No matter the size or scope of a project, it’s pretty unlikely that you will make it to the end without adjustments. In fact, 70% of organizations experienced a project failure of some sort last year.
The strategies for long-term IT projects don’t actually differ greatly from short-term activities but there is by nature more room for error and interruption. Proper planning and management will help you keep things in line.
How to Manage a Project from Start to Finish
The following strategies have proven to be effective when running any long-term IT project from start to finish.
Plan Your Project
Every experienced handler of IT projects will tell you that the major factor to the success of any project is planning. While this may be an initially demanding process, in the long run, carefully planning your project will save you money, time, and a lot of headaches once the project is launched.
Here are a few basics to get started on creating your project plan.
- Identify your project. First, you have to break down the project by having a full idea of what the project is all about. For example, telling your team member that you want to develop an application is ambiguous. Instead, you could be more specific by saying that you want to develop a CMS. This provides a clearer idea of your project.
- Define goals and objectives. Having narrowed down your project, the next thing is to establish what goals and objectives you intend to accomplish. For example, your goal could be to drive more traffic to your landing page. Your objective could be to achieve this by launching a marketing campaign. Succinctly put, your goals are the “what”, and your objectives are the “how”.
- Define tasks. The tasks involved in the successful completion of this project must be clearly defined. For example, if your plan is to run a successful marketing campaign, key tasks may include starting a blog, hiring writers, and doing research on your target audience, and what their interests are.
- Build your team. You need to know the people who are going to be working with you on the project, their roles, and responsibilities. Try to keep your team as small as possible, but with clearly defined roles.
- Create a timeline. It is easier to keep the project on track when tasks are broken down into stages. Fix deadlines on when you want each phase to be completed.
- Seek feedback. Before proceeding to the next phase of your IT project, try to get feedback from your team members, clients, and stakeholders.
- Be flexible when problems arise. Unexpected problems may arise even with the most efficient project plan. This is because it is unrealistic for a project plan to foresee all unforeseen problems. Be flexible enough to adjust your plans as these problems arise.
As soon as you have made all these plans and your team is on board, write down the plan so that it becomes your roadmap for the running of the project.
Keeping your Project on Track
Although having a clearly defined plan for your IT project can go a long way to guide you throughout the project, you shouldn’t expect that the project will be completed without constant review, revision, and monitoring.
For the project to remain on track, you may consider the following:
- Set regular intervals to check on the progress. It is important that you schedule regular time intervals to review the progress of your project. This could be once a week, or even every other day.
- Stay flexible. Although you have the vision and plan for the project, always keep in mind that your team consists of experts who have the knowledge and experience to bring your project to life. Learn to trust them. Keep an open mind and listen to their suggestions.
- Keep everyone in the loop. Regular communication with your team is important. Providing them with frequent status updates ultimately helps in the smooth running of the project. For example, if your team is not aware that a deadline had to be moved up, then you shouldn’t expect them to finish their task by the new deadline.
- Prepare for obstacles in advance. You are guaranteed to have a few unexpected issues along the way. However, it would do some good to address any problems before they occur.
Time Management Strategies
Lastly, it should come as no surprise that effective time management is one of the most impactful tools for completing a long-term project within the deadline. You quite literally cannot complete anything “on time” without it!
There are many time management strategies can be useful for an IT project, including:
- Delegation. Most of the time, you will not be expected to do all the work by yourself. Your main job is to ensure that the project gets done. Never hesitate to assign tasks to your trusted and skilled team members. This will give you more time to focus on your most important tasks.
- Prioritizing. Face your most important tasks first. Complete them without procrastination, and then move to less emergent tasks.
- Holding more effective meetings. Many corporate meetings are too long and even not effective. Ensure that your meetings are kept short and straight to the point. Give your team the opportunity to voice their thoughts and provide feedback on what progress has been made on the project.
- Learning to say ‘no.’ Never hesitate to turn down new projects when necessary. When there are too many projects than you can handle, you get distracted and even burn out.
- Outlining tomorrow’s task today. Taking time to plan out your day will help you deal with the unexpected crisis that could arise first thing in the morning. Delegating the day’s tasks to team members will be easier when your tasks have been outlined early.
- Celebrate Milestones. Don’t be so focused on the outcome of the project that you forget to celebrate major milestones with your team. You can take your team out to dinner. Also, show appreciation during your next meeting.
In Conclusion: Adjust Your Strategies When Necessary
These are just a few strategies to consider when trying to see your long-term IT project to the finish line. As with any process, these are just areas to focus on and they can be modified to fit your team and project. It’s important to understand your business and team, as well as any unique factors to your situation.
Need help ensuring your project stays on track? That’s our specialty. Give us a call. We’d love to discuss your project and see how we can help.