Influence of resource management software on finishing a project on time.
How to start a project for losing less.
Project kickoff is a moment when you make assumptions and decisions that may ultimately make or break it.
At this stage, you need to prepare, gather as much information as you can using a document management system, evaluate the workload, and assign your resources thoughtfully. And sometimes it might be a great idea to use personal project management software.
On the other hand, it is also the time for you to kick start to set the tone for the whole project and establish an effective and positive culture for your team.
At Teamdeck – which created the resource management software – we’re committed to helping fellow project managers better estimate, plan, execute, and monitor projects. That’s why we’ve put together a free ebook on best practices of resource management.
This article is an excerpt from our ebook, in which we discuss crucial next steps, that are essential to ensure that your project will be successful. A structured meeting agenda for the project kickoff meeting is vital to keep the meeting streamlined and efficient, actively involving the team and stakeholders, and making adjustments for agile project kickoffs.
Fully understanding the project means that you know the expectations of the stakeholders in terms of the end product and your team’s scope of work. Success criteria should be defined clearly. Some potential and measurable ones are: delivering on time, staying within the initial budget, and achieving sales targets. These criteria not only provide a clear direction but also serve as benchmarks for evaluating the project’s progress and success.
Details about the project like goals and objectives, timeline, budget, and project deliverables should’ve been already included in the project brief. Read it carefully and sum up what details you are able to get from it, and what is missing. It’s essential to ensure that the project brief is comprehensive and addresses all critical aspects of the project. A well-drafted project brief sets the foundation for effective project planning and execution.
If something’s unclear, don’t wait to set a call with the client. It is important to gather as much information about the project as you can before you even start to plan the work. This proactive approach helps in identifying potential issues early and allows for timely resolution, thus preventing any misunderstandings or delays later in the project.
When you feel like you have enough details, invite your client to the project kickoff meeting. You can do it in person, via Skype, or even organize a more professional call conference. The point is a meeting room for you to talk about the project scope, client expectations, what you can deliver, and how. This meeting sets the tone for the project and ensures that everyone is on the same page regarding the project’s objectives and deliverables.
When you fully understand common goals of the project, it’s time to identify whom you will need to accomplish it, and who is responsible for what. Clear definition of roles and responsibilities for project team members helps in avoiding confusion and ensures accountability. Each team member should know what is expected of them and how their work contributes to the overall project goals.
It means that you have to follow up to identify the roles within the project—whom exactly would you need to involve? Or: what are the roles without which the project can’t be completed? This involves identifying the key skills and expertise required for the project and mapping these to your team members. It’s also crucial to consider the availability and workload of your team to ensure that they can commit the necessary time and effort to the project.
Depending on the project and client’s requirements, you may need frontend and/or backend developers, graphic designers, motion designers, or marketing specialists and copywriters. Each role should be clearly defined, with specific tasks and responsibilities assigned to each team member. This helps in ensuring that all aspects of the project are covered and nothing falls through the cracks.
When you know exactly who you need to involve in the project, find the best employees for the job. You can do it by evaluating their skills—use a skills matrix to do that. A skills matrix is a simple table that includes employees’ skills and helps to rate and score them to see if they can handle the tasks or not. This tool is invaluable in identifying the right people for the right tasks, thus ensuring that your project team is well-equipped to handle the challenges of the project.
Once you’ve identified the roles and people that are able to fill them in, check your employees’ availability and assign them to the next project here. This involves scheduling and resource planning to ensure that your team members are not overburdened and can deliver their best performance. Effective resource management is key to ensuring that your project stays on track and is completed on time and within budget.
Useful tip: If you’re not using a skill matrix, you could use a list of employees, describing their skills and experience. It helps to avoid employee underutilization and overbooking, as visibility of the available resources can assure better workforce allocation.
There’s every reason to think that the planning phase can make or break your project. Inaccurate estimates, bad personal decisions, and overlooking potential risks are what often cause delays and budget changes. Effective planning involves not only outlining the tasks and activities required to complete the project but also anticipating potential challenges and developing strategies to mitigate them. When planning an external project, it is crucial to set the tone and vision, establish common goals, tasks, and timelines, and prepare the project team for the official kickoff meeting with the client.
According to the 2016 data only 49% of projects are completed on time. Additionally, 53% of all projects stay within the budget scope. — PMI. These statistics highlight the importance of effective project planning and resource management in ensuring project success.
Project resource management is one of the key ingredients of the effective planning and project initiation phase. You have already identified the roles needed for project success and the right people, who can handle the assignments. Now, it’s time to allocate resources efficiently and ensure that they are utilized optimally throughout the project.
For better employee and project management, an estimate for how long you will need certain people involved in which of the following will help kick start a project. An up-to-date resource calendar is essential and will make your work much easier. This calendar should include not only the availability of your team members but also any other commitments they may have, such as other projects or personal time off.
Knowing who and for how long will be needed in your project, set a project calendar. It should include things like resources availability, other projects they can be a part of or commitments they may have, their days off, and national holidays. When working with remote team members, take the time zones into account. This level of detailed planning helps in ensuring that your project timeline is realistic and achievable.
