How to Increase Productivity by Improving Time Management

Time Tracking Software

In the current challenging business scenario, complexities and competition always keep you on your toes. In such a situation, as a manager, you need to find ways to keep all employees active and engaged to ensure that the work is done properly and on time. Here are some of the top ways for increasing the productivity of your team members through time tracking tool. 

Top Tips to Increase Productivity of Employees

1. Time Audit

Most people have no idea of how much time they are wasting. Though occasional breaks are good for productivity, it is dangerous to get distracted or taking longer for completing the tasks. It can disrupt productivity badly, and therefore, project managers need the time audit. It can raise awareness among the team members or employees on how time is spent.  

Employees can easily track how much time they are spending on particular activities through a time tracking tool. It can give them a day’s picture for all activities. However, time audits need honesty because the hours spent can directly relate to the duration of a job to be completed. It is fair to mention that time audit is a tricky task and requires micromanaging for getting optimum output. 

2. Workload Reassessment

The task management software can show the real-time status of all tasks and subtasks. Project managers can easily see which employees are working on the task and who are free to assign workloads. All they need to blur the traditional barriers between KRAs and allocate additional tasks to free resources to complete the project on time. 

With clear communication and a trustworthy work environment, employees can avoid stress efficiently and free or underworked employees can get productive activities. 

Original Source: How to Increase Productivity by Improving Time Management

Eight Effective Ways to Stay Organized in the Workplace

 

Team Task Management Tool

Burnouts and stress become common in the workplace. When your team members put all effort to meet the project deadlines, how about giving them an advantage of evolving technology to keep their stress away? Today, advanced team task management tool can assist you to maintain the productivity of your team by enabling them to control all the tasks in their hands. 

Apart from using such robust and feature-rich software, here we give the top eight ways to get organized and stay away from stress. These tips will certainly assist you to stay at the optimum level at the workplace. 

Top Eight Ways to Stay Organized and Efficient

1. Multitasking- Handle with Care

It is fairly possible that as a project manager, you need to do multitasking. But here is a word of caution- multitasking can bring lower quality results from one or all the tasks and lead you toward stress. If you want to handle multiple tasks at once like a pro, you need to take the help of a robust task management app.  It can enable you to give priority to various tasks and focus more on complex tasks so that you can complete them on time.  

2. Task Delegation- Need of the Hour

Delegating tasks is one of the most important and cumbersome responsibilities of a project manager or an entrepreneur. You need to delegate specific tasks at your workplace in a way that you can complete the project on time while having complete control over it. But usually, project managers fail to delegate or assign tasks as per the capabilities of their subordinates. Therefore, it is important to learn the art of task delegation while taking assistance from a task delegation tool. 

3. Tasks and Subtasks- Give It Priority

It is always better to segregate bigger tasks into subtasks. You can easily assign subtasks to your team members and finish them off soon. It can assist you to meet deadlines and identify the tasks that need priority.  Tasks with the most weight and affect the project deadline significantly should be prioritized. 

Original Source: Eight Effective Ways to Stay Organized in the Workplace

Step-by-Step Guide for Effective Project Control and Management

 

Project Management App

As a project manager, you know very well that often things do not go as they are planned. It is, therefore, necessary to keep all factors in mind that can affect your project. Simply put, a backup solution or a Plan B should be ready to keep control of your project and accomplish it properly. Here, project controls come into the picture. Before moving to the procedure of project controls, let’s have a glimpse of quick facts on the importance of project management app. 

Quick Facts

1. For every $1 billion invested in the US, $122 million was wasted simply because of a lack of project performance

2. 75% of business and IT executives expect that their projects will fail for multiple reasons

3. Fewer than a third of all projects were accomplished on time and on budget 

4. Low-performing companies can complete only 36% of their projects, whereas high-performing companies complete 89% of projects

These stats are sufficient to show the importance of project management and control in your organization. Project controls or a project control system can assist you to serve this objective effectively. Even if you have a detailed project plan and a proper budget estimate, then also project controls are essential to keep an eye on your budget when different aspects keep on changing. Project controls can give a robust solution for accomplishing projects on time in this challenging time when the competition keeps on increasing. 

Let’s understand the concept of project controls before understanding its procedure. 

Introduction and Importance of Project Controls

PMI (Project Management Institute) has mentioned that a project control system is aimed at minimizing the gap between planning and execution of the project to achieve project goals, i.e. cost, time, and content. In other words, project controls are the affirmative actions along with a detailed documentation to keep projects on track and successfully deliver them. They are one of the crucial parts in a project management lifecycle. 

Though project controls are not that visible, they have a great impact on the structure and flow of your project. You can easily anticipate all upcoming opportunities and hurdles with the help of project controls. Every project manager has to act as a project controller as well, and it is possible for you as a project controller that you need to buy some time from the client and apply changes in the project. However, this comes with more budget cuts. 

Original Source: Step-by-Step Guide for Effective Project Control and Management

Top Seven Project Management Issues Solved by the Right Tools

 

Project Management Software

What is better than on-time and successful completion of projects for a company? But, on the other hand, if a project fails, it impacts negatively on the entire company. Therefore, it is inevitable for project managers and teams of employees to put all effort to avoid any grave mistakes that lead to project failure. 

In this article, we are going to discuss the top seven project management issues that you need to solve by using the right tools. 

Seven Frequently Occurring Errors that Right Tools can Fix

Every project is unique and with different requirements. You can accomplish it either by using a traditional Waterfall Model or an Agile way, or in a combination of both these methods. They can be either small or big, and complex or lengthy. Therefore, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for it. Let’s discuss the seven most prevalent issues related to project management. 

