in charge, you should set this communication in motion, leading by example. As we will cover in more depth below, this means utilizing the tools at your disposal appropriately - keeping conversations pertinent to the group as a whole visible to the group as a whole.

2. Define Milestones, Objectives, and a Timeframe

Any project should have four distinct stages to it: initiation, planning it, executing it, and a wrap-up at the end. Each of these stages should be punctuated by different milestones and objectives to be reached, as well as a set schedule as to how quickly each needs to be achieved.

This can benefit you in a few ways. First off, it is always better to be more organized during these kinds of things, as it helps eliminate the chance of wasting time and money. Look at it this way: if you have Tasks A, B, and C to do in a project, and three employees to see to them, it isn’t going to help much if all three of them go out and spend their time on three separate versions of Task B. 

Furthermore, timeliness is usually a factor in these kinds of things, so it is important to establish a set schedule based around any limitations. Let’s say that you were planning a Halloween party for your office... it wouldn’t do much good (or make much sense, for that matter) to have that event two-thirds of the way through November, would it? Your projects are likely influenced to some degree by outside stimulus, and so should be treated the same way - set deadlines and timeframes ensuring your preparations don’t run long.

3. Use the Tools and Resources Available

There are many business solutions out there today that make the many processes involved in managing a project from start to finish much easier. Take, for example, the practices we’ve already reviewed in this blog - there are many communication solutions that are ideal for group project work within an organization that you may not be using to their full advantage. Likewise, there are project management solutions that allow you to better track and manage how your team is using its time and energy.

Finally, you also have the option to utilize automated solutions to simplify and expedite many of the moving parts that a project has. Rather than risking a crucial step be missed in the flurry of responsibilities your employees have, allow the facets that can be automated to be, and let your business solutions serve their full purpose.

Interested in learning more about how your internal projects and other processes can be benefited by technology solutions? Reach out to us at (217) 428-6449 to learn more!