10 Productivity Hacks to Guarantee Your Project Success
We understand that your role as a project manager is challenging. From procuring and managing resources to mitigating risks, you have a lot to juggle.
No matter the industry or individual business that you’re in, you’re the balance between the small tasks and the big picture. Most importantly, you determine a project’s ultimate success or failure.
And productivity — effective use of resources to accomplish goals — is instrumental to ensure that your projects are successful.
Lucky for you, we’ve compiled 10 productivity hacks that you can introduce into your projects and day-to-day operations!
Keep reading to learn effective tips for boosting productivity and guaranteeing project success.
Don’t Fear Agile
Hack #1: Manage Work in Short Iterations
So many tasks, so little time!
Sound familiar? Try managing your work in short iterations. A key concept of agile frameworks, this approach works by breaking large and complex project into smaller tasks to be completed in short iterations.
Your team can then work on these tasks based on customer priorities and get their feedback regularly after each iteration.
As a result, you can better monitor a project’s progress and evaluate its quality as you complete and move to the next iteration.
Hack #2: Incremental Development to Anticipate Changes
If you’re used to the traditional method of planning projects, you’d know that teams rely on sequential completion of tasks before they can move to the next one.
This practice leaves no room for unexpected changes or revisions. However, being able to anticipate and respond to changes in a timely manner is the quintessence of productivity.
Solve this issue by anticipating changes via incremental development. When your tasks are prioritized into smaller sections, your team can manage changes as they encounter them.
Incremental development towards a final product is more practical than scraping the final product altogether and starting from scratch.
People Make the Project Go Round
Hack #3: Maintain Small and Manageable Teams
Besides the project framework itself, a vital element in project management is the team involved. Let’s face it, without them, your project is toast!
But too many cooks spoil the broth, and the same goes to team management. For the best results, follow Jeff Bezos’ two-pizza rule. That is, maintain your team size until it can be fed with only two pizzas — which is about five to eight people per team. What’s the purpose, you may ask?
A smaller team ensures that all members can contribute ideas and collaborate dynamically. You can also reach consensus far more efficiently.
Productivity-killers like group think and social loafing are also curbed because everyone must complete individual tasks to accomplish the overall project goals.
Hack #4: Leverage Your Teammates’ Talents
Any project manager can use software to plan a project and assign tasks to team members. But that doesn’t magically boost productivity nor ensure project success.
The epitome of productivity and leadership is when you understand what your team members are good at, and then leverage their strengths.
This is backed by science. Research shows that teams are more engaged and productive when they’re assigned to tasks based on their strengths.
So, once you have the right team size, assign the tasks appropriately based on their expertise, knowledge, and skills.
Hack #5: Establish a Continuous Learning Environment
But don’t just stop at knowing the team’s strengths. Instead, sharpen their skills and strengths by encouraging self-learning and knowledge-sharing via a wiki space.
Make use of enterprise wiki software like Confluence to collect, collate, audit, and disseminate information.
A continuous and centralized knowledge hub is an opportunity for your team to share their knowledge and expertise; thus, curtailing knowledge hoarding, a major productivity blocker.
No one is left out when it comes to the latest project developments and industry news.
Polish Your Workflow
Hack #6: Encourage Autonomy
Napoléon Bonaparte famously said: “If you want something done, do it yourself,” and perhaps many project managers can relate!
But following this advice, especially in a team, is akin to micromanagement which kills productivity.
So, trust your team members to take ownership for their tasks as most people are driven by autonomy instead of financial rewards.
Doing so catalyzes two-way improvement, whereby team members reach their full potential while you get to brush up on your leadership skills and free up time to work on new projects.
Hack #7: Gamify Your Processes
All work and no play make your team members unproductive! So, introduce gamification elements like rewards, badges, points, and challenges to make monotonous tasks exciting.
The theory behind gamification is that it taps into the top three motivators, which are recognition, reward, and a sense of achievement, resulting in higher employee productivity.
A recent survey found that 80% of employees enjoy completing tasks integrated with gamification elements. They’re also more productive, engaged, and happier when working.
Hack #8: Automate Repetitive Tasks
Setting up tasks and delegating them to team members alone doesn’t make for productive project management.
To make your workflow truly efficient, automate repetitive tasks.
Use task delegating tools to auto-assign tasks to your team based on the nature of the task and your teammate’s expertise.
But what if you repeat similar projects frequently? There’s an app for that too which can recreate an existing project workflow for future projects!
Read More: The Ultimate Project Manager’s Guide to Jira Apps
Review, Revise, And Relay
Hack #9: Adopt Open and Transparent Communication
It’s a no-brainer that monitoring the progress of both projects and your team is crucial. But the next step is to openly communicate the results to your peers.
This way they’ll know their performance levels and work towards improving them.
An open, yet diplomatic communication policy also encourages team members to seek help and guidance when needed.
While you’re communicating their performance, make sure to also recognize your team’s achievements and commend their good work. Praises release dopamine — a feel-good hormone that positively reinforces your colleagues to be driven and productive!
Hack #10: Introduce Communication Hierarchy
Communication is key to productivity, but a strategic communication hierarchy takes it to the next level.
A communication hierarchy makes communication and collaboration among team members informative instead of disruptive.
Simply detail all the communication tools that your team utilizes and the best way to use them.
For example, reserve emails for non-urgent matters that don’t require immediate action. On the other hand, use instant messaging tools instead like Slack for quick and urgent queries.
If the discussion is between two or more people, set a meeting. A face-to-face meeting is best used for in-depth discussion for complex issues.
How to Get Started?
At the end of the day, there is no silver bullet that can help you nail complex project management productively. But you can start with the 10 hacks listed above to fine-tune your project management for better productivity.
And when you introduce these hacks into your project, be sure to get your team’s feedback. This way you’ll be able to tailor them into a truly unique and productive workflow.
Do you have other hacks that worked well? Share with us in the comments!
