Managing a team of people, especially creative people, is a task that not everyone is up for. Keeping your team on the same page while maintaining a schedule and budget that can keep your firm happy will take confidence and bountiful people skills. Natural leaders can come across as an authority with ease, but to establish successful project management, you must also appear worthy of respect by team members. Alienate your team, and the project is less likely to stay on track.
Tips for Project Management
Whether you’re new to project management or are looking to enhance your skills, here are some tips for effectively managing your next big project:
Know Your Industry Better than Anyone Else
Beyond interpersonal skills, a proficient project manager possesses comprehensive industry knowledge relevant to the project's context. A leader deficient in industry awareness or specific project objectives will likely formulate poor strategies.
Develop a profound understanding of the industry or product associated with your project to navigate its course adeptly and guide your team effectively.
Embrace your employees' perspectives, particularly when they hold extensive field experience. A skilled project manager remains receptive to insights and guidance from team members, fostering an environment of collaborative decision-making.
Establish Key Performance Indicators
Without a defined goal, evaluating project progress becomes a challenging task. Key performance indicators (KPIs) serve as the yardstick by which your project team gauges its success. These metrics often pertain to quantifiable aspects like sales figures or new customer acquisitions. Establishing KPIs from the project's outset ensures your team comprehends the rationale driving their endeavors, enabling aligned actions.
KPIs can encompass objectives such as achieving a quantifiable percentage increase in social media engagement, attaining a specific volume of units sold, or hitting a predetermined website traffic milestone.
Mitigate Setbacks using an Intelligent Schedule
Efficient project execution relies on meeting timelines and safeguarding crucial performance indicators. A shared project calendar empowers the entire team to maintain synchronized progress.
Leverage iCloud calendars as an astute approach to grant visibility into essential milestones and their responsible parties. A skilled project manager avoids micromanagement, instead opting for intermittent check-ins to confirm alignment with project objectives in terms of both budget and timeline. Swift interventions for motivation and issue resolution are promptly extended if the project veers off course.
Maintain Budget Adherence and Transparently Convey Your Spending Threshold
Early in the project, ensure to create a detailed budget outline. Avoid vague estimations for individual tasks, as these can inadvertently lead to overspending tendencies that might jeopardize the entire project. Preventing such an outcome is paramount.
To mitigate this risk, establish clear spending limits for each task and allocate around 10% of the budget for unforeseen expenses. This cushion will accommodate unexpected costs like fees, advertising, or unexpected staff expenditures. Regularly monitor the budget status on a weekly basis and make necessary project adjustments if a trend of overspending emerges.
Efficient project management involves maintaining a holistic perspective on the endeavor, delegating day-to-day responsibilities to capable team members. To effectively steer the project, it's crucial to have motivated team members who can make informed decisions autonomously or escalate when needed. Vigilantly tracking the budget and timeline concerns will provide insight into the project's trajectory, enabling swift identification of problematic team members or areas lacking expertise.
Choose Project Management Software that Helps You Manage with Ease
Project management isn’t easy, but it can flow more smoothly when you follow the above best practices. Another tip? Take advantage of project management software to help you and your team stay organized and on top of each step of your project.
An all-in-one dashboard that is specifically designed for professional and creative industries can help you easily implement time tracking, billing, project management, and more, so you have everything you need at your fingertips to make your next project a huge success!
BQE CORE offers intelligent project accounting solutions for the AE and professional services industry that are designed to help increase performance and productivity through streamlined processes and integration.