1. Lack of Motivation

What if your team members are not motivated when you are ready to kickstart the project? Unhappy team members who always come late and work on the project for the sake of working are major hurdles in the way of successful project completion. Their negative attitude can cost your project and company high as you may miss the deadline or suffer a setback in the product performance. 

As a project manager, you need to address this issue as soon as possible to avoid any poor and unwanted results. The motivation matrix tool can be useful to address this issue effectively. It assists you to evaluate the most suitable form of motivation for every team member. All you need to find answers to two questions-

– Why does the employee remain unmotivated? 

– How can I motivate the team members in a positive way?

Original Source: Top Seven Project Management Issues Solved by the Right Tools

How to Automate Work Tasks Effectively in 2021

 

Task Automation Tool

Task automation is the need of the hour. As per the Mckinsey survey, task automation enables us to free up 30% of the time while working on daily tasks. Evolving technology has given us a few excellent team task management tools or software to automate repetitive, manual tasks. What’s more, we can monitor the real-time status of those tasks in the tool as well. Simply put, task automation is aimed at implementing and monitoring tasks with minimal human effort. 

We can make a long list of the benefits of task automation in today’s fast-paced business scenario. On one hand, automation can reduce the probability of human mistakes significantly, and on the other hand, it can save a lot of time for your employees.  Your employees can effectively use this time on other productive tasks with a more focused approach. While automating tasks using feature-rich task management software, you can grab new business opportunities and reduce the overall operational expenses without compromising on quality.  

A study has revealed that 28% of the average workweek is spent answering emails only and 14% is spent on communication. Merely 39% of the workweek is spent on an individual’s role-specific activity. Thanks to task automation, you can increase the percentage of an individual’s role-specific activity while enhancing their productivity. Before digging deep into how to automate tasks, let’s go through a list of some of the possible business tasks across various sectors and departments that can be automated. 

Top Business Tasks that You Can Automate for Increasing Efficiency

Various industry sectors including healthcare, manufacturing, and heavy engineering can save a lot of time and effort through automating tasks across various departments including 

   Sales – Lead generation, communication with prospects and customers, filling out forms

   Accounting – Bill payments, invoicing, financial report generation

   Human Resources – Candidate recruitment, payroll

   Customer Support – Filling surveys, 24/7 communication

   Marketing – Data mining, social media post uploading, email templates, syndication of content

You can also consider the automation of various other repetitive tasks using a robust team task management tool. A report from the American Psychological Association has found that during shifting between tasks some brief mental blocks are created that can cost as much as 40% of an individual’s productive time. By automating tasks, we can stop wasting this productive time.

Original Source:  How to Automate Work Tasks Effectively in 2021

Get the Right Start for a New Project with Project Initiation Checklist

Project Management Software

Kickstarting a new project is a challenging task because it decides the success of your project. Before project initiation checklist, you need to consider various aspects ranging from preparing the scope to estimating the costs and delegating tasks to create a defining timeline. Simply put, all the key performance indicators (KPIs) need to be considered before initiating the project. 

Without making a framework for initiating the project, it is possible that all the necessary tasks remain pending. Let’s go through the key reasons why we should make a project initiation checklist. These reasons apply to the project initiation using either waterfall methodology or agile approach. 

Key Reasons Why You Need Project Initiation Checklist

Creating a checklist for project initiation can establish a strong foundation for successful project completion. Here are the key benefits of a project initiation checklist-

– It acts as a project charter that the project manager can use to keep all the team members and stakeholders on the same page during and after project initiation

– It can reduce the chances of miscommunication significantly and enable the team to ensure that all the necessary tasks are fulfilled on time while meeting expectations

– Project objectives are set at the initiation phase that assists the company to minimize operational costs and maximizing the benefits while delivering the real value

While creating a project initiation checklist, three factors are considered- they are capacity, team capability, and stakeholders. It is fair to mention that a project stands on three legs- time, quality, and cost. It is necessary to consider these three aspects to ensure successful project accomplishment.  

After going through the importance of the project initiation checklist, we will dig deep into aspects that you should consider including in the list. In other words, we will look at the objectives of the project initiation phase.

Original Source: Get the Right Start for a New Project with Project Initiation Checklist

Your Comprehensive Guide to Effective Task Delegation

Task Delegation

Task delegation is quite a task and even a seasoned project manager may find it cumbersome. As a team leader or a project manager, when you have a lot of tasks to accomplish for meeting the deadline, you can consider delegating tasks to your team. But, here the question arises- how can you delegate tasks effectively with task management tool to get the maximum output? Read this article to get your answer. 

Importance of Task Delegation

In a project lifecycle, task delegation plays a vital role. When you use your authority as a manager for delegating tasks to your team members or even co-workers, you simply ensure that the project will be completed on time with the collective responsibility of all the team members. 

If you try to do everything yourself as a team leader, chances are high that you will feel stressed and this situation will lead you to professional burnout. This is risky for you and your organization alike. The effective delegation, on the other hand, can assist you to utilize available sources to accomplish tasks on time without any stress. 

It is fair to mention that proper delegation can increase the productivity, efficiency of your team, and streamline processes. It results in a better outcome and improved workflow. 

Key Benefits of Task Delegation for Managers

Let’s go through some of the key benefits of task delegation for managers or team leaders before moving to the challenges of delegation. 

1. Free up your valuable time

This is one of the biggest benefits of effective delegation. After delegating tasks, you can make yourself free for core activities or tasks that need your special attention. You can also utilize this free time to help your team grow and develop. 

Read More: Your Comprehensive Guide to Effective Task Delegation