Project Management Pain Points And How To Ease Them

Project pain points are like ticking time bombs. The sooner you diffuse it, the better your chances of surviving. 

Has another week has begun and you’re probably stuck at analyzing last week’s project delays? Well, this article can offer some relief with tried and tested techniques to curb pressing project pain points.

The biggest project challenges have occurred post-pandemic with nothing in order.

A project team with a group of staff in the same place is a long-forgotten time. The era of remote working, outsourced services, and online communication presents a new set of challenges to projects.

Various organizations were quizzed about the biggest Project Management pains they faced.

Wellington’s reports cited that nearly 63% of organizations had inconsistent approaches towards managing projects.

(Source : toggl.com)

Woody Williams clearly wasn’t kidding when he said this!

Considering this, if 48% of them stand at too many wrong projects, it’s time to address the pressing pain points of a project.

But before that, identifying project pain points is the first step to avoiding problems.

Common Project Pain + Easy Fixes for a Project Success

1. Overload

(Source: sciencedirect.com)

Project overload is the biggest problem that can derail a project. A single overloaded employee can cause a chain of delays.

Think about it:  36% of managers say they’re suffering from poor health conditions due to information overload at work. Ouch!

What’s the solution to this?

Ensure that none of your resource groups is more than 10% overloaded.

Each team member focusing on fewer projects will help pace the work. Also, that the output is balanced according to the workload.

When this happens, more than 70% of lead time is curbed.

When 4 people are assigned to a workload that requires 11, the production suffers. The productivity will undoubtedly improve as the workload is reduced because the team will be able to stay focused on fewer tasks.

This paves way for better cooperation and efficiency with less stress.

2. Project Planning and Organization

Did you know that organizing projects is the number one problem of a Project Manager’s work life?

Resolving this problem is half the battle won!

But isn’t organizing tasks and projects challenging?

Well, out of 10 projects, delegating at least 3 projects can make a world of difference to your project efforts.

Keeping track of delegated tasks and project planning goes hand in hand.

But what do we mean by this?

Planning tasks and delegating in an orderly manner reduces your future efforts of task management and time tracking.

If you want your work in order, Project Planning is a crucial element here.

How does Project Planning help anyway? 

Did you know? 37% of projects fail because leaders don’t define project objectives and milestones clearly? Poor project planning is the solely responsible aspect for this number.

Planning helps Project Managers through numerous project phases.

Project Planning must involve comprehensive mapping. Not to forget that organizing project priorities plans, assignments, and project resources can ease workload management.

Coming to organizing projects, there are ways to save time—

• Organizational tools serve as the best medium for efficient resource management.
• It helps teams stay on track.

The right tracking tools curbs Project Managers’ workload of micromanaging and tracking each and every task assigned to a resource.

3. Accuracy in Estimates

(Source: twproject.com)

Standish Group conducted research that cited 34% of IT projects completed on schedule and within budget.

Estimates are essentially a prediction of how long it would take to complete a given project milestone.

Estimates take a toll on the profitability of a project and ROI. This is especially when project deadlines are too tight.

And, unless you have some kind of supernatural ability to predict the future, it’s difficult to do the guesswork.

So, what makes an estimate that accurate to plan your projects?

• Accuracy in data that generates reliable project estimates.
• Consider the role of the data acquired.
• Depend on ranged estimates that offer flexibility.
• Avoid mandating task duration.

How much importance do you think you give to resources?

Remind yourself that resources include people. They won’t be productive at all times to spare unexpected events. Some unseen events could include software and equipment failure, network issues, power outages, medical emergencies, etc.

Brainstorming on these lines can help in better estimation.

4. Constant Follow-up

Staying up-to-date makes half the hassles easier to handle. Keeping a tab on each team member can be quite cumbersome.

What can be done for easier follow-ups?

Documenting and email threads are a better way of going about the follow-up process.

However, the main problem arises when ad-hoc tasks take up the precious time stored for completing important tasks.

Following up on a delayed task can be overwhelming; however, project management software can make it easier for managers to contact the right resource and check the real-time activities on a particular task.

This also includes updating your workplace by setting up alerts and giving access to the calendar.

5. Right Priorities Across Multiple Projects

Let’s face it – Every task is important and urgent. This thought makes it difficult to prioritize the real urgencies that demand attention.

Why do we put projects at risk that fail due to the wrong priorities?

Orangescrum expert task manager lets you set priorities based on a bird-eye view interface. Its real-time updates on tasks completed make it easier to shuffle across multiple projects.

It can be thought of as a stand-alone app for smart phones that gives project managers instant access to all of their alerts, projects, and performance.

From Project Pain to Project Gain

There is no silver bullet for project success.

Implementing the above project management challenges and solutions can ease work management to a great extent. To gain victory over the common project pain points, a fool-proof and flexible structure is vital to follow.

Not only this but keeping a lesser rigid architecture with projects can help resolve the current issues in project management.

Help yourself with an all-in-one project management software to reduce these pain points.

Get Orangescrum to take away your project pain, today!