Author: David Miller

Remedies for Failed Project Management

Written by David Miller on August 23, 2017. Posted in Articles. 4 Comments on Remedies for Failed Project Management

Project management can fail for numerous reasons, but the consequences are always the same – wasted time and resources, dissatisfied clients, and a devastating blow to your reputation as a project manager.

Nevertheless, failed projects provide valuable opportunities for the professional growth and development. Also, maybe it is a sign that you should start using some project tracking software.

If you have recently experienced a failed project or you are just wondering what to do if a project fails. Then read this article as it packs information that you may find useful. We have provided few actions that you can take once the project fails in order to prevent it from happening in the future.

Assess the Situation

Projects management doesn’t fail on its own. It includes certain actions from managers and other team members side as well who are involved in a project and caused an impact in the progress of a project. Before you can decide which remedy to apply, you have to identify the cause for project management failure. You can start by examining each stage that took place before the failure occurred. If you don’t have project phases and the paperwork to track past progress then there are chances to notice the first sign of getting an error due to poor project planning, structure, and mismanagement.

If you don’t have a good project plan, there is no point to wonder why your project failed. A project plan serves as a roadmap for you and your team members that they must follow. Without it, you can easily get lost in everyday tasks and dependencies and lose track of assets and time. In such cases, it is really important that an individual esp. A project manager should work on the project planning skills.

It may be valuable for you to know that most sophisticated, simple project management software come with project management templates that are easy and ready to use. You can even make your own plan and store it for future reference. In just a few clicks, you will be able to invite different people and make them start working on various tasks by ensuring defined deadlines and following work breakdown structure.

Remedy for Losing Crucial Pieces of Information

Paperwork and project management have to work well, as they are cogs of a well-oiled machine. The paperwork is of the utmost importance for a project management success. As the project goes on, these papers may get lost and you may be deprived of very important information which can be crucial for management efforts. This happens very often in organizations who use email as a document storing system.

Maybe you are not familiar with cloud technology and simple project management software which is a cloud based tool for handling different projects. The main benefit of using cloud based technology comes from centralized storage. All of the documentation is stored in one place. With the ability to track every change and to appoint access rights to every person in your team. Hence, you will never experience a project failure due to the lost paperwork.

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Remedy for Poor Communication

Poor communication has taken down empires, so don’t get surprised if your project management failed because you didn’t see the SMS from your employee. The one who notified you that he is not going to finish his task, who was actually the first member of the task dependency chain assigned to a task at topmost priority. Then, remember the time has come to leverage new technologies and to enable your team to communicate efficiently.

There are numerous tools online that can bring your team together on one communication channel. Even project management software solutions have a communication feature which allows managers to communicate with their teams in the real time. Notifications systems are utilized so that nobody misses an important message regarding the task they are working on.

Since the technology is cloud based and mobile ready, you can manage the projects wherever you are and from any device at any location just by using your hands.

Remedy for Inefficient Project Tracking

In order to succeed as a project manager, you have to be able to track the project as it progresses in real time. Inefficient project tracking limits your reaction time, which may have devastating effects on your project. With the ability to track the project with just one glance, you will become more agile and nothing will surprise you.

Today, it is almost impossible to consider managing a project without project tracking software at your disposal. Project tracking tools have a very simple user interface which utilizes charts, colors, progress bars, and time tracking tools to help project, task, and team managers remain as efficient as possible.

Any unplanned change which occurs during project progression can easily be seen and addressed immediately by using project management software so the project remains on the track. Furthermore, you will have access to the history of project management by archiving it. So, you may come back and address those issues which you don’t want to repeat again.

Remedy for Poor Contingency Plans

On very rare occasions, the project will go smoothly, as planned. A project plan is very important for project management success, but contingency plans are also a must have. This is why you should always have a sit down with your managers and examine your project and every task independently, and ask as many “What if” questions, and then provide as many “Then I will” answers to them.

Look at contingency plans as project management’s insurance plans. The more detailed, the better. When you are backed up with all that information and actionable knowledge, you won’t experience panic when something goes wrong. In the end, remember, proactive project managers have higher project success rates than reactive ones.

As you can see, failed projects are not such a bad thing. So, if you are cooperating with a reasonable client, you can always provide a remedy for it and bring the project back on its feet. Anyway, now you already know what can be done in the scenarios we have covered in this article, so now I guess you easily find a solution for all of them. If this topic interests you, feel free to look for more information on popular project management forums where managers share their experience first hand.

