Implementing Projects – A Challenge For Many Companies
More and more projects require dealing with little time and tight budgets. An incredible number of companies need help with this. More than the mere qualifications of the project members are required to implement a project successfully. It’s a huge challenge, especially for those in charge. The project manager.
The Project Manager And His Skills
A project manager leads a project that is clear to everyone. But besides technical challenges, he has to master a lot more. Management is the right word here. Because similar to managers and executives, a project manager needs a lot of organized knowledge, which he learns, among other things, with project management certifications or during his studies. Project management skills include tasks such as:
- Task and goal clarification
- work breakdown structure
- effort estimates
- scheduling
- resource planning
- cost calculation
- risk management
Accordingly, the project’s general organization is the project manager’s main task. In addition to administration, the project manager is the driver and motivator behind the project and the entire team.
Challenges For Those In Charge
94 percent of the more than 100 companies surveyed name time delays and cost overruns as the main problems with projects that have already been implemented. Why is that?
Changed Dynamics
A changing world. Due to changes in industry and economy, companies also have to adapt. Flexibility and agility are becoming increasingly important. This explains the overall dynamics and complexity of many industries. Customer requirements are increasing, so change and optimization requests are occurring more frequently.
All At The Same Time
Concentrating on one project is a luxury that only some can afford. The world of work demands multitasking and, thus, an enormous amount of organizational effort. Because several subtasks running in parallel must be coordinated and agreed on in time. 67 percent of the companies surveyed fear problems when managing the interfaces between individual tasks and projects.
Unexpectedly Comes Often
After weeks of planning and calculation, an unexpected event shoots everything up. Especially with large projects, unforeseeable factors cannot be calculated. 42 percent of the companies surveyed stated that project plans must be updated faster than written ones.
Project Management Tools As Support
More and more project managers are looking for support in professional project management tools (which doesn’t mean Excel and Outlook ) to complete projects despite the prevailing challenges successfully. Specific tools offer various helpful advantages – especially for digital leaders. Project management software is a tremendous support for team collaboration.
Communication
Communication in the team plays a decisive role in every company. Agreements are necessary, especially in complex projects, so that all team members can work together comprehensively. Project management software bundles all communication in one (virtual) place, making it target-oriented. With a project management tool, all task areas can be viewed by everyone involved and processed regardless of location. Teamwork becomes flexible and effective.
Transparency
A project management tool can comprehensively view the project with all its tasks – project status, work assignments, or organizational changes. Those responsible always have everything in view. And can intervene early, postpone appointments or adjust resources if problems arise.
Flexibility
As already mentioned, unpredictable factors and changed dynamics require particularly quick reactions. Thanks to software that maps all processes in real-time and is task-related, everyone involved is on the same page and can work flexibly, regardless of location and time. Everyone knows who has to do what by when. This promotes teamwork.
Useful Features For Project Management
Project management tools such as facto offer project managers helpful functions that significantly simplify the planning and implementation of projects.
Visualizations
67 percent of the companies surveyed find visualization options important to very important. Simplification and visualization can be extremely helpful, especially in complex projects, to show processes, status, and, ultimately, results. To keep an overview in the project jungle and to choose the right perspective on the project, you can choose between different views in the tool:
The Work Breakdown Structure
Complex projects at a glance. Packages of individual projects contain different tasks. With the project structure plan, an entire project with its packages and tasks can be viewed clearly.
The Kanban Board
Clear task management – work in a structured way every day. In the daily task business, the Kanban board helps to get organized. The columns scheduled, active, review, and finished group the tasks according to their status.
The Table
Task management for spreadsheet lovers. The table lists all tasks. A “traffic light” system makes the urgency of a task clear. The status, due date, and current exhaustion of time resources can also be seen at a glance.
The Gantt Chart
Detailed Timeline – Predecessors, Successors, and Milestones. The Gantt chart needs to show chronological processes clearly. Task dates can be quickly changed and adjusted through predecessor/successor relationships. Dependent tasks go along without having to adjust each one individually. The schedule, therefore, remains correct even if there are changes.
Activity Recording
The documentation of time expenditure is considered an important core variable in project management because it is necessary for external and internal settlements. Accordingly, a simple performance recording is of great value to project managers. The project management tool offers simple cost monitoring through booked time per task. The depiction of the target, actual, remaining, and delta expenses can be used ideally as a basis for the entire planning and control of resources. Employee time recording also finds a place here.
- Plan effort: Estimated time effort in working hours
- Actual effort: actual working hours
- Remaining effort: Adjustment/assessment by the executor
- Delta effort: the difference between planned and actual effort
Templates
Standardization simplified. Ideally suited for regularly recurring or similar processes. Templates can be reused for future projects and should be created from scratch only sometimes.
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