project management tasks problem

13 Project Management Challenges And Practical Ways To Solve Them

No project is without challenges. Here's expert advice on how to tackle them.

Sarah M. Hoban,   Program Manager and Strategy Consultant

• project management

An executive I work with once told me they knew I was doing a good job because they received fewer complaints. They went on to acknowledge that the hallmark of a good program manager corresponds to the adage—” no news is good news.” 

While program managers make it look easy, this doesn’t mean project management is without challenges.

Here are 13 common project management challenges that I’ve faced in my career, plus pro tips for how to handle each one:

1. Unclear project scope / poorly defined requirements

I once worked on a project to define the technical architecture for a large enterprise—and that’s about as detailed as the project scope statement ever got throughout the project life-cycle.

Stakeholders were passionate about the work. Their hearts were in the right place. But because they couldn’t agree on the project goals or deliverables, the scope kept growing, and the project didn’t get off the ground.

Solution : During the project planning phase , allocate sufficient time to translate the high-level vision articulated in the project charter into a work plan and work breakdown structure to avoid scope creep.

2. Schedule constraints

While surveying road conditions in a developing country, the rainy season started earlier than expected, limiting access to key roadways and delaying the project schedule.

Solution : Build buffers into your project schedule to account for unexpected delays. If delays arise, consider fast-tracking the schedule so you can execute multiple work streams in parallel. 

While not an option due to the nature of the delay on our road survey project, you can also crash the schedule by adding extra team members to complete the work in a compressed timeframe.

3. Budget constraints

On a construction project, an expensive piece of equipment failed. The good news—we were fortunate enough to locate a backup. The bad news—it came at a high price. We hadn’t counted on paying a daily equipment rental fee as part of our project budget.

Solution : To safeguard against disaster, it’s a good idea to build contingency into your project budget to help cover any unexpected costs . In the case of our equipment failure, the cost, unfortunately, eclipsed our planned contingency. So, we pivoted to cutting costs.

Some strategies for effective cost management include: 

• Make staffing changes to substitute higher for lower-cost resources (cross-training and mentoring can help make this type of change more seamless)
• Develop more efficient operational workflows to reduce time spent on project execution
• Monitor hours and dollars closely. Ideally, ask staff to share projected hours with you to avoid surprises when you receive actuals.

Monitor spend based on actual hours worked

Compare scheduled time against actual time to get a true read of project costs and make informed decisions.

4. Team members do not have the skill sets required to execute the work

I led a data collection and analysis engagement that required engineering expertise to calculate and interpret the results of an assessment. The team members assigned to work on the project were entry-level staff that lacked the requisite education and experience to execute the work.

Solution : As the project manager, ensure you thoroughly understand the project scope and the deliverables the client expects to see. Consult with project stakeholders, subject matter experts, and previous project managers to verify the staff selection process. 

If that’s not possible, or you join an engagement later in the project life-cycle as I did, be prepared to work your network if you need to make a staffing change to accommodate evolving project needs.

Use the people tags in Float to ensure you always assign the best team to the job. Tags help you to identify and track individual skills and talents within your team before you start your project.

5. Team members are underperforming, compromising work quality

Many project managers are familiar with being the “fixer”—someone brought in at the last minute to turn around a failed or failing project. I once inherited a portfolio of three research studies that were running behind schedule and over budget, largely due to a key team member that was underperforming.

Solution : Since our client was already disappointed with our progress and project health was at stake, I quickly gained leadership buy-in to substitute this team member for someone else rather than coach them through their performance challenges on this particular engagement.

In most cases, I’d opt for coaching someone who is underperforming. In the short term, this involves documenting the issues using specific examples and sharing the feedback with the team member directly. In some cases, they may not be aware of a performance issue if no one has mentioned it to them before.

In the long term, if you don’t see signs of improvement, you’ll want to engage HR to help that person find an alternative assignment (either internal or external) that better aligns with their skill set and desired career goals.

6. Team members are not co-located and may even work in disparate time zones

I once led a technology project in which team members were split between New York and Singapore. Team members were not collocated at either location, and the time zone difference complicated synchronous communication.

Solution : Asynchronous communication is your best friend when working in hybrid or remote settings.

On the technology project I managed, we limited ourselves to one synchronous gathering per week (highly structured with a clear meeting agenda and desired outcomes.) We relied on extensive project documentation and enterprise project management software to guide our efforts the rest of the time.

This project wound up being one of the easiest ones I’ve ever had to manage, because we were forced to be highly disciplined and thoughtful in our communications. (The end product was great, too! 😀)

If you work in a distributed team, you can customize individual team members’ working hours and days in Float. This helps you allocate work based on real capacity.

7. Poor risk management

I led a software implementation project that ignored one of the biggest risks of the entire effort—that end users would be unwilling to adopt the system. Our clients failed to take action on the potential risk we identified by refusing to budget for change management. The risk was realized, and the project was unsuccessful.

