Six Ways to Simplify Project Management

One of the greatest obstacles to completing a project on time and on budget is unnecessary complexity. Even well-organized and clearly defined projects can grow too complex, spinning out of control, losing their way and morphing into something they were never intended to be.

Fortunately, there are things you can do to remain focused on the ultimate goals. Try following these six guidelines to help maintain simplicity and avoid needless intricacies.

Keep Your Eye on the Big Picture – Managing a project can be compared to assembling a jigsaw puzzle. You need to see the picture on the cover of the box to know how to make the pieces fit together. If you become fixated on one or two pieces and forget the big picture, the project can grind to a halt.

Use your big-picture vision of the project to evaluate tasks throughout the process. Ask yourself, does this task get the team closer to reaching the big picture?

Imitation is the Highest Form of Flattery – When you are creating your project plan, don’t be afraid to borrow what has worked for other teams. If another project team has successfully developed a process that completes tasks similar to yours, copy it. Eventually you will develop a storehouse of successful tools that can be applied to other projects and shared with other teams.

Take it Step by Step – The details of a large project can be overwhelming when looking at them all at once. When this happens, try temporarily narrowing your focus to the tasks that need to be completed immediately. If necessary, modify your project management software to help keep you on track.

• Prioritize your tasks by importance
• Screen out unimportant tasks
• Give each task a deadline

Configure your project management software to display only the tasks that must be completed straightaway. This can help you concentrate on one task at a time.

Your Brain Doesn’t Like Reminding You – Don’t rely on your memory to tell you what tasks will soon be due. Instead, make the most of the daily notification feature in your project management system. Daily notifications can certainly help keep your team on track, but more importantly, they free your team members from having to recall their daily tasks and give them more mental energy to complete the project.

Engage with Email – Email does more than help team members exchange information. Assigning and accepting tasks via email creates a thread of trackable communication that is time dated and identifies all participants. Email can be used to help measure progress and hold members of your team accountable for their work.

Maintain Order – Project managers are responsible for managing the details that keep the project moving forward. These details include monitoring assigned tasks and tracking completed tasks accurately. To keep the project under control, try making the following actions habitual.

• Update task status in project management software on a frequent, regular basis
• Mark tasks as complete as soon as they are finished
• Assign tasks to team members at regular intervals but not in large batches

Even the smallest projects can benefit from project management processes like planning, time and cost management, scope management and communications management. Eliminating needless complexity by following these six steps can help you complete your projects faster and lead them more effectively.