Hitting deadlines and staying in budget start with project planning. Successful projects are few and far between in the business world, making a decent project manager who can get a team to make deadlines and stay within budget a valuable addition to any company. A successful project begins with strong project planning that covers all potential pain points and problems well ahead of time to avoid setbacks. Without covering all the bases in terms of communication, task management, and organization, you are leaving the door open for little mistakes to become big problems as deadlines near.
Here are 5 steps project managers can take for precise project planning for better overall team productivity and success.
Centralize information and data sharing:
Mistakes and miscommunications are the biggest things to avoid in teamwork. With tight project deadlines, any small bump in the road can throw off your schedule or budget. A great way to avoid this is to be careful from the start and centralize all file and data sharing in one space where everyone has access to the latest versions of files. Losing files and having multiple versions floating around in emails is where a lot of problems arise. File sharing in Hibox is a great way to centralize information for better collaboration on projects. In Hibox, users can send files directly in chat streams and they are automatically organized in central, searchable file lists.
Eliminate email from the beginning of project planning:
Email is a productivity killer and leads to disconnected and lost information for teams. It’s best to eliminate email entirely from your team’s processes for your project. There are more modern, intuitive ways of communicating and collaborating you and your team should use. Company chat like Hibox offers is perfect for communicating remotely or in office during a project. Your team can create organized chat streams for each part of a project and invite only those who are necessary so those who need the information have it right there and those who don’t aren’t overwhelmed with messages. Your team can also create tasks and share files right within each stream to make the conversation actionable immediately.
Simplify the number of tools necessary for project planning:
When there are too many tools and logins for your team to use for working together on a project, your processes start to fall apart. Your team ends up wasting more time trying to get organized than getting actually work done. Having really simple processes and a small number of necessary tools and logins is key for streamlined productivity. Use an all-in-one digital workspace that takes care of all the functionality you need with one login. Hibox has company chat, task management, file sharing, and group video chat all in one simple platform. Your team only needs one login for all the functionality necessary for collaborating and organizing towards deadlines. All you need to do is set up a Hibox account and invite all users within minutes to have your whole digital workspace ready.
Make time tracking a habit in project planning:
Time management is key to project management! Less than one third of all project actually finish by their expected deadlines. Time tracking a great habit to implement with your team during the project planning phase so you can better plan your project out for realistic deadlines. Knowing how long tasks take can help you better delegate work and plan to reach deadlines together. It’s also a great way to motivate employees. We all get a little extra motivation when we get in the habit of timing tasks. It’s easy to time tasks with time tracking in Hibox. Right from within your task list you can time each tasks and know exactly where time is going. All the data stays saved in one place for improved project planning.
Organize deadlines on a communal project calendar:
Project planning should start with a clear view forward for all team members. Having a central calendar with all major deadlines and events planned out is ideal for keeping everyone on the same page. With all deadlines clear, you can delegate and assign tasks so everyone know where they contribute to the overall goal and their responsibility. Employees are more likely to be engaged and productive when they see where their work directly contributes. It also helps keep things on track towards deadlines with clarity. Hibox has a great project calendar that allows you to plan deadlines and assign tasks and subtasks directly within the calendar. It’s incredibly easy for everyone to see exactly what is expected of them along the way.
Project management may seem common sense but, clearly with the number of failed and over schedule and budget projects, it’s a lot more complicated. An all-encompassing tool like Hibox makes project management simple again by giving you the tools to get project planning done right. Try Hibox for free with your team today.