Solution : During the project planning phase, it’s critical to document the potential risks that you foresee, including the probability that these risks will be realized, their severity if they do materialize, and your action plan for dealing with them. This includes preventive efforts so the risk doesn’t occur in the first place.

8. Lack of performance metrics makes it difficult to quantify progress

While managing a large team of analysts and engineers on an analytics platform, we were increasingly having difficulty keeping up with a growing influx of client requests. But, since we didn’t have data to prove that we were too busy to take on new work, our clients continued to pepper us.

Our business was growing, which was great, but team members were in danger of burning out.

Solution : We analyzed existing (albeit incomplete) issue tracking data to understand our baseline throughput. To improve efficiency and minimize context switching, we organized the team into small squads based on skill set and the type of work they were tackling. 

Then, we came up with a simple system of classifying future work and explained our rationale for the extra documentation, so teams would be motivated to log tickets. We used this information to continue to improve our operating model over time.

9. Lack of executive sponsorship

A mid-level manager at a large organization I worked wanted to adopt digital engineering practices and presented a detailed business case and operational plan for how to implement this change.

Unfortunately, their boss’s boss was apathetic (at best.) The executive did not review communications, attend meetings, or champion the project with affected employees. During the next budget review cycle, the project got cut.

Solution : Without executive buy-in, it’s unlikely that a project will succeed. In addition to preparing project planning materials , make sure that your project has a dedicated (and committed!) executive sponsor before undertaking the work.

10. Stakeholders experience interpersonal conflicts

When scaling operational processes on a fast-growing analytics project, I encountered two stakeholders who did everything in their power to ignore each other. We could get by with implementing disparate business processes across the project for a while, but eventually, we needed to unify our practices to grow.

Instead of addressing the conflict head-on, I took too long to diagnose and expose the root cause of the issue. We were unable to deploy a unified set of business processes until we came to a resolution, delaying the project.

Solution : As a project manager, your role is to foster alignment and accountability. Don’t be afraid to ask tough questions. Escalate issues if you need extra help.

11. Lack of access to or participation from key stakeholders

A client once asked me to lead a politically sensitive study examining the lessons learned from a failed project. 

While my team received access to the requisite stakeholders and materials to conduct the study, it could have easily gone the other way—my team could have been shielded from essential data that biased project outcomes.

Solution : As the project manager, it is important to verify that you will have access to the resources you need to be able to complete the project successfully. This includes people, materials, and information. Document these assumptions in your project plan so you have something to reference if you run into any roadblocks.

12. Lack of accountability for project outcomes

A long-time client of mine was ambitious and driven in their desire to tackle meaningful projects that would make a difference within their organization. Unfortunately, they struggled with making decisions. Consequently, their projects stalled.

Solution : Accountability is a key component of project management. Make sure that your projects include a clear decision-maker who is empowered and willing to make decisions to drive momentum. Simplify the decision-making process by clearly summarizing the pros and cons.

13. Difficulty in managing stakeholder expectations

Stakeholders on a technology upgrade project assumed that the new version of their facilities management software would solve their business problems.

They thought that all they had to do was buy an out-of-the-box solution. They didn't consider the need to tailor requirements to the needs of different stakeholders within the organization and how much time that would take. They also didn't consider the change management implications once implemented—i.e., training and whether users would adopt the software and the associated new business practices.

Solution : Stakeholder management is one of a project manager’s key responsibilities. As part of project planning , be sure to clearly articulate project goals, scope (including what’s in and out of scope), and intended outcomes. 

Develop and execute a communications plan to explain the project’s intended value to users.

Got questions? Ask in our Slack group.

Do you have questions about other project management challenges? Join the Float Community on Slack and get answers from the world's best planners.

Related reads

Project rescue: quick tips to get your project back on track.

Project Control: How To Save Projects From Missing the Mark

10 advanced project management best practices you may not have thought of.

10 Common Project Management Challenges And Their Solutions

There’s no way to completely eliminate the risk of things going wrong with your project.

But you can prepare to overcome project management challenges by keeping solutions handy before they happen—or at least reduce their impact on the project’s success.

This post will share the most common project management challenges, their signs and symptoms, and how you can solve or mitigate them.

Sound like a plan?

Let’s get to the first big challenge.

1. Scope creep

Project scope creep means adding new requirements to a project that were not initially agreed upon. It’s also known as “constantly changing project scope.”p

This happens with clients who always want “one more thing” at every meeting. Eventually this hsnowballs into project requirements that don’t fit in the initial schedule and budget.

Scope creep is one of the top project management challenges a project manager struggles with. According to an IEEE survey, 92% of projects failed because of poor scope management .

Scope creep spells disaster for your budget and your bottom line because:

• Extra work that isn’t budgeted for adds to your agency’s costs
• Unrealistic deadlines
• Change of scope leads to redoing tasks which prevents you from getting on with billable tasks

So, how do you defend yourself against scope creep? 

