What Happens When Project Management Is Done Right

It’s time to talk about the octopus in the room.

A well-structured team will operate like an octopus. An octopus has 9 brains that can all operate independently, just like the various systems and departments in your company. The central brain of the octopus controls the nervous system and each leg has its own brain that aligns with the nervous system. Which is exactly how each department in your business should operate — by functioning independently whilst staying aligned with the overall goals of the business.

Maybe you’re not an octopus person. I’m not a big fan of them myself, having seen one cooked live and placed in front of me. Still wiggling. But if you think your company doesn’t have a project management process, you’re wrong. The real answer is it just doesn’t have a good one. Everything about what takes the work you produce from A to B can be considered project management. How else would anything get completed? However, how effective this process is can make all of the difference to your outcomes.

Project management is defined by the Project Management Institute (PMI) as “the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements.” At a basic level, this includes four stages: Initiation, Planning, Execution, and Closing. It can be surmised from this that the objective of project management is to plan and execute a project so that all goals and deliverables are met. And in order to do this, you must manage risks, resources, budgeting, and communication within teams to ensure a successful outcome.

It’s super common for startups in particular not to have prioritized project management, and you can usually get away with this at the start. But as the business grows, this can make it difficult to maintain an organized workflow with consistent and efficient communication within the team. Deadlines get missed, miscommunications happen on the regular, no-one knows what anyone else is doing, and people just start to get pee’d off.

The Project Management Institute reports that an average of 50% of projects completely fail when the organization doesn’t value project management. Getting an effective project management process in place ensures that everyone is on the same page so that all project requirements are met. It’s the best way to ensure that everyone is doing the most important thing at the most important time. This gives a sense of unity to the team involved and it also ensures that the efforts of each individual are seen and recognized, which really boosts morale as everyone is motivated in working towards a common goal.

If you’re still on the fence about investing more time and resources into project management processes (which will, ironically, save you time and resources in the end!). Here are a few key reasons that may change your mind.

Getting Realistic About Project Costs & Timeline

You have a few different types of personalities within most teams. But conflict often arises between the “doers” and “thinkers” in particular. The “doers” just want to get the job done, and the “thinkers” want to figure out how to get the job done. Each is working towards the same end goal but it’s easy to see how they can clash! Planning a project realistically means utilizing both viewpoints and looking at the bigger picture. The “doers” often just get going from Day 1 with little thought to costs and planning, whereas the “thinkers” dedicate a lot of time to researching how to get going which can help to make the actual work more productive but can also hold things up if it goes on for too long.

A good project manager will look at the project from both aspects and set realistic balanced goals with timelines that are amenable to all team members. This is the glue that holds the project together because it ensures the team sticks together rather than descending into chaos whenever the project goes off track (and it will inevitably go a little off track now and then, but the key is to have a solid framework to come back to).

Defining Focus And Objectives

Research by the PMI in 2017 showed that a lack of clarity in goal setting was the no.1 reason that projects failed that year. This is hardly surprising given that unclear focus is what leads to missed deadlines, running over budget, communication breakdown, and the dreaded scope creep. A designated project manager will keep this focus in check throughout the project so that any evolving situations are addressed immediately before they escalate into bigger problems.

Some key guidelines for planning your project include:

• Make a list of everything that needs to get done and break this down into tasks.
• Add more details to your tasks such as assigned team members, deadlines, notes, and files (this is super easy to do using the Cards in the Buckets Kanban.
• Plan everything out on a shared project management platform like we have at Buckets, that everyone on the team can access and collaborate on.

Proactive Vs Reactive Process Management

Companies that don’t have a clearly defined process in place can end up working reactively and dealing with issues as they come up rather than thinking ahead. And sometimes this can work for a while, but it’s all down to luck. Do you want to pin the success of your project on luck? Or your paycheck for that matter? Thought not! You can avert this by getting your project goals set in stone from day one and planning proactively for any potential risks that might occur.

This is what the project manager does by breaking the project down into a step-by-step process within the team, e.g. task assignment, identifying milestones, and setting deadlines. Once the work is broken down into more manageable chunks in this manner, it’s a lot easier for the project manager to guide the team in addressing any obstacles that get in the way.

Don’t Sacrifice Quality For Speed

The quality of work is the first thing to suffer when a team is under pressure to hit a deadline. So you end up with a project that’s done in time and within budget but still isn’t hitting the mark. Sometimes you’ll get away with it, sometimes you won’t, but the point is that you shouldn’t even be trying to.

A good project manager will monitor the quality of work that’s submitted and make the standards clear. They will also make sure that each team member has all of the information and resources they need to complete the work to meet that required standard. This saves a lot of time going back and forth if something isn’t hitting the mark, and it also stops the team members from feeling dissuaded by their efforts if they were unsure of the requirements to begin with.

Boost Team Morale

Greater communication and collaboration within a team can only increase its efficiency, and this is what happens with a good project management system in place. Extra perks like incentivizing and rewarding top performers can boost morale even further and this is something we have developed in the Buckets app using Gamification. You can read more about this in our post: “Gamification: Making Work Fun.”

Save Moola!

In the US in 2018, the global “Pulse of Profession” study revealed that “organizations waste 9.9 percent of every dollar* due to poor project performance”. It was also found that around 31% of projects don’t meet their goals, 43% aren’t completed within budget, and almost 50% are not completed on time. Yikes.

Effective project management will reduce project costs by improving productivity, reducing risks, and optimizing how resources are used. So whatever you invest in the process will come back to you in spades.

Reap The Rewards You Deserve!

When your team has worked hard on a project you should be celebrating at the end of it, not panicking in the face of a 2-hour deadline with 2 days of work left to do. Having a good project management system in place will ensure that your hard work gets you to where you need to be to call the project a success. Have you set up your next project in Buckets yet?

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