When you are just starting your own business venture, your primary goal would be to release your very own suite of products or services to the paying public. Also, when you are working with a small team, formal processes can stall the completion of a project. However, as your venture grows and expands its operations, it is highly likely that it will have several projects that are ongoing with various timelines.
In order to ensure the efficient allocation and use of time, money and effort, it is important to put in structures that will ensure proper management of these resources which, in turn, will ensure the prompt completion of projects. Here are a few of the best project management tools and techniques that you can use for your organization.
A seasoned project management company will always underscore the value of meetings. It doesn’t matter whether meetings are held weekly or more frequently. What is important is to update and keep all the members of the team on the same page with regards to the project and the associated tasks. Often, the frequency of the meetings will depend greatly on the size of the team as well as the time allocated for the completion of the project. What is important is that the schedule of the meetings should be amenable to all participants.
Time is one of the most valuable resources used in the completion of a project. As such, you should ensure that every second that is allocated for meetings counts. The best way to do that is to set an agenda and stick to that to ensure that the meeting ends quickly. You also might want to utilize online tools like Google Drive that makes it accessible to those who are working out of the office.
During meetings, it is inevitable that negative issues come to the forefront. As such, you’d want to keep things in a positive light. The best way to do that is to focus on the problem and ask for suggestions to rectify it.
Finally, before setting a deadline for the project, it is best to understand what the deliverables are and to set the criteria by which you can gauge the completeness and quality.
Apart from Google Drive, there are other useful task management and collaboration tools you and your team can use including Asana, Basecamp, Huddle and Liquid Planner. It is good to remember that, often, it is the simplest of tools that get the job done and are usually the best.
