If you wish to improve digital project management in your company, this post is for you! Here we will only list some of the most common errors and we will show you how to avoid them. Have a coffee and check them out!
Developing good digital project management is not an easy task. After all, there are many stages and many details that need to be observed in order to ensure quality and good results. Thus, several companies make errors in this process.
If you wish to improve digital project management in your company, this post is for you! Here we will only list some of the most common errors and we will show you how to avoid them. Have a coffee and check them out!
Contents
1. Not having a digital project management culture
Before thinking about results, you need to incorporate project management in the company culture as something essential and common. Without this understanding and acceptance on the part of all those involved in the projects, adopting this type of management becomes impossible. However, there is no use in adopting a model you find on the Internet and trying to apply it directly to your company.
You need to adapt all the stages to your reality and align them with the already existing values. The company culture is complex and, therefore, changing it can be very hard work. Establish processes and determine key performance indicators (KPIs) in order to standardize them and allow for their evaluation.
2. Managing many projects at the same time
Managing a project without specific purposes is complicated enough, now imagine touching many of them without any basis to direct the efforts? Yes! Unfortunately, this is a very common reality in many companies.
In the previous item, we talked about the need for a management culture and, here, this culture shows its importance. By establishing assessment processes and methods, it is possible to expand your production in a scaled up manner, allowing for the management of several projects without losing quality.
In addition to establishing processes, scaling up the project management demands the alignment of communication among all those involved and the adoption of tools that enable the work in a simplified manner — we will talk about this in the next topics.
3. Not communicating well with employees
Another major difficulty, mainly when you work with professionals from outside the organization, is to be able to align the communication so that “everyone speaks the same language”. Often, understanding the project goals may be at risk due to a lack of efficient communication, paving the way for different interpretations and poor management.
To ensure quality in this communication, the manager must use all possible means to align those involved in the project and establish clear and direct communication. Encouraging them to ask questions when there are doubts is an excellent option.
4. Not using a project management tool
Have you ever tried to tighten a screw without using a screwdriver? It is hard, right? If this simple task demands the use of an appropriate tool, why would digital project management be any different?
It is irrelevant whether it is only one project or different projects, you must have an efficient solution to follow and document each stage of the process. Excel worksheets may even work for a while, but they are highly prone to errors.
The ideal method is to adopt a complete tool that enables recording each task and generates performance reports per project and per professional. Another crucial item is a schedule. Without it, the possibility for delays in delivery is very high. We are human after all and in the rush of everyday life we may miss some deadlines.
5. Not setting goals
It may seem crazy, but projects without a clear goal are very common. In order to avoid this, you must prepare a full planning about what the project is and what the intended goal is.
To establish it, you must understand the current situation of the company, where it wants to go, what needs to be done and what is the profile of the public you want to reach. Without this information, goals become empty or unattainable.
As you already realized, carrying out research is key to establish a goal and without research the team may determine low-efficiency projects, irrelevant objectives and consequently wrong deadlines.
6. Not following a schedule
One of the biggest errors in digital project management is not creating a delivery schedule. Unfortunately, this is quite a common mistake and seriously puts at risk the quality of the results obtained at each stage.
If the tasks are not time-bound, they will be left for later and the excuse is always the same: “something urgent came up and we had to do it first”. Without a deadline, deliveries lose their importance and are forgotten.
Another common mistake related to deadlines is not following the established schedule. There is no use in spending hours (yes, it takes time indeed) calculating deadlines for each task if the team does not meet them.
Therefore, meeting deadlines and delivering the tasks within the set time is crucial for the good progress of a project and client satisfaction.
7. Investing in projects with no future
It is not hard to find entire teams that invest their time and energy in projects that are not promising or that do not make any sense to the client’s strategy. In order to avoid this kind of situation, using KPIs is crucial.
If a given project is not generating results or if the results are scarce and do not add up to the client’s results, maybe it is time to stop and reassess it fully. When this happens, it is a sign that there was poor planning.
Therefore, even if the project is not finished yet, always assess its performance, see if it is as it should and, if necessary, make the required adjustments. There is nothing worse than wasting money on projects that will not generate results.
These are only some of the errors in digital project management that may compromise a company’s entire strategy and make it waste time and money. However, by following our tips, you will undoubtedly succeed!
What about you? Do you know any other error that we have not mentioned here? Give us your opinions and ask questions in the comments and tell us about your experience!