Project management, along with management of other business processes, has evolved. It became a very suitable field for the implementation of new practices and technological achievements, such as easy management software and time tracking software.
Placing hopes in outdated and stagnant project management strategies is a huge risk while considering the fact that everyone who is included in a competition and is looking to implement new strategies to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of project management. Well, here are 6 of those strategies that will never work, and you should most definitely be aware of them.
Jumping into the Project Without Clear Goals
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In a business organization, goals can be divided into long-term and short-term ones. Every business process has to include them into various projects. Without clearly established goals, you won’t have control over the project flow and you won’t have the reference point for quality and productivity.
Everyone on a project team should be on board with clearly established goals. For instance, when you are delegating a task, you should clearly state the following points:
With clearly established and communicated goals, it will become easier to streamline the process and maintain control over the project development phase.
Trusting Paperwork Over Easy Project Management Software
Project management paperwork. This utterance sends chills down my spine. If you have the same feeling, you have probably dealt with it before. The paperwork strategy is an old-school and the most stagnant one of all that is going to be listed here. This is simply because it adds paperwork management tasks to project management.
Things get even more tricky when there are documents that require several people to collaborate on them. Juggling them via email, printing them out, and placing them in project folders is a daunting task, especially if the document that you’ve just put in the folder has to be updated.
Instead, you can make the documenting process a lot smoother with easy project management software. Documents will be stored in one place and anyone with the right access can collaborate on them. Furthermore, you will get benefit from other features, such as ready to use project templates, easy to manage task dependencies and other tasks.
Taking Communication Too Lightly
Teamwork is crucial to any project’s success. And, it is not a secret that great teamwork can be achieved only through effective communication. Communication that non-committedly takes place whenever there is a need for it. Taking care of communication via phones, emails, or any of the online messengers can be ineffective and it can easily lead to some of the important messages being overseen.
Providing your team with a tool that will enable them to communicate without losing time, while working on projects, is of the utmost importance. Just as paperwork, this objective can be completed with project management software.
The latest solutions from establishing PM software vendors to having an in-built communication and notification platform is important. It is designed to specifically meet the needs of project managers and team workers. Every task has a “Comments” section to make the communication process easier. Every new message will trigger the notification system to ensure that the message gets read.
Revisiting Efficiency Close to the Deadline
Project management is not only managing resources, assets, and tasks. It requires non-stop effort from the manager’s side as well. If your strategy is to check on your workers and task progress only when the deadline is closing up, then there will be a lot of surprises awaiting you. Especially if you had some difficult tasks.
It is very important to make scheduled checks when talking about the project’s progress. This is crucial, because it will provide you with actionable insights in time, so you can correct the errors and devote more resources to the dependent tasks whose completion is obviously going to be delayed.
By working on this strategy and implementing it in your project management as a routine, your projects will always come before the deadline and your clients and superiors will be satisfied with the efficiency of your management skills.
This practice will also allow you to identify what went wrong so you can improve it.
Focusing on Work Hours Instead on Results
Time management is the backbone of project management. It has to be practiced so everyone on the team can have the required level of productivity depending on the project’s goals. But, managing time while trying to maintain the quality of the work done can be tricky. Luckily, there is a tool that can help you with this. It is called time tracking software.
Whether you get time tracking tool software or PM software that has time tracking as a built-in feature, you will experience better results in time management. You and team members will also be able to track time for themselves and see how much it takes for specific tasks to get done. With this info, you can plan and schedule tasks for future projects with better accuracy.
Managing Project Only while In-House Office
A project manager has to be able to manage projects on one go. The days when one was able to do it only while in their office are long gone. Easy PM software allows project managers to be on the go and retain management efficiency as if they were in their office.
The latest PM tools are designed to work on any device and any operating system, making it convenient for any organization to implement them without the need for huge investments in infrastructure.
These were the 6 stagnant project management strategies that will never work in the modern work environment and market. By avoiding them, you will ensure your projects meet the deadline, which is of the utmost importance if you want to stay ahead of your competition in this volatile market.
Author Bio:
David is a technical writer, his works are regularly published in various papers and top-notch portals including ProProfs.com. His readers revel in thought-provoking write ups which are backed by his innovative findings and researches. His rich experience in Project management domain help him offer latest and fresh perspective on improved efficiency in work flows across organizations.His user friendly take on Project Management has helped many a managers and employees to achieve their goals with utmost efficacy and ingenuity. His informative works on similar lines can be reached out on ProProfs Project.
He lives in Detroit, Michigan with his wife. In his spare time, David loves exploring the city, listening to Metal music and riding.