Signs of scope creep

• Constantly adjusting project schedule to accommodate new client requirements
• Always looking to find and allocate new resources to the projects to meet new requirements
• Feeling jaded about completed projects and feeling like what you’re invoicing doesn’t match the effort you’ve put in

How to deal with scope creep?

Decide on the project’s goals and requirements. Document them in your project scope. And get the client to sign off the scope document.

If you follow the Waterfall project management methodology , this is fairly straightforward. At the end of the requirement gathering, analysis, and planning phase, you should have the project scope ready.

But how do you define project scope for an Agile project?

Well, you don’t.

Instead, create a scope document for each iteration of your project.

Waterfall or iterative, a scope document is an excellent way to freeze a project’s requirements.

It also helps set boundaries with a client and avoids miscommunication. You can always refer to the scope document when a client requests something out of scope.

And if something is critical to a project, revise the scope along with the deadlines. At any cost avoid aiming for unrealistic deadlines after a scope change.

During implementation, use tools to track project progress against your original scope document to ensure it’s all going as close to the plan as possible.

Tracking each task as the project chugs along will allow you to make adjustments to your original project schedule to ensure that deadlines are met.

2. Lack of project visibility

Is there constant confusion in your team about who’s doing what (and when)? Does your team need to constantly rework on tasks? Do stakeholders keep asking for status updates over and over again?

You may be suffering from our next project management challenge—lack of project visibility.

Project visibility is an overview of what’s happening in your project. This includes the schedule, progress, milestones, and roadblocks.

Visibility issues also stem from poor communication within the team.

For example, the project manager finds team members have pending tasks from older projects even after they’ve been allocated to a new project.

The second biggest reason is using inefficient tools, such as Excel for project management .

Unlike visual tools, spreadsheets offer very little insight to managers about what’s happening in a project.

Signs your project has visibility issues

• Rework—tasks need to be redone as they’re incomplete or incorrect
• Team members keep to their own work without looking at the big picture
• Project managers need to deal with resource management issues constantly
• You need frequent status meetings to communicate project progress
• New budget requests during the project with a less than optimum utilization rate

How to improve project visibility?

Early on, establish a project communication plan . Set up communication guidelines and channels internally and externally—team and stakeholder contact is essential.

Project visibility is easier to maintain when you have a simple method for effective communication and contact. Resolve issues, answer questions, and keep everything related to a project in one place.

The next step is integrating a tracking program like Toggl Track into your workflow. This allows you to monitor tasks, timelines, and costs as they happen in real-time—without “unknowns” slipping under the radar. 

You can then create reports for project stakeholders, giving them visibility into timeframes, billable hours , and overall progress.

3. Resource scheduling conflicts

What is a scheduling conflict? It’s when two events, tasks, or projects vie for the same resource in the same time slot.

It’s one of the biggest project management challenges, particularly in agencies where resources are shared across multiple projects.

Scheduling conflicts come in many forms:

• Double-booking : allocating the same person to multiple projects at the same time 
• Overlapping : delayed tasks affecting other dependent tasks
• Unfeasible booking : scheduling tasks on an employee’s day off or a public holiday

And are more common than you’d think.

For example, two web design projects need the same designer simultaneously. Or last month’s pending tasks eating into this month’s capacity.

We don’t want that, right? Let’s see what to look for.

Signs of resource scheduling conflicts

• Delays in getting tasks done and problems with workload
• A constant need to reprioritize resources and work
• Overworked project team members

How to avoid resource scheduling conflicts?

Invest in project management software that gives you clear visibility of your team’s schedule.

This gives clear visibility into your resource scheduling, timelines, and capacity. You can keep an eye on each team member and ensure that no one’s over or underworked.

Also, It doesn’t hurt to put some contingency plans in the works:

• Name a backup teammate for each task who can leap in if need arises
• Add buffer time to your initial time estimates
• Add breaks in between scheduled tasks 

Breaks between tasks in a team member’s schedule are a solid way to prevent scheduling issues. Back-to-back tasks may not conflict, but they could cause burnout and lead to a teammate not working to their full potential.

Contingency time is key for all your time estimates. It helps with not only resource scheduling conflicts but also with our next point…

4. Meeting deadlines

A deadline is met when your team delivers on the promised date and time.

This may sound simple but it is one of the most common project management challenges. According to Capterra, 46% project managers say hitting deadlines is their biggest challenge .

And it comes with a slew of headaches you want to avoid:

• Deadline penalties are expensive and cumulatively result in project failure
• Clients become unhappy and often rethink about whether to continue working with you
• Team members are unhappy because they need to overwork to meet a deadline

Deadlines are often missed because of incorrect estimates (unrealistic deadlines, we’re looking at you), scope creep, or insufficient resources.

As an agency owner, you may not realize it, but your project teams may be struggling with scheduling-related project management challenges. Here’s how to spot them so you can help your project manager.