This way you will avoid overbooking or employee underutilization, and set the right flow of the project from the very beginning. Teamdeck is a resource management and time tracking tool, with employee time tracking and leave management system features, which you can use for employee and resource allocation and monitoring. These tools provide real-time visibility into resource availability and utilization, thus helping in making informed decisions and adjustments as needed.
To create a thorough project action plan, you need to estimate the time your employees need to complete activities. Estimations can be tricky, as, when done badly, they can do more harm than good for your project. Accurate estimation requires a deep understanding of the tasks involved, the skills required, and the capacity of your team. This includes specific considerations for estimating resources and tasks for internal projects, such as preparing the project team for the official kickoff meeting and organizing an internal project kickoff meeting.
In his article “Why do we estimate?”, John Cutler emphasized the importance of context when estimating. Estimations should be based on historical data and the specific context of the current project. This helps in ensuring that the estimates are realistic and achievable.
On the other hand, estimating tasks in hours for many is equal to tea-leaf reading. That’s why, from our own experience, it is safer to measure user stories in story points. Story points are the units of measure that allow you to assess the size of different user stories. They are relative, meaning that a 4-point story is two times bigger than a 2-point one. This relative estimation technique helps in ensuring that the estimates are consistent and comparable across different tasks.
Once you establish story points (the scale can be 1–10) you need to fit them into the team’s velocity. If the team was able to take enough time to complete 14 points’ worth of stories in the previous iteration, they’re likely to complete the same amount of work again. This helps in setting realistic and achievable targets for the project.
When you have the story point estimates for all desired elements in your project, you can divide this number by the team’s velocity and come up with a number of iterations needed to complete the project. This helps in ensuring that the project timeline is realistic and achievable.
When allocating time to manage particular people, take their resource capacity into account, in terms of both how much work they can do based on their experience and the “workable hours” during the day. This helps in ensuring that your team members are not overburdened and can deliver their best performance.
Make sure you understand the difference between the ideal time and elapsed time. The first one is the time actually spent on a given assignment, while later includes waiting, disturbances, context switching, and preparations. This distinction is crucial in ensuring that your estimates are realistic and take into account the various factors that can impact the actual time required to complete a task.
Note that when you ask the developers how much time will a given task take, they will provide you with an estimate in the “ideal time”, that is, an uninterrupted work period. This helps in setting realistic expectations and ensuring that the project timeline is achievable.
Execution is where the plan gets translated into action. This phase involves the project manager coordinating people and resources, as well as integrating and performing the activities of the project in accordance with the project management plan. During execution, it’s crucial to keep an eye on the project’s progress to ensure that it’s heading in the right direction. Regular status meetings can be very helpful. These meetings should cover what has been done, what is in progress, and what still needs to be done.
Communication is key during this phase. Use project management software to keep everyone updated and to track the project’s progress. Tools like Teamdeck can help in scheduling, task management, and time tracking. These tools provide real-time visibility into the project’s progress and help in identifying any issues early, thus allowing for timely resolution.
Monitoring and controlling processes are necessary to track, review, and regulate the progress and performance of the project and identify any areas where changes to the plan are required. This phase ensures that the project objectives are met by measuring and monitoring project performance.
Some of the tools and techniques you can use for this phase include performance reviews, earned value management, and project management software. Regular reporting and review sessions help keep the project on track. These sessions provide an opportunity to review the project’s progress, identify any issues, and make necessary adjustments to ensure that the project stays on track.
Closing a project involves finalizing all activities across all of the project management process groups to formally complete the project or phase. This includes getting client approval, handing over project documentation, releasing project resources, and conducting a post-project review.
A post-project review helps you understand what went well and what could be improved in future projects. This is an important step for continuous improvement in project management. The insights gained from these reviews can be invaluable in improving your project management processes and ensuring the success of future projects.
The start of creating a new project doesn’t have to be as stressful and daunting as some say. If you have established the right process from the very beginning and followed it step-by-step, your first meeting at work can not only be easier, but you can avoid making some common mistakes.
Understand what it is about.
Talk to your client before planning anything, set up a project kickoff meeting.
Understand the roles within the project.
Find the best employees for the job and check their availability.
Set project plan.
Estimate resources and tasks.
This way you will make sure that you know everything about the project’s requirements, the availability of your own resources, set expectations and the timeline before the project kickoff.
Let your team do their best with effective resource planning software
Resource calendar (or project management calendar, or project planning calendar, resource planning software) allows you to plan and manage and allocate resources more effectively and efficiently – especially if Microsoft Excel had a leading role in your...
What’s the ultimate goal of project managers? Delivering their projects successfully. PMs themselves admit that this doesn’t happen very often: according to the latest Pulse of the Profession survey, less than 60% of projects are completed either...
Capacity management is a strategy utilized by businesses to make the best use of production efficiency with respect to the demand for a service or a product. The eventual goal of capacity management is to: Identify and...