There are over 28 million small businesses in the United States. If you are the owner of one of these businesses, you know how important gaining a competitive edge is. One of the best ways to blow past the competition is by maintaining a good reputation in your industry.
Maintaining a good reputation is contingent on taking on projects and completing them on time or ahead of schedule if possible. There are a number of things you need to be aware of when taking on a new project. Having a good plan of action in place can help you and your team to keep your eye on the prize throughout the progression of a particular project.
source:beewits.com
Here are some of the key components you need to put in place when attempting to have project management success.
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1. Improving Workflow With the Kanban Model
Missing deadlines can put the success of a particular project in jeopardy. Often times, team members who miss their deadlines will say things like, “I thought I had more time,” or, “I didn’t know me missing this deadline was so crucial to the success of the project.” If you consistently hear these excuses over and over, you need to take a step back and think about how to improve workflow visibility.
One of the best ways to accomplish this is by using programs like the Kanban model. According to kanbanize.com, their main mission is to provide clients with workflow management tools that increase efficiency and productivity levels.
By using the Kanban model, you can keep your team informed as to what work needs to be done and how long they have to accomplish these tasks.
source:quora.com
2. Avoid Overcomplicating the Project
Most projects will have a number of moving parts to them. Your job as a business owner is to find a way to simplify it so your team can get a handle on what is required of them. Having projects that contain tons of useless information will only confuse your team.
Learning how to compartmentalize the information in a particular project can be helpful. By only providing information that is crucial to a team member’s role in the project at hand, you can avoid confusion and increase the speed of deliverables.
source:TRG Multimedia
3. Team Members Have to Be Held Accountable For Their Work
Completing a large-scale project on time can be extremely stressful for everyone involved. The biggest project management mistake business owners make is failing to hold team members accountable for missing deadlines or turning in subpar work.
Allowing team members to get away with these mistakes over and over can lead to the entire project being compromised. Keep in mind that you don’t have to be a taskmaster when correcting these mistakes. Sitting the team member in question down and pointing out their mistakes is the first step. After these mistakes have been brought to life, brainstorm with your employee on how they can avoid these mistakes in the future.
4. Constant Communication Is Important
Some business owners make the mistake of removing themselves from the project management process altogether. By removing yourself from this important process, you are increasing the chance that it fails.
This is why your main goal should be constantly communicating with team members throughout the progression of a project. By communicating with team members on a daily basis, you can find out about problems and fix them before any real damage is done.
source:TRG Multimedia
Project Management Success Takes Lots of Hard Work
Achieving success with project management is not an overnight process. Often times, business owners will have to put in years of hard work to perfect their approach to project management. The time and energy invested in improving project management practices will be worth it in the long run.