Motivate & Maintain Productivity With Project Management Tools

Written by David Miller on November 25, 2016. Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on Motivate & Maintain Productivity With Project Management Tools

Today, a single project manager can monitor a team of ten or even more people easily and efficiency thanks to project management tools.

In almost any line of work, people can rely on online software or tools to help them with job completion, task distribution, and progress tracking.

As far as project management tools go, they are commonly tailored for a specific line of work since it’s easier to reach the targeted audience this way. However, in spite of this, project management tools must have a few features in common in order to motivate workers and to maintain their productivity. So, we will go over these crucial features and explain how they impact your business in a positive way.

Ticket/Task Assignment

When we say task assignment, it’s hard to argue the fact that project management revolutionized this procedure, since you can assign tasks even without it. However, with project management tools, you get to speed up the process and have a neat overview of all assignments.

Furthermore, if the production process requires more than one phase to complete the product, your workers can assign the task to the next employee in line. So, when the first phase is complete, an employee can simply switch their assignment to the next team member. This way, you do not have to constantly monitor if something is on hold; everything will happen smoothly and there will be no task clusters.

Some online project management tools can be calibrated so that you do not even need to assign tasks. For example, if someone works in the customer support department, the customer can simply provide input regarding the issue, and the system automatically assigns the issue to a person responsible for the solution, which once again keeps the workflow running without any external influence.

Time Tracking

Time tracking project management software is an important feature for many reasons, and improving motivation is just one of them. First, you get to see just how much time it takes you to complete a certain project, giving you a better insight into its overall value.

Moreover, your workers can (in a way) compete with themselves and track their own improvement, since they will get a chance to beat their old record. When employees know that someone measures their time, they are less likely to get distracted or loiter on tasks.

When it comes to management, time tracking project management software can give you far better orientation in terms of how long it will take to finish a certain task, which will help you organize your work day in a way that does not overburden your teammates. As long as you do not overexert your workforce, they will continue to be productive.

An easy to navigate UI

The ideal tools for common users are free, simple, project management software solutions since these are the types of tools they are most likely to use. A bit obvious, but some of them simply fail to deliver. Your tool can be extremely helpful and have myriads of useful features, but if these features are inaccessible to the common user, you are not doing your job right.

Project management tools can only be useful if users can master it quickly and find solutions intuitively. Otherwise, it will present a hindrance. In other words, drag and drop features and systematically organized folders are an essential part of every management tool. Moreover, any feature that is used frequently needs to be on display at all times, like the search bar for example. Lastly, in order to fully optimize your management tool for the masses, you need to add multiple languages, so that users from all around the world can choose their native tongue as a default language.

Resource management

Another important feature, regardless of the line of work the tool was designed for, is resource management. People love efficiency, and the resource management feature inspires them to come up with more optimal solutions. It’s basically like solving a puzzle, especially if they are allowed to keep the remaining resources as a reward for a job well done.

Also, if they exceed their expectations by managing to do something more efficiently, they gain a great sense of achievement, much like with the time tracking feature. Basically, the main advantage of free simple project management software is inspiring and maintaining this sense of achievement, and that is one of the main motivators when it comes to working in an organization.

Reports and progress tracking

This is an incredibly handy advantage when you need to complete and manage more copious projects. Your ongoing projects will be completed much faster when everybody knows how much they managed to finish. You can create milestones for those projects, to allow your users to feel a sense of accomplishment after every completed task. This can make larger tasks seem far less daunting, and workers will be far more engaged when it comes to completing them.

Collaboration tools and integration capabilities

Lastly, your project management tool needs to allow your workers to collaborate regardless of their location. This is why most quality platforms operate in the cloud.

It is a safe way to store your documents and limit access to the chosen few and to access those documents and work on them even from your home. This kind of flexibility gives your teammates more freedom, and no one is pressured if someone is prevented from coming to work since collaboration is possible online.

As you can see, these are the most important features of anytime project management platform, because they help you stay more productive and motivated, and allow you to organize the entire workflow a lot better. Everybody can have a far better insight into how well the project is going. They’ll know when each project will be completed, and also whether their efforts were profitable. Additionally, the extra flexibility can help a lot, since it prevents work from piling up and falling behind schedule.