Top Project Management Best Practices

1. Top 10 Project Management Best Practices To Increase Team Productivity Projects are an integral part of an Organizations’ overall success. With the increasing competition in the market, companies expect their project team to be more productive and deliver results consistently. Which makes project management an important factor in a project's successful delivery. All project-related tasks are managed by project managers who oversee the development process to ensure the team’s productivity and delivery of projects on-schedule and without being a burden on the team. Through effective project management practices, businesses can improve the performance of the team to become faster, better and more efficient when compared to their previous results. A project manager follows various industry best practices to plan and organize their resources, time and effort to maximize productivity and efficiency of the team. For a successful delivery of a project a project manager needs to have relevant technical skills along with a combination of business management and leadership skills. In this blog we are going to discuss the top project management best practices that when followed diligently results in a more comprehensive approach towards project development. Top 10 Best Practices in Project Management 1. Having a Daily Meeting - Along with carrying out a project kickoff meeting, team members must also have a daily project meeting to discuss the tasks covered the day before, and the day after to get a wholesome picture of their assigned tasks, what to achieve and how to achieve in the scheduled time. Bringing all the team members to be present in a meeting ensures that all the parties involved in the project have clarity over their responsibilities and capabilities. This enables the team members and project leaders to better manage their tasks. It is one of the most important project management best practices all team-members, irrespective of the industry, must follow to make projects a success. 2. Define Project Scope and Objective Clearly - Having a clearly defined project scope and objective is at the crux of successful execution of the project. This enables team members to be aware of what they are expected off. It is essential to establish the scope statement and list out the objectives at an early stage of the project life cycle. 1 © 2011-2023 Orangescrum Research Lab, San Jose, California | www.orangescrum.com

2. A project management scope should include elements such as project goals, deliverables, performance standards, project constraints, project risks, and exit criteria for various phases of the development process. 3. Create a Resource Plan - No organization has unlimited resources and more often the team members and project managers will be handling multiple projects simultaneously. This makes effective resource management an essential part of projects’ success. A resources plan gives an overview of the available resources where they are being utilized. Modern project management software automatically shows how the resources are being used, where it is being used and their efforts in a neatly organized format. 4. Communicate with Team Members and Stakeholders - Effective communication in project management is essential to project’s success. Project managers and team members must communicate to bring clarity to their project development. Delivery managers must communicate with stakeholders and keep them updated on the project progress. Communication transparency must be maintained during all phases of product development such as planning, execution and deployment. It has been shown that businesses who plan their communication processes effectively have higher team productivity and manage their project development more effectively. 5. Ask for Feedback No task completion is 100% satisfactory as there will always be some room for improvement. By receiving feedback on your project management techniques you can ensure you can improve your processes and can deliver a product that meets client’s expectations. You can also learn where you are going wrong and can avoid these mistakes in the future. 6. Create a Risk Mitigation Plan Things don’t always go as planned. In fact things more than often go wrong; to deal with situations like this you need a risk assessment plan and a risk mitigation plan integrated in your project management plan. Identifying, assessing, and controlling various hazards and risks in a systematic process. Project managers need to anticipate various risks before-hand so that they can prevent it from happening; this is where risk assessment comes in. 2 © 2011-2023 Orangescrum Research Lab, San Jose, California | www.orangescrum.com

3. Risk mitigation plan is all about anticipating the uncertainties in a project development and then devising solutions to mitigate these risks. It keeps the project development team prepared in case things go wrong. 7. Ensure Proper Documentation A project manager typically has to perform various functions for various teams which can quickly go out of hand if not properly documented. It could lead to delayed assignments, project oversight etc. This suggests that project managers should document each aspect of the project such as business requirements, project business case, project communication plans, project schedules, budgets, task breakdown structure, risk logs, issue logs etc. Documenting each aspect of the project management plan and project development helps make better decisions and overcome challenges effectively. 8. Make Space for Change Requests Make space for change requests i.e. alterations requests made by customers which are outside the agreed-upon plan made in the project initiation stage. Project managers can prepare a change request management document to keep track of all the updates that come from the customers during the development phase. It can help development teams stay up to date on the information. 9. Avoid Making Unrealistic Goals Oftentimes project managers overestimate their project goals; sometimes they go too far by having unrealistic project milestones. They tend to agree on deadlines and milestones that are impossible to achieve. Overestimated project milestones like this creates bigger workloads for team members which eventually leads to ineffective product development. 10. Carry out Retrospective Meetings After delivering the project, team members and project managers should conduct a retrospective meeting to access their project path. This includes accessing the various processes it took to complete the project, how the manager handled each phase of the project, various issues team members faced during the development phase and how they overcame them. This enables the team members and project managers to plan their next project more effectively. 3 © 2011-2023 Orangescrum Research Lab, San Jose, California | www.orangescrum.com

4. Conclusion If you are a project manager who followed the aforementioned best practices in your project development phase you can rest assured that your project will be a success. These project management best practices will enable you to deliver your projects successfully. The best practices are applicable to all industries be it IT, manufacturing, health or others. If you are new to project management you can follow the aforementioned project management best practices to make your projects a success. From task management and time tracking to team communication and resource allocation, Orangescrum has everything you need to keep your projects on track from start to finish. So why wait? Sign up for Orangescrum today and take your team's collaboration to the next level! 4 © 2011-2023 Orangescrum Research Lab, San Jose, California | www.orangescrum.com