Project Management Definition
Project management is leading a team to complete specific goals within a set timeframe and budget. It's about planning, organizing, tracking, managing resources, minimizing risks andĀ solving problems to deliver successful results.
Table of Contents
What is Project Management
Project Management is the easiest way to organize all your team tasks to get a clear understanding of what is happening in the project from start to finish.
A project manager makes sure everything is on the track. They break big projects into smaller, manageable tasks.
Whether it's building a website, launching a new product, or planning an event, project management helps you execute faster without making it a mess.
It's about making smart plans, solving problems quickly, and working together effectively. Good project management means faster project completion, less stress, fewer mistakes, and better results for everyone involved.
Why You Need Project Management
Managing projects via communication channels such as email is almost impossible.
To track the progress and share updates, you have to send an email or message to your team which will be time consuming and inefficient.
Managing too many tasks at the same time may reduce clarity or even lead to missing important ones.
7 benefits of a project management
Resource optimization
Risk management
Stakeholder alignment
Quality control
Time management
Cost control
Documentation
Resource Optimization
By having a proper project management in place you can easily allocate resources, budget and time. You can keep an eye on the progress of your project from start to finish. You can prevent resource waste by increasing or decreasing resources depending on the project needs.
Risk Management
You can find risks and bottlenecks early in the project life cycle. Which helps you solve those before it happens. Also, you can document it for future reference.
Stakeholder Alignments
Stakeholders will have a birds eye view of all the projects, which makes them well aware of what is happening in the project.
Quality Control
Analyze each and every task associated with the project and ensure it meets the required quality standards.
Time Management
Allocate the due date for all the tasks associated with the project and make sure it is completed in time. Some tasks may take longer because of its complexity. Get rid of that soon by having a complete visibility.
Cost Control
Tracking when and where you are spending your cost in the project will help you optimize and control cost.
Documentation
Project management involves documenting all the things happened in your project from start to finish. Which will help you in future references.
Project Management Best Practices
Follow these 4 best practices in project management and deliver projects within timeline by meeting the quality standards.Ā
Clear goal setting
Stakeholder engagement
Regular progress tracking
Team empowerment
Clear Goal Setting
Clearly define project objectives, deliverables and success criteria before the project initiation phase it will help everyone plan accordingly to complete their tasks successfully.
Stakeholder Engagement
Research shows projects with higher levels of stakeholder engagement are 40% more likely to be successful compared to the projects with low levels of stakeholder engagement.
Make sure that stakeholders have a frequent glance of what is happening in the project.
Regular Progress Tracking
Regularly track project progress through analyzing and visualizing project data, and take better data driven decisions instantly.
Team Empowerment
Make your projects visible to stakeholders and project members, this will eliminate miscommunication and make your team aligned towards common goals.
Before and After Project Management
Paypal realized that they are constantly launching features delayed because of disorganization and bottlenecks. The company uses traditional waterfall methodology which often led to delays and inefficiencies.Ā
In 2013 Paypal decided to onboard project management scrum methodology. It took only two weeks for them to shift from waterfall to project management.Ā
By onboarding project management,Ā
They delivered 58 new features, a significant increase from their previous pace.
Their scrum teams are better aligned that reduced their bottlenecks
Best Project Management Tools
These 4 project management tools assist you manage your projects easily. Each tool has a different use case depending on your need. You can find the best one.
Swatle
Jira
Asana
Basecamp
Swatle
Swatle launched in 2024, with advanced AI assistants that will help you complete your projects faster with utmost accuracy.
You can manage projects in Kanban board and list view, where you have AI assistants to accurately estimate time required for each task. AI will write task summary, description and subtasks on behalf of you in a way that is easily understandable by your team members.
It can be easily onboarded and can be used by both technical and non technical teams.
Also Swatle have inbuilt real time personal and group messaging, you can also convert conversations into tasks with single click.Swatle is free for up to 5 users and it has 14 days free trial.
Jira
Jira launched in 2002, it is commonly used to track issues and projects. It is primarily used by developers QA teams and teams have long lifespan tasks.
Jira features are not designed to meet modern team needs, so people started migrating away from Jira.
Jira is free for up to 10 users with basic features, they have standard and premiumĀ packages also.
Asana
Asana launched in 2011, it has basic features which are necessary for project management such as Kanban board, reports, calendar, timeline, Gantt chart etc.
Asana is easy to onboard and use. It is mostly preferred by non-technical teams, and teams have short lifespan tasks.Ā
Asana follows dynamic pricing, pricing varies for different users, but commonly they charge 13.49$ per user per month.
Basecamp
Basecamp launched in 2004, it has a lot of features when compared to Asana and Jira, but its inference is messy. Organizing things in Basecamp can be a little challenging because of its messy interface.
Basecamp is mostly used by non-technical teams. It is specifically created for small teams.
Basecamp has only one pricing plan 65 dollars per organization.
Conclusion
Investing in the right project management and tools will bring you better outcomes, higher team satisfaction, and improved bottom-line results, and easily transform project delivery from chaotic to systematic, from uncertain to predictable, and from stressful to successful.Ā
Swalte is a modern project management tool that has AI to assist you in projects from start to finish, try Swatle now for free.
Comments