With the right project management tools and techniques in place, your business can overcome any challenge. Here are 20 tips on how to get the most out of your project management tools:
Decide which features are most important to you. Do your projects value collaboration? If so, ensure that the tool you choose has excellent collaboration potential. Or, if it’s automation you require, consider looking for an AI-integrated solution.
Depending on the type and complexity of the project, you may only need a simple tool with just a few features. But if you’re a project manager of a large business with lots of moving parts, a more extensive solution may be more suitable.
3. Familiarise yourself with the project and its essentials.
Once you know what project management software you’ll be using, it’s time to dive into the project. Start with the basics and ask yourself:
- What’s the project?
- What’s the purpose of the project?
- What are you hoping to achieve?
4. Check how feasible the project is.
In order to ensure your project has the potential to be successful, you should run a feasibility test. Assess the technical, financial and operational aspects of your plan to ensure it’s likely to be viable.
5. Identify and engage stakeholders.
You need to have a good understanding and relationship with all stakeholders throughout the project. Include all stakeholders in discussions from the start of the process, from understanding expectations to ensuring your team is on the right page each step of the process.
6. Create a roadmap with tasks, timelines, and responsibilities.
Next, you need to create a timeline and identify actionable steps to take to achieve the project’s goal. Having dates assigned to tasks and responsibilities will help keep your project on track.
7. Understand the risks and stay flexible.
To overcome challenges, you first need to identify them. Complete a risk assessment and consider what risks may arise during the project and plan on how to address them. You can’t prepare for every eventuality, but it’s important to stay flexible should you encounter bumps in the road.
You might also need to develop a crisis communication plan, should any issues arise during the project process that impact customers.
8. See what resources are available and plan them wisely.
Make sure you understand what resources you have available to you for this project. Your team may have other projects of their own, so you need to take their time into account. It’s also important to know their strengths and weaknesses, so you can assign tasks suited to them.
9. Decide how you’ll communicate with each stakeholder.
In the early stages of the project, you’ll need to decide how to communicate with your stakeholders. This can be as simple as setting up regular meetings or check-ins.
10. Ensure everyone knows their key objectives.
As leader or project manager, it’s your task to keep your team motivated and engaged. You need to ensure that your team knows their objectives, and what they’re working towards at all times.
11. Break down the project into digestible tasks.
Breaking the project into smaller, digestible chunks makes the process smoother for your team as it feels more manageable. It also makes it easier to delegate tasks.
12. Assign the right people to the right tasks.
Remember that you know your team best. Who should be taking on those tasks? Align their skillsets with the parts of the project you know they’ll excel at. But don’t shy away from providing learning opportunities either – just make sure you account for it in your timeline.
13. Flag priorities and deadlines for each task.
While every task is necessary – they may not be equal. Some may need to be completed as a matter of urgency, and others may be interdependent on each other. Make sure your team knows which tasks to tackle first.
14. Use real-time dashboards to monitor deadlines and progress.
You can implement real-time dashboards to check on deadlines and the progress being made towards them. This will help the whole team to visualise when things need to get done.
15. Hold regular check-in meetings.
Keep communicating with your team. Check-ins help to make sure everyone’s getting on okay and give your team the chance to ask questions or raise concerns if they need to.
16. Lead by example.
Remember, while you’re the project leader, you also need to contribute to the project and remain accountable.
17. Have a back-up plan if things go wrong.
Sometimes things happen outside your control – no matter how thoroughly you planned. You need to be flexible and prepared to take a different route if necessary.
18. Ensure each decision and action is documented.
Things can get lost in miscommunication sometimes, so it’s important to make sure everything is documented – from recorded meetings to notes on key takeaways. You can often build this commentary in as part of the tool.
19. Get feedback to learn lessons for future projects.
Don’t forget to ask your team for feedback. You can incorporate this into the next stages of the project or learn for future projects.
20. Conduct a final review to see what worked well.
Finally, conduct a review to see what went well for your team and how the project management tools supported this process. Make a note of what you want to take forward into your next project.
Editable project management templates to help improve your processes.
