Whether you are a team leader, project manager or a business owner, it is crucial to track your team’s performance for on-time completion of the project and thus improve productivity and business growth. Your role involves managing not only multiple teams, but also multiple projects at the same time. You may also have to conduct meetings, which can be transcribed using reliable meeting transcription services.
The team is an important asset to your business. One of the most important aspects of your job will be to measure progress on each task.
Here are a six effective ways of tracking the progress of your project:
Create a project outline
The first step to track the project progress is to create a project outline. Each member of the team must be made aware of the reasonable project goals and let them know what you expect from them individually and as part of a group. Provide a comprehensive outline of your plan for all team members and discuss the team goals, milestones, and key project indicators (KPIs). You can also consider using org charts, which provide details like who is responsible for each task, and who should be contacted in case of any queries or doubts.
Use quality project management tools
It is ideal to use an advanced project management system, as it helps track project plans, timelines, and due dates. Keeping track of all plans and activities in one shared location saves time, limits mistakes, and reduces stress. Some such good project management tools include – Asana, Podio, Clarizen, Orchestra, Pivotal Tracker, Flow, Google Docs, Wunderlist and Basecamp. Ideal features that are crucial for such tools include SSL data encryption and daily data backups for all plans, and facilities to get shared spreadsheets, documents, presentations, email, and storage.
Apps like Project Status Reports will give insights into the overall status of your project. Such apps can provide details about the overall progress of the project, activities of each team member and an idea of the steps that must be taken for project completion.
Implement AI
Providing certain automation options for your team can also help speed up their work by saving time on record keeping and reporting. Project managers are now widely using AI systems to get rid of the need for human input and effectively handle scheduling, reminders, and follow-ups. You can also save time on administrative tasks such as dealing with check-ins and managing updates. AI systems can assist to make the entire process more efficient.
Schedule regular meetings
Conduct meetings at regular intervals with your entire team so that each member will be updated on the schedules, tasks, issues, and upcoming projects. Frequent communication is essential to manage a project well and such communication will provide opportunities for your project management team to address ongoing problems. Being a project manager, you should also try to draw out information from co-workers and facilitate the flow of information among them.
Manage time effectively
Follow effective time management techniques such as the Eisenhower Method of Time Management, which consists of four separate quadrants-
- performing critical and urgent tasks as soon as possible
- reserving less urgent tasks for later
- outsourcing urgent, but not critical tasks
- eliminating neither urgent nor critical tasks from your list of things to do
You should also strive to measure the working time by particular categories.
Establish clear deadline
In the same way you provide each member with clear details of deliverables and timelines in the starting of a project, you should also keep the end goal in sight for measuring progress. Awareness about deadlines will help the team stay on track and complete tasks on-time without delay. While some managers work with one final deadline, others may like to establish a deadline per milestone or goal.
For managers handling diverse IT projects, documentation tasks for those projects will also be time-consuming. For accurate transcripts of any important recordings, make sure to partner with one of the experienced digital transcription agencies in the U.S.
