IT projects are common, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy. While the complexity varies depending on the project’s needs, the processes barely ever change. In this blog, we will be talking about how can you innovate your approach to projects and ensure their smoother and quicker delivery.
Project management is not an easy task. Its fluid nature requires you to stay on your toes at all times. No matter how accurate the forecast should have been, things always go awry - from scope creep occurring to struggling to meet deadlines, and many things in between. While it all is to be expected, there are ways to make it all less impactful.
When it comes to IT projects, the stakes can be very high. It’s a competitive field with high demands, and therefore anything below perfection can damage your company’s reputation. The clients are aware of that and therefore raise their expectations only higher. In other words, you must be on top of your game at all times to shine brighter than your competitors. And in this blog, we will be sharing some actionable tips on achieving that with little effort.
How to Better Your Project Delivery Process?
There are many sources on the internet offering a plethora of tips on how to build smoother project delivery experiences. While most are correct, they also often lack depth. So here’s a condensed list of the key tips:
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Utilise the right software
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Be strategic with your project team
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Record as much data as you can
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Emphasise team alignment and communication
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Prioritise project completion
That said, let’s explore each of these tips even further.
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Decide on Your Tech Stack
The software you use to carry out and deliver the project is quite literally the cornerstone of your success. And we aren’t talking of a project management platform only. Of course, it’s certainly a key component of a stack as it’s used to track the progress and distribute the resources accordingly, but no project relies on one solution only. You need to have other areas covered too. Think accounting package, communication channels, time tracking, and other solutions your project may need. The tools you will require to support the progress will normally depend on the scope of the project and what the deliverables are.
However, an important thing to keep in mind is that not only do you want to gather the right tools, but you also want to link them with one another. Having centralised access to all your project-related tools is highly beneficial. First of all, you won’t be having to transfer data from one platform to another manually. Integrated solutions shorten that process to mere clicks. Secondly, it will unlock more in-depth insights, mostly as data gathered could now be available for analysis in different contexts. And finally, integrations unlock new automation opportunities - a great asset for any project.
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Build a Flexible Team
Your project team is the pillar of your project. Even with the right tools in place, you need the right people to use them. That’s why it’s important to think long and hard about who should be on the delivery team. As a rule, you want to pay the most attention to people’s skillset - what would be more useful to the objectives and what not. However, it’s also important to take into consideration that the said skills complement each other instead of clashing.
Not to mention, don’t focus on each member’s core function: every person has a set of different skills they may have on a lesser level than their main, but have nonetheless. This can help your project team to effectively fill in for one another when such a need arises. Also, don’t feel discouraged if you don’t have one or more people with specific skill sets required for a project. It’s becoming more and more common to hire freelancers and contractors for this very purpose. Think of it - it’s more cost-effective than getting a new full-time hire, especially if the scope of the project isn’t something you come across often.
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Keep Track…Of Everything
We mean it. Not just how the project is coming along, but literally everything. From documentation and correspondence to expenses and timesheets. First of all, this is going to be your first line of defence if something goes wrong. Secondly, you would be doing it for your own benefit mostly. If you keep all data neatly documented from start to finish, it becomes very easy analysing it later. A thorough analysis of one or more projects can clearly define where are the gaps in your strategy and where you have potentially missed out on the opportunity. Equipped with that, you can tailor your approach for future IT projects with more accuracy.
It’s best to have processes on how you record data and track things agreed on before the project begins. This way everyone will know what they are doing, preventing potential mistakes and gaps. For the best results, we recommend employing your tech stack to do the majority of tracking and recording. Not only will this free your time up, but this method is also less prone to errors. Additionally, most of the tools are equipped with a feature of report generation that pulls the data recorded and puts it in a comprehensible format in minutes.
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Establish Smooth Communication
Now getting a team assembled is just half of the work done. Ultimately, they are just a group of individuals, put together to reach a mutual goal. It’s very natural they will lack alignment, especially if they’ve never worked together before. For example, it would be naive to expect your full-time employees to be familiar with a first-time hired contractor’s working style and vice versa. So, how do you get these strangers to work together and quickly adapt to one another? Correct - though ensuring they have a good communication outlet.
This doesn’t mean direct communication channels such as email or instant messenger either. Most SaaS solutions are created for collaborated work, meaning changes implemented by each member of the team become visible to the rest. This way everyone gets visibility of each other, the progress made and potentially the insights gathered that can be reapplied in other areas. While this type of communication barely involves actually human-to-human contact, it is still highly crucial for bringing your IT projects to success.
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Completion over Perfection
It’s very easy to get carried away when delivering a project. Naturally, we always strive to deliver the best results to the client - this is not a wrong approach at all. However, this can snowball into a big problem when perfecting the deliverables becomes your priority. This usually means nitpicking on the smaller, less significant details, as a result paying less attention to bigger issues. This can lead to either having to rush bigger chunks of the project to meet the deadline and therefore cutting on the quality there or downright missing the deadline altogether. And even though this mishap comes from a good place…Your client won’t be happy.
This is why it’s important to focus on the overall completion instead of pausing to work on every detail. Simply put, the imperfections you can tweak will still be there even after the main block is done. There’s no need to sabotage the entire project over a few little bits that aren’t essential and might not even be noticed. Additionally, when you focus on completion, you are bound to end up with some time to spare - and this is the time for you to polish whatever rough corners have been left in the process.
Summary
There are many tips to be shared when it comes to the delivery of IT projects. However, most of them can be condensed into just five: choose the right software and the right people. Use the said software to keep track of everything you do, as well as a collaboration and communication platform for your team. And, finally, don’t dwell on the details as you go - complete the project first, polish it later.
While all these things may sound relatively easy to do, there is plenty of thought that needs to go into them. From working out what your goals are to decide what approaches work best with the scope, the budget and the time. All in all, IT projects may be challenging to deliver, especially when the market is competitive and the expectations are high - but there are ways to make the process easier and more intuitive. At Timesheet Portal, we have more tips up our sleeves and are happy to share them with you.
Curious to learn more? Get in touch.
