Bogged Down With Difficult Project Management Assignments?

Nowadays, giving coercive tasks to employees that are out of their capabilities has become common. As a project manager it's your responsibility to assign tasks to the employees according to their abilities in order to achieve targeted results for the company. A company's downfall is assured if there is coercive tasks distribution. Here are some tips which you should consider while distributing tasks to your employees:

● Distribute work fairly 

Distribution of tasks plays a key role in successful project completion. So, always distribute work keeping in mind the employees interest and abilities instead of just dumping tasks on them. Also, you can discuss with your employees to know about their thoughts or who wants to volunteer for which task. 

● Have a clear idea of the target

Having a clear mindset about the target helps you in shortlisting suitable employees for a particular task.

● Selecting right candidate 

After analyzing candidates' experience and skills, you have to decide who should be given which task so that the candidates with lesser experience gains some and the experienced one doesn't have to carry an extra load of work. 

● Coordinating with your team

Regularly coordinate with your team to ask for suggestions which can improve the team's performance and results of the project.

● Supervise and give training if required 

Supervision is an important part to increase productivity and also to avoid any errors. For beginners, sometimes training is required to make them comfortable in the work environment. Training should be given in a way that they should be able to use their brain efficiently and take action independently. 

● Assign Powers

In your absence or apart from you, who will have what and how much powers and authority should also be decided wisely.

● Deciding different aspects of monitoring 

There should be some standard in monitoring so that teams remain focused without feeling like a slave and must have the freedom to take necessary action and present their thoughts. 

● Preset deadline 

 Setting a deadline especially for high budget projects helps to get an ascending progress and gets the best out of all. But the deadline shouldn't be too hectic to achieve. 

● Check progress regularly 

Checking progress at regular intervals helps to strategize the plan and route of the project further.

● Performance Report after project completion 

An honest feedback from you, as well as your team after project completion is a must. This feedback helps to improve your and your employees' performance for future projects. 

Project management is a well planned and organized schedule to achieve a specific target. It includes defining project goals, project planning, identifying tasks and who would perform it, quantifying resources needed within the project budget and deciding deadlines for projects completion.

Project management helps in building a strong and focused team which delivers above the line of client's expectations, with a successful vision and collective efforts. 

Project management's importance in the corporate world can't be overstated. Here are some reasons for you to understand the importance of project management:-

● Successful completion of project on time

In the corporate sector, time is considered as money. A carefully planned project can save you lots of time by completing the project on time or before the deadline without compromising with the quality of your services. This is a very important feature of project management. 

● Avoid skipping any tasks

With project management all tasks are distributed fairly and are done in an orderly manner, without skipping any single one.

● Resolves any unexpected problem 

With project management, every team member has a detailed report of the tasks they have to perform and when. If a problem arises in any of the tasks then the other members will have an idea how it will affect them. This will help them to resolve that issue quickly or at least build a new schedule. 

 ● Reduces project cost under the budget

This is the most important feature of project management because no client would want their project to exceed their budget. Project management reduces project cost under the budget by minimizing risks, optimizing resources, controlling the unnecessary expenses, etc.

Properly implemented project management will make your projects successful each and everytime. 

Basically, there are five stages of project management. They are:

● Project Initiation 

This is the first stage of project management which converts an idea into a well defined objective. This involves giving the project a brief definition and developing a business case. For all this, you must identify the requirements of the project and make one project chart ( it is an important document with details like project aim and objectives, budget, deadline, resources, etc.)

After preparing this, select project stakeholders ( people who'll be a part of project) and provide them with their roles, designations, authorities and other necessary stuff. In this stage a clear target of the project is set and doesn't involve any discussion about any technical details like how to achieve that target etc.

● Project Planning 

In this stage, roadmapping of projects is done. The outline, goals and objectives, schedule, communication plan etc. of the project is created. Project planning is a stage where the skills of a project manager are being tested as it includes defining the goals and objectives of the project, identifying each task and how it needs to be done, setting deadlines for tasks, and looking out for better resources. This stage decides the project success or failure so it needs to be done with full focus and care.

● Project Execution 

In this stage, the project team's actual work starts. It is the stage where every team member is given an overview of their role and what is expected from them. A project manager's role in this stage is to ensure proper workflow and monitoring the progress of the team regularly. They have to maintain a state of harmony between project stakeholders to avoid any issues. 

