As a business owner, there are a million boxes you need to check to make profits and maintain a steady flow of revenue. Sometimes, this calls for going the extra mile and spending more.
With the growth of technology, it’s crucial to invest in IT and project management to maximize your employees’ productivity.
But before we get to the benefits of project management and the necessary steps for successful project management, let’s define what’s project management.
What Project Management Is
This is a practice that requires the knowledge of tools, deliverables, skills, and techniques to manage activity and ensure the process is followed to get certain results.
If you think about it, you’re always managing projects at home or work. At work, the project may come in the form of a report, website, product, or building. And at home, the project may involve meal planning, planning a family vacation trip, etc. All these projects are easily done when you have a system and project management tools.
In this article, we will discuss investing in IT project management, as many companies are working on going digital.
IT Project management, entails planning, organizing, and delineating responsibilities to accomplish a company’s specific IT goals. Examples of IT goals include business analytics, software development, cloud computing, network upgrades, and data management.
IT Project Management Steps for Beginners
If this is your first time, you’re doing an IT project; the process may seem confusing and overwhelming.
The following 5 steps will guide you towards your goal. They are the universal steps of project management.
Step 1: Project Initiation
The project begins with defining the project as broadly as possible. This is the stage where you decide whether a problem is feasible or not. The stakeholders evaluate the problem and give it the green light.
After that, the assigned project management prepares the project charter (a document that describes the project in detail).
Step 2: Project Planning
The project manager works closely with the team to come up with a plan to accomplish the goal. These are the exact steps that will be followed to get results. The team evaluates the resources they have and sets the timeline the project should take. If at this stage, you’re concerned about the project manager’s salary, you can use free management software.
Step 3: Project Execution
Once the plan is set, the teams go ahead and start working on the project. This is like the body of the whole project management because a lot happens during this phase. This stage involves:
- Assigning resources
- Set up tracking systems
- Delegating and follow up
- Status meetings
Step 4: Project Monitoring
As the project execution continues, the project manager monitors and controls the scope, time, cost, quality, and other projects. They use key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure the project is on track. This ensures that the project reaches the objective and solves the problems.
Stay 5: Project Closure
At the end of every step of the project, or the whole project, a report is done to ensure that the work is completed. This helps in reporting the results and performance of the project.
Benefits of IT Project Management
Unfortunately, many business owners feel like investing in project management software is a waste of money.
If you’re still on the fence on whether or not investing in project management is worth the trouble or not, see these advantages.
1. Improved Communication & Collaboration
As your team grows, it becomes more time consuming and harder to keep track of everyone and update people on the project.
A study has shown that poor communication is among the leading causes of failure of a 1/3 of the projects.
Project management software helps you keep everyone in the loop with a single touch.
2. Better Scheduling
As you grow your business, a messed-up calendar can cause too much confusion and lead to missed deadlines.
And that doesn’t even include all the projects that are left to work on other urgent projects. A project management app helps in scheduling and following up to ensure all the work is done at the right time.
3. Improved Financial Management
Project management allows room for budgeting. This prevents overspending, which can drain the company’s resources.
It also ensures there are still enough funds to complete the projects and invest in other areas of the business.
Conclusion
A project management app is an asset to every company. It allows you to organize your projects and schedule all your tasks. It also makes assigning roles and responsibilities easier. By doing so, the whole team is aware of the goals and the steps to take to get the work done.