5 Tips to Meet Project Deadlines & Boost Efficiency
Know that feeling at the beginning of project management? The excitement, shared vision, determination to deliver a great result, and conviction that your team will finish on time? It’s great. Although all tasks are important in project management, how do you identify which ones are priorities?
Then, there is the feeling of needing to deliver what you promised in project management. Your customers are angry, your team is frustrated, and you wonder what happened to all that great energy and enthusiasm—a kind of irony. This post gives you five ideas and good practices that will help you meet delivery deadlines.
Why does this happen in project management?
Why is your team missing project deadlines?
Meeting deadlines is important, and there are many factors contributing to a team missing project deadlines, leading to failure, but the common reasons can be divided into four categories:
Bad communication
It may sound cliche, but effective project communication is important. No matter how well-planned your project is or how enthusiastic your team is, you’re in big trouble. Better communication could be better.
Most teams could use a combination of improved interpersonal skills and updated technology, but poor communication derails many projects.
Human problems
Whether it’s the client, upper management, or that person on the team who’s always in a bad mood, every project has some problem people. Sometimes, improving communication can solve people’s problems; sometimes, other solutions must be found.
You can provide training opportunities to improve your team members’ project management skills, increase their skill levels, facilitate conversations that improve relationships, or use team management software.
Faulty process
Some of your organization’s processes are in place because they have been tested and are nearly flawless, But some of your processes need to be updated and are holding you back, causing project delays. Examine why things are done that particular way.
Collect information from previous projects and use that information to uncover weak spots. Then, be brave and change the broken processes.
Unclear and wrong priorities
Many projects fail because they don’t set clear goals or have effective ways to measure success, as found in a study by the Project Management Institute, which accounts for 37% of failed projects. But what can you do as a project manager?
Learn about the power of a morning routine
Let's take a look at five tips on how to prioritize project tasks at work effectively:
1. Create a to-do list
First things first! With task management, create a prioritized list of tasks involved in your project. You can always come back and add more as the project develops, and if some of them become too complex, you may need to create subtasks later.
2. Identify real priorities in project management through the Ivy Lee method.
Ivy Lee was an American advertising expert, but the method that bears her name is about productivity. His five-step approach to getting more done is simple, but take it seriously. It has been helping cross items off the to-do list for over a hundred years. At the end of your workday, write down six and only six important tasks you must complete the next day. (You can base this on the Eisenhower matrix you created in the previous step).
Classify tasks in the project management process by importance.
When you start work the next morning, give your full attention to task number 1. Do the task until it is complete before moving on to task #2.
Do the same for task #2 below the list. If you are interrupted by a true emergency, return to work immediately.
List your six priorities for the next work day by shifting the remaining items.
That’s all. Try the Ivy Lee method for a week or two and see how much you can achieve with this simple concentration exercise.
3. Sort tasks by estimated effort
Even with an urgency-importance matrix, knowing which task to tackle is sometimes difficult. What if several tasks seem extremely urgent and extremely important? Try to order your tasks by the approximate effort it will take you to complete them. Estimated effort is the total number of hours a project will take.
The advantage of prioritizing and tackling the most difficult (time-consuming) tasks early in the day is that you can leave smaller tasks for later when you have more energy. Conversely, if you and your team perform better at the end of the day than in the morning, you can save high-effort tasks for the afternoon.
4. Be agile
According to the Project Management Association, Agile is an approach to project management that is “an iterative and incremental approach to meeting requirements throughout the project lifecycle. “At its core, agile projects must demonstrate the core values and behaviors of trust, flexibility, empowerment, and collaboration.
What does this mean for your team, and how do they prioritize tasks in the workplace? Your project plan needs to be flexible. Set priorities and work through your to-do list, then get feedback from your team and your data—and you’ll be ready to adapt.
5. Be realistic
There’s nothing wrong with aiming high, but never let ‘perfect’ be the enemy of ‘good’. Unrealistic project goals can frustrate your team and short-circuit your project. Ensure you set realistic expectations and that goals can be achieved in a reasonable amount of time; regularly check your metrics and your team to see if you need to reassess.
Conclusion
Clear goals, effective communication, and a well-organized plan are important for successfully delivering projects on time. By prioritizing tasks and being flexible, Project managers can help finish projects on time by setting clear goals, managing resources effectively, and tracking progress throughout the process.
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