7 project management techniques that will help your business grow

You’ve made it past the fledgling stage, and now you’re ready to upscale your operations. But growing your business isn’t just about hiring more employees: There’s a miscellany of factors to take into consideration, with project management being the most important of them all.

You can get away with attending to, delegating and completing tasks in a semi-haphazard manner when your organisation is starting out. But as you take on more business, you’ll need to refine your approach to project management to maximise your teams’ productivity and efficiency.

If you know your project management skills could do with some improvement, you’ve come to the right place. Read on to learn some useful tips and tricks that will help you enhance your project management strategy.

• Have clear project goals: There’s no reason to have projects if you’re unsure what they’re meant to achieve. For your team(s) to perform to the best of their abilities, everyone needs to be on the same page regarding what they’re trying to accomplish.
• Set clear deadlines: Pursuant to the above point, you’re not going to get very far if you don’t have a timeline for your projects. It’s crucial to establish a series of milestones before you even embark on a new project so that you can complete it timeously to the satisfaction of your customers, clients and/or partners.
• Communicate effectively: It’s very rare that there’s only one person working on any given task. Chances are there’s a whole team that’s dedicated to individual projects and you should implement policies and standard operating procedures to facilitate clear, efficient and productive communication among team members.

Good communication is vital for increasing the size of a business.

• Hold regular project meetings: Because most projects will probably have multiple stages and different people completing each phase, it’s vital that you arrange catch-up sessions to establish each project’s progress. Use this time to receive updates from all relevant stakeholders and adjust timelines or responsibilities as needed.
• Track project progress: Similar to the previous item, it’s critical to determine some kind of rubric to monitor your projects’ progression. Whether it’s manual checkboxes or automated software, you need to have a way of measuring how well a project is unfolding in terms of deadlines and goals.
• Maintain flexibility: There’s an old adage that what can go wrong, will go wrong. While you may not need to prepare for the worst-case scenario, it’s essential to work some wriggle room into your projects in the event that something goes awry and you need to do some crisis management (which can take up a good deal of time and resources).
• Celebrate project successes: People respond well to rewards and positive reinforcement. It’s good to recognize your employees’ hard work and honour their achievements. How you decide to do this is up to you, but some ideas include on-the-house meals, monetary bonuses and additional paid time off.

Did you find this listicle helpful? Check out our project management techniques course or contact us to find out how we can help your business grow!