Key Factors for Successful Project Management in Business
Project management is a complex job that involves many moving parts. Managing projects requires effective communication and collaboration among team members.
Lack of communication is at the root of many project failures. It is important to understand your stakeholders’ communication preferences and tailor communications accordingly.
Project managers often struggle to define what success looks like. Critical success factors help teams stay focused on what matters most.
1. Communication
Effective communication is one of the most important factors for successful project management. Without it, projects can be derailed and fail. It is necessary to communicate with team members and stakeholders on a regular basis.
In-person communication is preferred for conveying information about critical elements of a project to ensure that the message gets across. Face-to-face communications also allow you to read facial expressions and body language, which can help boost your persuasiveness and increase the likelihood that the information you are sharing will be interpreted accurately.
Written communication is also a vital component of project management. Many teams choose to use team collaboration software, which provides a central portal for all of the information related to a specific project and allows individuals to access it quickly irrespective of their location.
2. Planning
The planning stage allows the project team to map out the entire project. This includes setting goals, determining the scope and analyzing risks. It also involves identifying the right resources and creating a timeline. It also focuses on the timeframes for each task, as well as how much communication should be given to each stakeholder group.
During this phase, the project manager should determine what key factors are important to the success of the project. He or she should then prioritize these and set metrics to measure them. A good way to do this is by using a Gantt chart. This will help to track project interdependencies and create a schedule that takes into account the most important tasks first. This minimizes the chance of a critical task being delayed due to other, less-important tasks taking up more of your team’s time.
3. Collaboration
Collaboration is the glue that holds projects together. Without it, projects stall out or get off track. When team members can work together in real time to resolve issues, project delays are minimized.
For example, a team member in New York can consult with colleagues in Madrid, Shanghai or Sydney in real time via communication platforms embedded in the project management platform and gain immediate access to expertise. This saves managers from having to schedule lengthy face-to-face meetings and emails to gather progress updates from remote teams.
Moreover, when teams can collaborate effectively on tasks that require unique skills and knowledge, they can build a more robust knowledge base. This allows them to better understand how their efforts fit into the bigger picture and makes it easier to anticipate outcomes.
4. Time
There is no question that time management is one of the most critical components of project management. This is because if scope and cost, the other two project management pillars, are out of balance, time is often the culprit.
A well-planned project timeline helps keep teams on track and on budget. It also prevents unrealistic deadlines that can cause stress and burnout in the team members.
The 80/20 rule (that is, 20% of efforts produce 80% of results) should be applied when deciding what tasks to focus on and how long each task should take. This helps reduce the intimidating feel of projects by breaking them up into smaller, more manageable components. It also helps the team to avoid mistakes and meet lead times without sacrificing quality.
5. Budget
Once the project budget is established, it must be managed and tracked continuously. This involves checking that actual expenditures are compared with the original estimates and reporting them to stakeholders.
A good way to determine how a project is performing against its budget is to use the earned value management (EVM) methodology. This method compares scheduled activity with detailed estimated costs of the activities. If the actual cost is less than the planned amount, the project is ahead of schedule.
To achieve on-time completion, it is important to use a reliable estimating method that takes into account all costs, including potential risks and changes. One such method is parametric estimating, which uses data from previous projects to produce an accurate, statistically sound estimate. The other is the 3-point estimating technique.