Signs that a deadline will not be met

It’s hard to miss a missed deadline. 😅

Jokes aside, you can always spot the signs of an impending missed deadline.

• Your team is anxious and strung whereas clients are unhappy
• People are working unreasonably long hours and over weekends
• Unusual mistakes lead to rework as shortcuts are taken

How to meet deadlines and deal with missed deadlines?

Okay, let’s hit both sides here—how to meet deadlines but also how to deal with one that’s already missed.

Experience from previous projects, past project reports, and time tracking tools are invaluable when determining deadlines. For example, gather data from previous projects about:

• How long did a similar project take to deliver?
• What tasks went over the planned end date?
• How many buffer hours did your last project use?

Tracking tools enable you to record your experience with previous projects and use this information to plan new projects better.

One more point. If you do miss a deadline, remember that manners matter. A “sorry” and a “thank you for understanding” to the client go a long way. And this is true for all project management challenges. Once you know you’ve messed up, apologize on behalf of your team and take the steps to fix it.

5. Imbalanced workloads

80% of global knowledge workers report feeling overworked and close to burnout. And 82% feel less engaged when stressed at work.

Balanced workload management is crucial to happy teams delivering successful projects.

On the other hand, imbalanced workloads lead to:

• Burnout because of overworked team members
• Anxiety, stress, and disengagement resulting in quiet quitting
• Team conflicts with some team members working overtime while others slack

So how to detect imbalanced workloads before it affects your team and projects adversely?

Signs that your team is reeling under imbalanced workloads

• You have both over and underworked team members
• Team members are disengaged from work, show signs of stress, and aren’t up to their usual quality or communication standards
• Minor team conflicts here and there—may be not an all-out missed deadline, but quite a few close calls in a row

How to balance your team’s workload?

In the early stages of a project, workload management involves identifying your team’s existing capacity and planning work around it.

Once the project is in progress:

• Review timelines and tracked time to understand the planned vs actual workloads
• Encourage communication within your team to identify over and underworked team members
• Schedule regular 1:1 meetings to check in on your team members

And if your workloads still need rebalancing, here are some ways to do that:

• Identify team members who might temporarily want to put in extra hours
• Build capacity by training underworked team members on critical skills
• Redistribute work within your team to even out their workload
• If your team doesn’t have the capacity, outsource work to other agencies or freelancers

6. Burned-out team members

What is burnout? According to the World Health Organization : “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”.

Because, yes —burnout isn’t just a cliche. It’s officially recognized and is one of the worst project management challenges, particularly if it isn’t taken seriously.

Burnout can result in:

• Lack of interest in work
• Feeling negative toward work
• Eventually leading to depression

One survey showed that 84% of millennials and 77% of all workers say they’ve experienced burnout at their current job. And about half of respondents say they’ve left a position solely due to burnout.

Signs that your team is heading for a burnout

• Drop in productivity
• Excessive absenteeism (only 3.2% workforce is absent on a regular day )
• Feeling apathetic or dissatisfied with work
• Excessive stress caused by deadlines

How to prevent team burnout?

The best way to prevent burnout is to prioritize your team before profits.

Don’t say “duh” just yet—this is easy to do without realizing it.

Actions like taking on extra projects when you may not have the resources. Or adding on additional work when it isn’t feasible are two sneaky ways that profits can get in front of your project team.

From far away, a smaller amount of projects, reduced scope, balanced workloads, and time off may look like a loss in revenue—but when you consider the increase in quality, the end result might just be more profitable.

Flexible working hours and regular time off can go a long way in preventing burnout. Emotional and mental health programs are becoming more recognized, with over 50% of companies implementing mental well-being programs.

7. Team conflicts

Workplace conflicts often occur as a result of overwork, stress, and imbalanced workloads.

Then there are disagreements. They’re impossible to avoid in a world of different opinions, beliefs, and cultures. Unlike conflicts, work-related disagreements often bring in different perspectives which can make the workplace better.

However, disagreements that are not work-related can often get out of hand and lead to bigger conflicts.

And, improper conflict management can lead to:

• Loss of productivity and efficiency
• Disengaged team members
• Friction between team members
• Lack of teamwork

Conflict is a natural part of working together, but things get ugly when conflicts get out of hand .

Signs of conflict in the workplace

• Dysfunctional project team meetings
• Excessive use of formal, asynchronous communication channels
• Behavioral change (includes words, comments, and complaints)
• Clique formation, complaints against others

How to resolve conflicts in the workplace?

Understand it, manage it, and above all: expect it .

This is one of those project management challenges where you’ll need to rely on your interpersonal skills.

Here are a few key conflict resolution tips:

• Take a step back and assess the situation
• Schedule a meeting to discuss it (if it’s a larger conflict)
• Allow every side to speak and express themselves
• Stay calm and remain civil
• Be patient and listen
• Focus on the future and move past problems

Conflict management is an invaluable skill, and it comes in many different flavors. From compromising to accommodating to problem-solving—there’s a style of conflict management to suit every individual and their project team.

