Project Managers have an uphill task right from the project initiation till closure phase. They have to deal with a large number of unknowns and moving aspects of a project that keeps them awake at night.
In the simplest of terms – “Project management is all about deliverables that meet the success criteria.”
There are some certain challenges for every project managers, and they have to deal with include but not limited to
This is a very high level list where each of these items can present additional conflicting issues for project managers to juggle with.
Is it their fault entirely? No
Does it have to be this way all the time? No
Meeting deadlines is a critical success factor for projects. Thus adequate project planning is required right from the beginning.
Project Managers need to account well for task, time and resource estimates.
Stakeholder expectation management can consume a lot of project managers time. There are multiple stakeholders to attend to and many times with conflicting interests in the project.
Some may have a major say while others not so much. But any unsatisfied stakeholder can impact your project adversely.
Maintaining meaningful relationships with your customers, project sponsor and the stakeholders is a key requisite of successful project management.
There is a caveat though. The stakeholder don’t show their interest to join daily affairs of the project. Some may only want updates on key milestones, their schedule and performance.
At the same time the business sponsor would be keenly looking for the project expenses and budget performance metrics.
Hence, accommodating all such requirements at the beginning of the project will lead to streamlined stakeholder expectation management and keep them invested in the project.
It is good that the reporting requirements are sorted. But then you cannot spend your days writing reports. It is just not practical and is open to lots of human errors and delays.
And to make matters worse you may not have all information recorded centrally or covered in a single report. Again not a very ideal approach.
Implement a centralized project management software that offers real-time project reporting.
You must have a project management tool that is capable of providing granular task progress reports to strategic performance views of your portfolio.
Some of the key reports you must be able to access and share in a few clicks must include
Having these reports handy in an exportable format can save you a lot of time and stress. Moreover, with the right access and privileges, the stakeholders can access the reports themselves.
Thus, saving a lot of reporting time and efforts.
Leading a large project or multiple projects at the same time adds a lot of monitoring efforts on the part of a project manager.
You will have dedicated resources, resources spread across multiple projects and resources loaned for specific tasks. All of which are very practical scenarios.
Staying on top of each resource’s task list and task progress is a challenge in itself.
Task priorities are misunderstood, tasks are left out, resources spend more than acceptable hours on tasks, overdue tasks count rises and overall task progress is far from acceptable.
Robust task management practices come to your rescue in the above outlines scenarios.
The key is to implement a self-serving system in place that is not dependent on the project manager’s trigger.
When you can see a week or a month’s view of task vs resource assignments, tasks progress and list of available users on the fly, it’s easy for you to stay on top of critical project activities.
Changing Requirements are every project manager’s worst nightmare. Radical scope changes can cost the project entirely. It may turn out to be an opportunity at times, but sadly that isn’t the case always.
A scope change directly impacts the project progress bringing it to a screeching halt.
The immediate effects are
One of the best project management practices is to layout a detailed change management process as part of the project plan.
It is important to cover the following points without fail:
Now, a savvy project managers understands that there would be many on the fly requests of nice to have items and these small requests slowly eat into to the overall project delivery.
Having a well-defined change management process with the right checks and balances ensures scope change requests are not flying on whims and fancies of the stakeholders.
Also, with the cost part laid out, requestors would be more judicious with what they really need, thereby refining the requirements in the best interests of the project.
Well, with more experience comes more responsibilities. And rightly so.
As you climb up the project management ladder you are bound to step up from projects to programs to an entirely portfolio management.
Basically all your project management challenges just double or quadruple.
Not to worry, see why!!
The rules of engagement remain the same whether you manage one project or a portfolio.
The key lies is getting the fundamentals right.
Be it task management, resource management, reporting, time tracking, stakeholder and communications management you need bring your top game in.
A versatile project management tool with auto-notifications, @mentions, custom reminders, agile project management and extensive resource management capabilities will hold you in good stead.
Project collaboration tools are a powerful means of managing all moving aspects of your projects with ease.
Project managers need to:
Communication and soft skills are also crucial. Hence, timely and meaningful communication along with empathy towards the situation at hand will help us resolve conflicts with ease.
Note, issues and conflicts of varied nature would arise from time to time.
But when you are equipped with all the real-time info be it in terms of statistics or status updates, there isn’t anything that you cannot handle dear Project Manager!
Resource Management majorly falls under 3 categories.
Each of these feed into each other and a spike in one will impact the other.
And you end up with resource burnout, demotivated team members, delivery delays and at times a state of impasse.
Digital resource management tool equipped with end to end resource planning is a must have.
Having quick answers to following questions at your fingertips is all you need.
Working team in projects are weapons for every project managers. If you aren’t able to rally them behind the project goal then you can never deliver the project successfully in given time.
Once, you have fixed the issues w.r.t task assignments, leave planning and milestone delivery scheduling with the team, focus on
For teams to perform at their optimum, real-time collaboration is the much needed oxygen.
When they can communicate and get quick answers, fixes to solutions they remain further engaged and committed to the project goal. Resources are inclined to contribute in more ways than one.
Lingering issues either technical or logistical will sap their energy lead them to a wondering state which basically means inaction or lack of desired action.
And that’s not good.
Also, when teams see the value delivered by their work, productivity rises as they are now invested in seeing the project succeed.
With this achieved, your Mr. Project Manager have succeeded at your role and can go to sleep like a log!
Still not satisfied? Here are some more good reads for you.
Checklist for Successful Project Management
COVID-19 Project Management Tips
Maintain the desired Task Management focus
And before you go, do you have a trusted project management tool in your arsenal yet?
If not, Sign up Today!