Projects are an integral part of an Organizations’ overall success. With the increasing competition in the market, companies expect their project team to be more productive and deliver results consistently. Which makes project management an important factor in a project's successful delivery.
All project-related tasks are managed
by project managers who oversee the development process to ensure the team’s
productivity and delivery of projects on-schedule and without being a burden on
the team.
Through effective project management
practices, businesses can improve the performance of the team to become faster,
better and more efficient when compared to their previous results.
A project manager follows various
industry best practices to plan and organize their resources, time and effort
to maximize productivity and efficiency of the team.
For a successful delivery of a
project a project manager needs to have relevant technical skills along with a combination of business management and leadership
skills.
In this blog we are going to discuss
the top project management best practices that when followed diligently results
in a more comprehensive approach towards project development.
Top 10 Best Practices in Project
Management
1. Having a Daily Meeting -
Along with carrying out a project
kickoff meeting, team members must also have a daily project meeting to discuss
the tasks covered the day before, and the day after to get a wholesome picture
of their assigned tasks, what to achieve and how to achieve in the scheduled
time.
Bringing all the team members to be
present in a meeting ensures that all the parties involved in the project have
clarity over their responsibilities and capabilities. This enables the team
members and project leaders to better manage their tasks. It is one of the most
important project management best practices all team-members, irrespective of
the industry, must follow to make projects a success.
2. Define Project Scope and Objective
Clearly -
Having a clearly defined project
scope and objective is at the crux of successful execution of the project. This
enables team members to be aware of what they are expected off.
It is essential to establish the
scope statement and list out the objectives at an early stage of the project
life cycle.
A project management scope should
include elements such as project goals, deliverables, performance standards,
project constraints, project risks, and exit criteria for various phases of the
development process.
3. Create a Resource Plan -
No organization has unlimited
resources and more often the team members and project managers will be handling
multiple projects simultaneously. This makes effective resource management an
essential part of projects’ success.
A resources plan gives an overview of
the available resources where they are being utilized. Modern project management software automatically shows how the resources
are being used, where it is being used and their efforts in a neatly organized
format.
4. Communicate with Team Members and
Stakeholders -
Effective communication in project
management is essential to project’s success. Project managers and team members
must communicate to bring clarity to their project development.
Delivery managers must communicate
with stakeholders and keep them updated on the project progress.
Communication transparency must be
maintained during all phases of product development such as planning, execution
and deployment.
It has been shown that businesses who
plan their communication processes effectively have higher team productivity
and manage their project development more effectively.
5. Ask for Feedback
No task completion is 100%
satisfactory as there will always be some room for improvement. By receiving
feedback on your project management techniques you can ensure you can improve your processes and can deliver a
product that meets client’s expectations.
You can also learn where you are
going wrong and can avoid these mistakes in the future.
6. Create a Risk Mitigation Plan
Things don’t always go as planned. In
fact things more than often go wrong; to deal with situations like this you
need a risk assessment plan and a
risk mitigation plan integrated in your project management plan.
Identifying, assessing, and
controlling various hazards and risks in a systematic process. Project managers
need to anticipate various risks before-hand so that they can prevent it from
happening; this is where risk assessment comes in.
Risk mitigation plan is all about
anticipating the uncertainties in a project development and then devising
solutions to mitigate these risks. It keeps the project development team
prepared in case things go wrong.
7. Ensure Proper Documentation
A project manager typically has to
perform various functions for various teams which can quickly go out of hand if
not properly documented. It could lead to delayed assignments, project
oversight etc.
This suggests that project managers
should document each aspect of the project such as business requirements,
project business case, project communication plans, project schedules, budgets,
task breakdown structure, risk logs, issue logs etc.
Documenting each aspect of the
project management plan and project development helps make better decisions and
overcome challenges effectively.
8. Make Space for Change Requests
Make space for change requests i.e.
alterations requests made by customers which are outside the agreed-upon plan
made in the project initiation stage.
Project managers can prepare a change
request management document to keep track of all the updates that come from the
customers during the development phase. It can help development teams stay up to
date on the information.
9. Avoid Making Unrealistic Goals
Oftentimes project managers
overestimate their project goals; sometimes they go too far by having
unrealistic project milestones.
They tend to agree on deadlines and
milestones that are impossible to achieve. Overestimated project milestones
like this creates bigger workloads for team members which eventually leads to
ineffective product development.
10. Carry out Retrospective Meetings
After delivering the project, team
members and project managers should conduct a retrospective meeting to access
their project path.
This includes accessing the various
processes it took to complete the project, how the manager handled each phase
of the project, various issues team members faced during the development phase and how
they overcame them. This enables the team members and project managers to plan
their next project more effectively.
Conclusion
If you are a project manager who
followed the aforementioned best practices in your project development phase
you can rest assured that your project will be a success.
These project management best
practices will enable you to deliver your projects successfully. The best
practices are applicable to all industries be it IT, manufacturing, health or
others.
If you are new to project management
you can follow the aforementioned project management best practices to make
your projects a success.
From task management and time
tracking to team communication and resource allocation, Orangescrum has
everything you need to keep your projects on track from start to finish.
So why wait? Sign up for Orangescrum
today and take your team's collaboration to the next level!
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