● Project Monitoring 

The process in this stage runs hand in hand with the previous one,i.e., project execution,  to ensure that the progress is on the right track and project deliverables are met. While monitoring, the project manager holds the responsibility to track down any unexpected issue and to take measures to resolve it. They also have to keep in check the project cost so that it won't exceed the project budget. 

● Project Closure 

This is the last stage of project management when the project is completed and delivered to the client. In this stage the project manager completes all the paperwork left and terminates the contract of the external stakeholders hired. This stage is necessary for each and every member of the team including project manager as it provides every member to evaluate how successful the project was and what things they learnt from it that will help in future projects. Project closure is sometimes done with an official closing meeting or unofficial celebration party. 

SMART is a method used for setting goals and objectives of the project and making them effective. S.M.A.R.T. stands for , S- Specific, M- Measurable, A- Attainable, R- Relevant, T- Time bound. So, while project planning all these criteria must be considered, i.e., the project plan should be:

● Specific 

The goal of a project should aim at a particular area of improvement or resolve any particular issue. This step should be crystal clear in the SMART goal process because the more detailed and specific your goal is the more it will be beneficial for you.

● Measurable 

The goal you set must have some way to measure it's progress. There are several metrics or KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) which can be used to measure the progress. By adopting the right tools or restructuring KPIs these can be measured easily. This step helps to achieve the goal in a progressive with way within the deadline. The timing and authority of measuring progress must be well-defined from the start.

● Attainable 

The project goals must be realistic and attainable. Before setting up the goals, keep in mind the resources available and project confinements like budget, timelines, bandwidth etc. or can also take a reference from past projects. 

● Relevant 

The goal of the project must have a relevance with other corporate objectives. The main goal of a project can be divided into smaller sub-goals that are equally relevant, to eliminate confusion and increase team's focus. Remove all the irrelevant tasks and sub-goals.

● Time-bound

The project goal should have a certain deadline. After having discussion with all the major project stakeholders and team members about the expected deadlines of the project, set project timelines accordingly.

A project  summary is a document that contains very precise and important details of the project ,eliminating all the comprehensive details which takes a lot of time to go through. It generally contains details about project objectives, resources, workforce, timelines, budget etc. So, it is necessary to create a project summary because it gives a quick overview about all the details of the project in one-two pages to the project stakeholders, client or any other reader. It also acts as a proposal some time for the clients.There are some major benefits of writing project summary, as:-

● It increases the clarity of project 

A project summary highlights only the most important and crucial information about the project and rules out any unnecessary information that can confuse the reader. In this way, it increases the clarity of the project and makes it easier to understand for the reader.

● It also acts as a roadmap 

Project summary has the important details of all the tasks in an orderly manner. So, it can act as a roadmap for all the team members in case someone has a confusion about any step or stages of the project.

● It is a time saver

Since, project summary has all the key information about the project in a single page this can save a lot of time of team members, all project stakeholders or any other reader by giving a quick overview or any information related to project quickly.

So, make sure to write a project summary for all your present and future projects to attract the readers towards your project and convince them to appreciate the quality of your project goals and objectives. 

Project management software tools make a significant impact in managing projects effectively. Nowadays, there are so many software tools available for project management that offer different features. You can choose from them according to your project compatibility and needs. Here are some benefits of project management software from many of them :- 

● Remote Working 

No need to explain how helpful this benefit is, after facing a pandemic. With remote working you don't have to worry about project location and accommodation. These softwares help in managing projects and workforce remotely without any problem.

● Enhanced communication 

The communication gap between different departments or project teams leads to major delays in project completion. Project management softwares solves this problem by providing a better communication service where it keeps check of the meetings and timings and sends alerts and reminders to the members regarding meetings and other necessary updates. 

● Easier and safe document transfer

These software platforms have secure data storage and transfer of important confidential files and documents. No one other than the project team can have access to these files.

● Budget Control

This is the most helpful feature of software tools for project managers when it comes to project management. These tools always keep an eye on the project budget and resources. They have a real time project reporting feature which gives a detailed report to the manager regarding the budget condition which helps the manager to take necessary actions to stop the project budget going above the limit.

● Effective monitoring 

These software tools make it easy for the manager to monitor the project because they have the detailed report of the project tasks, to which member it has been assigned and it's deadline. So, it keeps reminding the members automatically about the tasks deadlines.

There are benefits of using software tools which can't be described but can be experienced once you start using it. So, it is advisable to use these tools as a project manager to enhance your project productivity and success rate.