Three Keys To Success In Project Management

Have you ever wondered why a project fails? Most of us look up to successful project managers and their ideas to improve on our projects, but does it really help?

I am not saying that it doesn’t, but there are many other resources to learn how to excel in the project management field which are more substantial than the success stories.

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”
– Henry Ford

Failure is one of the most important aspects in anybody’s success. Simply because when you experience it, it teaches you new things, changes perspectives and most importantly you get to know the paths to avoid!

Failure is inevitable and success is nothing without it but I am not here to talk about that. I am here to talk about how to draw lessons from those failures and improve your skills everyday. Strictly speaking in the terms of project management, planning and execution are the real lessons for a successful project.

With modern project management trends settling in and the convenience of project management tools, here are three things every project manager should focus on in order to get excellence out for their efforts.

Visually map tasks to plan better

One of the reasons why projects fail is when you are not able to prioritize, assign and track tasks. It becomes really difficult to write down all the upcoming projects and then scribble dates on them with names of people responsible for it.

If you map your task visually with the help of a project calendar then you can stay top of your projects all the time. Once you have a project calendar in front of you, it gets easy to see how many tasks can fit a day, who can take up tasks on a particular date and the upcoming tasks in the following day or week.

Watch this quick video to learn what is project management and how you can start managing projects online.

Here are the benefits you get from visualizing your tasks and projects:

1. Project calendar helps to distribute tasks throughout the month. This way, you don’t clutter the tasks and impose unnecessary burden on your team or yourself. It also assists in you checking up the deadlines and stay one step ahead of your priorities.
2. Organizing tasks visually, not only helps in uniform distribution of work but it also helps improve coordination among your team members. When you can visually see an upcoming task and who it is assigned to, it becomes easy to coordinate with that team or member. Similarly, your team can be precognitive about the tasks and be prepared.
3. Visual implementation of your project and tasks provides you a decluttered view to track your progress. It in a way organizes your day ahead and the teams you need to communicate to regarding the tasks of the day.

Time each task for better implementation

Time is another factor in project management which needs to be considered for success. It is just not about time management but also about efficiency of work.

Task timer is one of such tools in project management which can be really useful to ensure great productivity. It allows you to track time spent on each and subtask. This helps a project manager understand the efficiency of employees as well as the capabilities of the team. When you time each task then you can reap these benefits:

1. It helps you track each employee’s efficiency, which is very important if you are working on contractual basis for your clients. It helps you understand each employee’s caliber on the basis of which you can assign tasks or conduct meetings to work on their efficiency.
2. Task timer allows you to manage time according to your priorities, number of projects and client profiles. It is also beneficial if you are working for your clients on hourly basis, you can record the billable hours you have worked for your clients.
3. Meeting deadlines is essential in project management, so using task timer to track down each hour can easily help in meeting goals. It also helps project managers to plan out each project and required time on each task which can directly improve the efficiency of an organization.

Deliver project insights to clients

The last step in achieving a successful project is the final report. Clients in general want a detailed account of their project, from expenses to the process and final results. So, the reporting part is the final test because this is the time you would know whether all the efforts paid off or not.

Reports should be easy to understand, consolidated and yet, should provide all the information a client seeks. So, reporting features of project management tools play a big role in filling up this role. With project management reporting tools, you can easily offer the following:

1. Use gantt charts to provide precise information to your clients. Gantt charts are very useful in providing all the details of the project in a brief manner. Pie charts and other infographics are also essential in briefing long reports for the client to understand.
2. Inviting clients to view report and progress can also build a great rapport between your organization and the client. This will allow you to maintain transparency between you and client which can be convincing to any client. You can escort clients through the progress of the project and establish a better relationship clients.
3. With the final reporting, you can use reports to list out project expenses and send invoice accordingly.

Project management requires organization and patience to achieve targets. The three keys mentioned above cannot guarantee you success, however, if done right, it can surely lead you to the path of it. As project management requires good communication, coordination and time management, these three keys can surely help in reaching your goal and with great project management tools, you can surpass your own potential.