You can read about them in-depth in our blog post on conflict management tips.

8. Lack of coordination between team members

We’ve often heard: “Teamwork makes the dream work.”

So, a lack of coordination can be a serious detriment to a project team.

What causes a lack of coordination?

• Lack of clarity
• Team conflicts
• Working remotely

We’ve discussed the importance of visibility and resolving conflicts. But how does remote work lead to uncoordinated work?

Try scheduling a meeting with 3+ timezones and you’ll know what we mean.

And that’s just timezones.

Remote teams work across cultures, geographies, and political environments. Such differences are bound to create a dissonance in your project team.

Signs of lack of coordination in the team

• Team members frequently wait on tasks
• Team members keep to their own tasks and don’t look at the big picture
• Frequent disagreements when team members hand over work to others 

How to improve coordination between your project team?

Use a visual project management tool that comes with a timeline, Kanban board, or calendar.

With a visual tool everyone in your project team:

• Knows who’s working on what and when
• Understands dependencies and make people accountable
• Has clarity about milestones and delivery deadlines

If your team works from home, invite them to offsite meetups where everyone can meet each other in person. Toggl has three offsite meetups every year.

There are several ways to build your team over online team calls too. Start meetings with fun, personal ice-breaker questions. Or arrange 1:1 coffee chats between team members to build camaraderie.

9. Missing accountability

Accountability means taking responsibility for actions, tasks, and issues. It’s about taking the initiative to acknowledge and do your part.

Lack of accountability results in missed deadlines, unhappy clients, and disengaged team members.

Building a self-driven, accountable project team has far-reaching benefits:

• Higher trust
• Higher productivity
• Increased engagement
• Lower turnover
• Higher motivation and morale

Signs of workplace accountability problems

• No one cares for milestones and deadlines
• Team members blame others (often factors beyond control) for missed deadlines
• The managers need to constantly ask for updates or need to micromanage

How to improve accountability in the workplace?

Set clear goals.

Establish what you’re trying to accomplish and who’s responsible for what. Giving a person a clear responsibility will instill a greater feeling of accountability.

Then, work to create a “safe space” culture.

What does that mean?

When your team knows that mistakes are met with patience, help, and encouragement it helps them feel safe. Encourage owning up and fixing mistakes. Provide help in the form of training or expert guidance where needed.

Only those who’re asleep make no mistakes. Making mistakes is the privilege of the active. Ingvar Kampard, Founder of Ikea

One last tip for boosting accountability in the workplace:

Lead by example and be accountable yourself. Nothing encourages a team more than seeing a project leader who’s willing to take responsibility.

10. Getting your team to update PM software

There’s a reason that project communication goes astray—the reluctance or neglect to update your PM tool.

How often have you heard: “Yeah, I finished meeting with the client—but I’ll update the client feedback on the task tomorrow.”

Sometimes the tomorrow never comes. And if (and when) it comes, people have already forgotten to record a critical piece of information.

As a result, project information goes missing.

Here are a few of the reasons why people don’t update their PM tool:

• Updating project information feels unimportant, like a chore
• Inadequate training on how to use the tool efficiently
• No one cares about the updated information

What happens when your team doesn’t update the PM software

• It becomes difficult for you as a project manager to stay on top of project progress
• Compiling status reports takes multiple emails and discussions with team members leading to inefficiencies
• Lack of team coordination

How to get your team to update project information?

Choose a tool that makes it easy to update the project information.

Update your project communication to include a “why/how/when to update the PM tool” to help teammates know what to do.

Involve your team members when selecting project management software. Find out what they like/don’t like instead of dumping your decision on them.

Conduct frequent best-practice training sessions to help your team use the tool effectively.

Quick recap of the biggest project management challenges

Here’s a quick summary for your reference.

Handle project management challenges with confidence

Challenges in project management happen to everyone, every day. Sometimes they just can’t be avoided.

What matters is identifying these challenges, preventing them wherever possible, and mitigating when they happen anyway.

No doubt, your skills as a leader will be tested.

But most project management challenges can be managed by using a visual project management tool. It helps bring clarity to work and helps your team deliver projects collaboratively.

Learn about the best visual project management tools next.

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7 project management challenges and how to solve them.

Content Partnership Specialist

April 9, 2021

One day, you show up to work and…

Your Agile team accidentally worked on a feature that isn’t due for the next release.

The accounting team reminds you that your project is breaking the bank.

Your team complains that one member has been out ‘sick’ for a week.

The project is 25% done… and the deadline is in three days!

Got your heart beating fast, didn’t it?

Those are just a few project management challenges a manager has to face every day!

