[Blog] Project Management guide for Startups

Let's extol all IT project managers, who had worked over a decade. In their earlier days of IT, they would have mastered classic tools like spreadsheets, emails, and presentation software, in order to manage and maintain projects, manually performing repetitive tasks will certainly be tedious. Technology has revolutionized our world and daily lives. Today we have sophisticated Project Management with endless automation.

Project Management - The Scope of planning, organizing, and controlling resources to achieve specific goals with effective management of resources like time, cost, scope, and quality are the primary goal of the project management.

Stages of Project Management:

Initiating Phase - Initiation phase defines those plans and processes that are required to start a new project and we usually encounter questions like.

Why this project?
Is this project feasible?
What will be the estimated time and cost?
Level of risk?

Delegating Milestones and Tasks:

Milestone - A milestone is a specific point in time within a project lifecycle which is used to measure the progress of a project toward its ultimate goal. Besides serving as markers that indicate a project’s progress, milestones also allow you to group tasks, establish the relationship between tasks, and organize their order.

Task - A task is a single unit of work, it is often managed by an individual or a group of users. The Tasks are accomplished by set deadlines. Task dependency plays a vital role in project management, it defines the relationship between the tasks within projects, they distinguish parent tasks from child tasks.

Resources and Risk management:

Resource management is how you take the finite resources of your organization and organize them so you can successfully steer your project. Remember, resources can be either a human or non-human, like devices, workstations, databases, etc. It can be anything that is needed for the project.

Project risk management is a process used by project managers to minimize any potential problems that may negatively impact the project timeline or performance or budget. It should be part of the planning process to anticipate the possible risks that might happen in the project. When the risk turns realistic it has to be marked as an issue and should be handled through Incident management.

Monitor Project Progress :

This is a crucial phase in an entire life cycle of the project, where the project manager monitors the progress. Tools like Gantt Chart will provide a graphical illustration of the project schedule and progress. This is a type of bar chart, illustrates project elements, which include project calendar and project summary. It gives a clear picture of the different phases of the project and also of the various activities( like milestones and tasks ) that occur in the projects.

Closing phase:

Close the Project is the process of finalizing all activities for the project. Project Manager takes the initiative and will be checking that all project tasks are completed and that the project has met its objectives. The closing phase also gives you the opportunity to review and evaluate the project’s success (or failure), which is crucial for planning and executing successful projects in the future.

Why does Project fail?

A project is considered a failure when it has not delivered, what was required within the given time limit. Project failure can happen in any organization and to any project, causing a loss of time and money. Even big brands have failed in their projects.

Tips to avoid project failures:

Identify possible pitfalls - Revisit failed projects, analyze them and make a note of points which were the cause for failure
Continuous Analysis - Once the project is initiated, you need to continuously analyze current work progress, which will help you to detect and solve issues early, and look for any opportunities that could improve the project and its chances for success.
Choose the right team members - Public statistics say, 80% of the project succeeds when the team members are excellent communicators (listen, reply, and respect), well organized, self-disciplined, adequate knowledge in the current project and good understanding among team members.
Adopt standard process for communication - Not all of us prefer email communication, I personally prefer Zoho Cliq, my friend Raghu prefers the walk over to my desk and weave in updates. If this is the case in a project team, where we find disorganized project communication management. This will upset the rhythm, Inefficient communication and collaboration will lead to unwanted frustration and stress among the member of the team.
Select the best PM tool - A good project management tool will make your work easy, see if your tool has the essential PM features like Planning, Effective time tracking, task and milestones, resource management, Gantt chart capability, reporting, project templates, etc.

Try our ServiceDesk Plus Project Management tool

We'd love to hear your experience in handling projects. Your feedback is highly appreciated they have always helped us to enhance the features and functions in ServiceDesk Plus.

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