Help Your Small Business Thrive: 5 Project Management Tricks
Are you a young entrepreneur or a new business owner, ready to start running your own business? Do you want to help your startup develop and thrive? Then what you need to learn about is project management.
Projects are one of the most common ways in which you can develop your business. If this is your first time hearing about a project, know that it can be anything – from creating a client database to getting a client request and delivering your services.
How you deal with your projects and build up your project portfolio will influence just how successfully and fast your small business will thrive. And you will do this easily with these amazing five project management tricks.
- Pick the best project management tool for your team
One of the first things you will want to figure out is how you will be managing all your projects. This is best done through a project management tool. There is a lot of software that can be found online. The tricky part is finding the right tool for you.
For example, Nifty is a great Monday alternative you can look into. It has a huge variety of features that you can use – from the ability to create meaningful discussions and brainstorm opportunities to managing your time and tracking the progress through milestones. You will find all of this in an intuitive interface that makes using it fun.
The best of all, Nifty offers a free starter package for small teams and individuals. With the tool, you will speed up your project management and make it easier to adopt other tricks we will reveal for you.
- Get to know your projects
Once you have a good foundation set, you will be able to move forward with managing projects. The first thing after you get a client’s request, though, is to figure out exactly what the project is. Knowing what you need to do will set you up for success and make the whole process easier.
To start, all you need to do is to identify what the expectations are. In most projects, you will be working with clients and stakeholders. All of them will want something from you – and expect you to deliver it. Usually, though, there might be an additional requirement – like a deadline.
Once you know where their interests lie, you will be able to manage these expectations easier. This way, you can organize your project plan better and clearly define all that you and your team need to do.
Usually, defining the goals and objectives makes this much easier to handle. If you set up SMART goals (sustainable, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound), you can create a workflow that will help you thrive in project management.
- Always think about your workflow
Creating a good workflow will help your team move easier through the project. However, this takes a lot of time – and a lot of work. Early on, sit with your team and talk through the process. What happens when you get a project request? How do you handle the information and resources? These are just some of the first questions you will want to answer in order to establish a good starting point.
Keep in mind that your workflow should not be set in stone. It’s quite the opposite instead! You will want to make it as flexible as possible. In order to help your small business thrive, you will want the ability to change it with the business trends. And you can do this best by changing your workflow.
It is also important to look back at the whole project once you are done with it. This will give you valuable information about what went right and want what wrong in your workflow. Then, you can look more closely into the things that just didn’t work – bottlenecks – and try to fix them.
- Learn how to deal with the bottlenecks
Learning how to deal with bottlenecks – from finding them to removing them – is an essential part of helping your business thrive. By definition, these are things that slow down your workflow in some way.
Anything can be a bottleneck! Maybe you have a teammate who just does not know how to deal with the task you have them. Or it can be the way you allocate and deal with the resources. It’s important to learn how to identify them in order to stop them. Keep in mind that a lot of people will just jump to conclusions and throw money at the problem. Unfortunately, doing this rarely works.
Instead, ask why a problem is happening. This should give you valuable information about your next steps. Do not be afraid to include your team in solving these. Having faith in them is another staple of good project management.
- Do not be afraid to rely on your team
One of the finest project management tricks we can offer you is not to micromanage your team. A lot of new project managers can be tempted to do so. After all, you will feel responsible for everything that happens in your business. But relying on your team can help you thrive in ways you could not imagine.
This works on multiple levels. By letting your team handle some tasks by themselves, you will reduce your workload. You can use this opening to get more projects for your business. Furthermore, you will build their loyalty to your company. They will also work harder in order to show that you were right to trust them. This is a win-win situation that will help your small business thrive in no time!
About the author: The content writer at Nifty, the leader in project management tools. Petar Djordjevic balances between his Mathematics studies and his love of writing. At the moment, he is also learning about content optimization and ways to boost website users’ experience while finishing his studies.