That’s why this article will cover seven common challenges in project management. But don’t worry, we’ll also provide you with solutions and suggest project management software so you’ll never have to deal with those issues again!

(Click on the links below to jump to a specific section)

Challenge #1: No clear project goals 

Challenge #2: budgeting troubles, challenge #3: ineffective communication, challenge #4: poor resource management, challenge #5: workflow management, challenge #6: unrealistic deadlines, challenge #7: lack of accountability.

Let’s get problem-solving!

7 Key Project Management Challenges

Problems can pop up at every stage of the project life cycle . 

And there are five stages. 

That means the odds of facing a challenge go up 5x!

But don’t worry!

Let’s identify common project management challenges and solutions:

Ever wondered why you’re working on the project in the first place?

The chances are all the other project team members feel the same way!

When your team lacks any clear project goals , you feel like you’re lost at sea.

You don’t know what direction you should be paddling towards, nor do you know how close you are to land (project success). That’s why documenting your goals is one of the key components of a business plan .

Before you know it, you run out of time, resources, and hope, and all the while the frustrated tiger (the client) is hounding you to deliver!

As if that’s not scary enough, you’re also inviting many other project management challenges to dinner:

• Poor communication: No one knows what they’re supposed to do
• Scope creep: Working on other tasks not related to the goals
• Budget issues : Extra work leads to additional expenses

Want to prevent a scope creep from spooking your project team ? Here’s a detailed guide on how to exorcise project scope creeps.

How to set meaningful project goals 

The smartest way to set goals is well… to create SMART goals .

A SMART goal can be defined as:

• S pecific: Answers the ‘who,’ ‘what,’ ‘where,’ ‘when,’ and ‘why’
• M easurable: Has criteria for measuring project progress
• A chievable: Can be reached by your project team
• R elevant: Aligns with the company’s missions
• T imely: Has a deadline

These goals are crystal clear and get your team out of an existential crisis.

Here’s an example:

Create version 1.0 of a kickass task management software by December to gain new customers.

During the project planning stage, you can create this goal using the Goals feature. This way, you can see what you need to work on.

But setting goals isn’t enough for a successful project. 

You’ll also need to figure out how to achieve that goal. 

You’ll need objectives here. 

They’re measurable and specific statements that have a set target. 

You can create Targets with units like numbers, currencies, tasks, or true/false.

Here are a few objectives or Targets relevant to the above Goal:

When your team works on meeting these objectives, ClickUp automatically calculates the goal progress percentage in real-time. 

So when your team sees they’re closer to the goal, they’ll rush to finish more objectives. 

Full steam ahead! 🚢

Another way to measure project progress is through Customizable Dashboards . 

Just like the control panel of the ship has meters and gauges, a Dashboard has Widgets. 

With these Widgets, you can:

• See how your Agile team is performing ( Sprint Widgets )
• View the status of each task ( Status Widgets )
• Chat with your team and know how they’re progressing ( Custom Widgets )

Let’s say you’re a sanitation commissioner like Homer here. 

To keep every stakeholder happy , you implement some fantastic ideas like round-the-clock pickup, emergency clean-up services, and fancy new trucks. 🚚 

However, these ideas aren’t cheap, and a month later…

Not just Homer, around 50% of managers struggle with maintaining project costs. 

They might not have estimated how much their ideas would have cost during the project planning phase. Or they didn’t check whether they’ve exceeded the budget until it’s too late.

And if projects continuously go over budget, your organization will be like the Titanic. 

It’ll be hard to keep it afloat. 

And your project team would evacuate when you fail to pay them enough! 🦺 

How to keep projects under budget

To keep your expenses in check, you’ll have to plan well and make realistic assumptions.

A project management tool like ClickUp can certainly prevent spending too much $$$.

Here’s how:

Break down the project budget using Custom Fields to assign a fixed budget for every task, resource, etc.

Then, create another column that shows how much you spend on the task. Use column calculations to figure out the total costs during the project execution stage . 

You can even make quick or complex calculations with formula fields . Use it to calculate a freelancer’s billable hours, cost of marketing campaigns , and more.

And if you’re looking for an easy way out, you can always apply super-quick Accounting Templates to your workspace.

You wouldn’t skydive if your parachute had a 50-50 chance of failing, right?

Similarly, you wouldn’t want to manage projects without maintaining effective communication.

According to Project Management Institute (PMI), 56% of projects fail because the team members and the project leader weren’t on the same page.

This can lead to confusion as team members would have conflicting opinions about how they think they should do a task.

Additionally, if managers don’t share enough information with their employees, such as during a kickoff meeting , the team would have to frequently approach their desk for clarification. 

This would be fine a year ago, but in the age of remote work, your team might have to spend an eternity waiting for further instructions.

How to maintain effective communication

The first step is to set up a knowledge base for your organization. 

This will contain information about certain processes, tools, guidelines that your team should follow. 

Use Docs to create a detailed Wiki that unlocks the secrets of the entire universe (or at least your organization)!

