Having a small business or a startup can be a very challenging thing for many people. Especially if you are the owner or in charge of the main processes that the business has to do. There can be many limitations when you’re just starting out or you’re trying to develop your organization further. This limitation can be connected to the budget, the resources, and the inability to have a lot of specialized employees. And if you add to this the fierce competition out there, securing the growth of your business may be a very difficult thing to do. However, we are truly lucky to be living in an era where there is a wide range of technology available to assist us in these types of things, along with the good planning, forecasting, and risk assessment.
A lot of today’s day-to-day operations in businesses can be automated and transformed into tasks that are easily manageable. Nonetheless, since we have so many tools available nowadays it can be also challenging to find the right one for your organization. You have to think about the software having the necessary features that will work for your business, and you have to pay attention that the tool is within your limited price range.
Planning with transparency
Although transparency in the workplace is not a very new idea—it has been around for some time, implementing it even more as the years go by is crucial. You should try not to tell your employees how to do their jobs, but to point out what needs to be the result and let them surprise you with the ways of tackling the tasks or problems. If you’re doing the processes exactly like everybody else and leave no space for new ideas then you are killing creativity in the workplace and the chance to be able to differentiate your processes. Transparency in the organization will keep everybody on the same page and make the project run much more smoothly when the whole process is known to everybody as opposed to only doing one task and not knowing exactly how it fits the bigger picture. In this day and age, there is more and more remote work making transparency a very hard thing to achieve. What’s more, 68% of U.S workers expect to work remotely in the future. That is where tools come in!
Forget about certification
More and more businesses in the world are becoming open to the idea that knowledge is what is valuable not the education. This means that there is a possibility of so-called “accidental project managers” coming into the spotlight, and you have to be ready to accept this. Accidental project managers are people that take the initiative to lead and organize the processes and have ideas on how to do it better but lack the proper certification or education to do so. According to a study in 2018, two out of three participants are managing projects as a part of their job, but don’t have certification or a project management title. In 2019, more and more of these people will be recognized for the role they play in organizations since the experience will be more valued than the proper education/certification.
Project Management is not only for IT
Initially, the project management practice was for the IT departments and their processes, but it is becoming a less specialized practice and it is used in many departments so learn how to detox your opinions. According to last years’ report by PPM Hype Cycle, businesses’ spending on technologies outside of IT is growing every year. Businesses need to respond to changes with very high speed, which is why project management is incorporated outside of IT.
Using the proper tools
As we previously mention, there are a lot of tools out there within a lot of price ranges. Some of the best in 2019 are:
- Trello: a very simple and free project management software with a very user-friendly interface. Suitable for simple projects using a Kanban board. You can access the business class for $9.99/month per user.
- Asana: another popular simple project management software with real-time updates for smooth and effective collaboration with anybody involved in the project. There is a free trial, and the basic version is also free. There are premium and business version for $7.99/month per user and $16.25/month per user.
- Slack: a platform for communication and collaboration within the team. Especially good for remote company cultures. Real-time responses, easily integrated with other apps. The basic version is free, standard version £5.25/month per user, plus version £9.75/month per user.
- Wrike: award-winning project management software for teams. Suitable for more complex projects, easily integrates with other apps. Powerful analytics and reports with a user-friendly Free for up to 5 users, many other packages available.
About the Author
Mary Walton is a professional editor, content strategist and a part of NCSM team. Apart from writing, Mary is passionate about hiking and gaming. Feel free to contact her via Facebook.
