Project management is on the bottom of most small business owners to do list. They would rather focus on a million things at once versus creating a streamline to help their company projects. The managing of your company’s projects is very important, if you want to continue growing your company unless you prefer being in the same place you were last year.
Define Roles
First thing you need to do is define the key players for each project to make sure things start off smoothly from the beginning of the project. If you are building a new website you’re going to want to specify who is over what and how their roles effect the outcome of the company website. Most times you are outsourcing this to a web developer or designer but defining roles are still important. What if the developer has a team of 10. Who will be working on your project. Do you communicate with the owner or does a certain team member report to you?
Communication
How you and the website developer communicate throughout the duration of your project is very crucial. You want open lines of communication to nip all potential miscommunications in the bud. Who will be working on your project.? Do you communicate with the owner or a person they delegate to you? Or will you be talking to an intern? These are questions you want to ask when defining roles with projects. Knowing if communication will be done in person, through email, text or project management software will help streamline your company’s projects. Will the communication take place over a software program, through email, or in person?
Strategic Planning
I was always told to start with the problem in mind and that will give you the solution you need. Your company problem may be you don’t have a website or you have a website that you don’t like. After defining roles and determine means of communication it is time to adhere to a plan that is seriously outlined with deadlines in place. A great website takes weeks or even months of preparation work. Your team should already know what it visually looks like. However, creating deadlines for the project is very important if this is a time sensitive matter. Devise a plan of when graphics, pages, and other aspects of your website should be submitted and finished. Keep everyone accountable.
So many times the ball gets dropped somewhere in the middle of a project and people start pointing fingers. It is important to define roles before you start a project, in addition to, stating how you want communication to flow. The devil is in the details and your strategic plan needs to be laid out to make sure if the ball gets dropped someone will pick it up immediately.
Great tools for project management: Highrise and WorkFlowy. Looking back, how could have one of these three steps helped you streamline your company project more efficiently?
Image by Florian Klauer