Similarly to Google Docs, you can collaborate with your remote team and create important process docs. 

With Docs, you can:

• Add Docs to tasks for easy access
• Format your documents with rich-text editing
• Add lists, tables, images, videos, and more

Docs aren’t enough, however. 

Each task has a dedicated comment section, which you can use to discuss tasks and give clear feedback.

You can even add threaded comments to organize all your communication into small sections.

And if that doesn’t cut it, you can always hop on a quick Zoom call from a Task through the Zoom Integration.

We just hope Zoom filters don’t cause any purroblems 😼 .

Looking for paw-some ways to streamline team communication? Make the meowst of these 13 easy tips.

Before we talk about this common challenge, we need to define what a ‘resource’ really is.

A resource is something that can help you with managing projects.  

It can refer to your team members, finances, skills, or even a pet who’s by your side as you focus on remote work.

Resource management involves planning, scheduling, and distributing them throughout the project life cycle.

However, if you don’t allocate your resources well, you might run into two problems:

You’ll waste a ton of resources (for example, your team’s productivity) and place unnecessary pressure on other teams to pick up the slack.

Or you’ll run out of resources quickly. 

For example, you might overwork your project team by asking them to work on weekends to meet deadlines.

How to allocate resources effectively

There are two ways to deal with resource management: the easy and the hard way.

The hard way requires an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of who’s working on which task. You’ll have to spend hours manually creating and updating the sheet. 

The last time we checked, workload management is about reducing your work, not adding onto it!

Fortunately, the easy way involves using project management software.

ClickUp lets you assign tasks and subtasks to multiple team members or entire Teams . 

The assignees get instantly notified when they’re given a task so that they can work it right away.

But how do you know whether the assignee can handle the task?

The Workload view lets you define each team member’s weekly capacity based on the number of hours, tasks, or story points they can get done. 

You can then see who’s overburdened and reallocate tasks to those who have time on their hands.

This way, you’ll never have to say these dreaded words:

Here’s our crash course on resource management

When your entire team and the project manager are so busy with tasks, they don’t have time to worry about the workflow and communication.

You gotta do what you gotta do, right?

Not really. 

That’s exactly what causes most challenges of project management.

If everyone works independently, no one knows what other team members are doing or has any idea how the project is progressing.

Additionally, your processes might slow down to a grinding halt, and no one would know why.

All of this confusion would lead to some perplexing meetings.

How to implement workflow management

One of the most important project management activities is mapping out the workflow. Usually, this can be done while you’re creating the project plan.

It’ll highlight the entire project sequence that needs to be followed. 

An interactive Gantt chart (like the one in our Gantt view ) lets you create this timeline in a snap. Just add a task List to the view, and you can drag and drop them around to schedule tasks .

You can also draw a line between tasks to mark dependencies (tasks that can’t be done until a previous task has been completed).

Phew. That’s it, right?

Nope. You’ll also have to streamline the process during the project execution phase.

This kan be done with Kanban view !

Here, the entire team would be able to see the status of every task, and they can move tasks around the board as they work on it.

To prevent the team from taking too much work in one go, you can add a Work In Progress Limit ,

There’s another way to speed up the workflow, and it involves robots. 🤖

You can automate certain parts of your workflow with ClickUp. 

Here’s what Automations can do:

• Add a Template when a task is created
• Set task Priority as ‘High’ when the deadline approaches
• When a due date arrives, then send an email
• Or create your own Automation based on your specific needs

Check our guide to see how you can perfect the workflow management system.

Some managers always seem to impose a project deadline that the team can’t meet!

The project manager may be under pressure to meet the expectations of the stakeholder.  

Or it could be these deadlines were planned aggressively in order to release a product before the competition does (like in the software industry).

Either way, this ‘ need for speed ’ is only going to slow the project team down.

Constantly asking the team to deliver multiple projects with impossible time frames will lower the team’s morale and productivity. And their deliverables won’t look good, which will only make the stakeholder angrier.

How to deal with unrealistic deadlines

Start by asking your stakeholder or client why they need a project at a given time. 

You might even find out they have a self-imposed deadline for no rational reason, so you both can figure a more achievable date.

And when you’re planning projects, you’ll need to figure out how quickly your team can work without getting burnt out.

Your project team members can track how long it takes to complete a task with the Global Timer .

Based on the time tracked, you can even set Estimates for each task. This way, your team knows that you expect them to complete the task (and the entire project) in a reasonable time.

Using Agile project management techniques?

See how many tasks your team can speed through a sprint with the velocity Sprint Widget.

Want to know velocity charts can help you plan better project deadlines? 

Check our quick velocity chart guide.

When you found the perfect project deadline date, check out the Calendar view to ensure that it doesn’t coincide with any other important events.

Let’s suppose something goes horribly wrong during the project life cycle and the project is set back four weeks. 

And then the blame game begins.

Soon, you might even hear your team members quoting a famous Shaggy song:

Instead of focussing on the project execution, your team might try to avoid any consequences and pin the project failure on other members. 

But that doesn’t mean your team is being lazy or malicious. 

It could be that the project leader didn’t clearly communicate who’s responsible for certain stages of a complex project.

How to build team accountability

Before you kick off the project, assign tasks to each team member. You’ll also have to ensure that they know what’s expected of them.

Create checklists for each task, and assign each item of the list to a team member. This helps define who’s accountable for a particular part of the project.

Looking guidance? Take a look at: The Perfect 9-Project Management Checklist

Additionally, if you want to ensure that a particular project team member is actively working on your feedback (and not actively ignoring it 😏 ), you can hold them accountable by converting a comment into a task . 

Once they’re done, they can resolve the comment and you get notified.

But what if you want your team to be responsible throughout the project?

You’ll need to do regular check-ins to see their progress and performance. 

Sounds like too much work, right?

Fortunately, a project management software like ClickUp can save you from hours of boring status meetings.

Add some Table Widgets to your Dashboard, and you’ll instantly be able to see:

• Who’s completed how many tasks
• How many tasks they’ve worked on
• Who’s got loads of overdue tasks, and more

Challenge Accepted 😎

Managing projects is like playing video games.

It gets harder at every stage.

However, if you pick up a power-up like ClickUp, you’ll be able to speed-run through the project management process.

From Mind Maps to Flexible Project Views to Dashboards, you’ve got everything to increase the odds of project success.

So get ClickUp for free and blast through project management challenges today!

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10 common project management challenges (and how to overcome them)

Managing a project is a bit like completing a Rubik’s cube — you have to keep several elements of the project at the top of your mind, while also considering multiple different outcomes and how long the route to completion will take.

Along the way, you’re bound to hit some bumps in the road. With projects, some struggles are more common than others, including issues regarding scope, budget, communication, and more.

In this article, we’ll walk you through 10 of the most common project management challenges and discuss what you’ll need to overcome them.

1. Setting clear goals and objectives

Getting clear on what you need to do is pretty critical for successful project completion.

Failure to set appropriate goals and objectives can lead to a whole host of issues, including poor resource and stakeholder management.

In fact, a recent survey revealed that 29%  of project professionals cited an inadequate vision or goal for their project as a primary cause of failure.

Goals should be clearly stated and realistic. You should also be able to show how every action taken moves you closer to achieving the goal. This means you can measure the impact of the team and individual project members.

How to set clear goals and objectives

2 popular approaches to setting organizational goals are SMART and CLEAR.

The acronym “SMART” means specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.

“CLEAR” means collaborative, limited, emotional, appreciable, and refinable.

Either of these methods — or a blend of the 2 — can help project managers set goals to steer teams and individuals toward project completion.

Start by breaking the project down into simple tasks. Those tasks should then be assigned to the most appropriate people — and those people should have clear goals and objectives outlined.

monday.com’s Work OS provides the project leader with the tools they need to build custom goal trackers. This template allows team members to set goals  and timelines quarterly so that it’s easy to follow up and check on progress.

2. Scope creep

Scope creep is a classic project management challenge that refers to how the requirements of a project change from what was originally agreed at project initiation.

It’s common — one of the top  challenges cited by project professionals — and doesn’t need to cause too much drama if managed effectively.

Take this hypothetical example from the construction industry:

A client makes unauthorized changes to the initial drawings of a building. The changes have a bearing on both deliverables and the purpose of the project.

Managing this scope change is possible within the project team if an increase in funds or project duration can be agreed.

How to deal with scope creep

In any industry, managers can prevent scope creep by being proactive when mapping out the project.

Using an Agile project management methodology like Scrum will allow your team to focus on specific goals while continuously reviewing priorities and plans.

monday.com’s Scrum sprint planning  template can help you.

Effective change control processes are also important.

10 project management challenges

3. budget restrictions and changes.

When scope starts to creep while managing projects, so does the budget. Budget management can pose a big challenge for project managers.

For example, let’s say a project manager on the marketing team discovers that to promote a new product, she’ll need to increase her online advertising spend from what she initially planned. If the campaign is necessary, the manager may request more funds or stretch what she has to work with.

Project managers must plan their budgets accurately and ensure that projects remain within budget. They should adopt efficient cost management strategies to prevent straying from the agreed-upon budget.

How to deal with budget restrictions and changes

When there’s a requirement creep, the budget changes. For this reason, managers need to consider all possibilities of scope creep during the planning stage and budget for them to prevent cost overruns.

monday.com’s budget tracker  is made to help project managers stay on track and within their budget, allowing for real-time views that show how much has been spent in comparison with how much is left to complete.

4. Lack of communication

Communication can make or break a project.

Good communication means team members work well together, tasks are allocated efficiently, and stakeholders are kept in the loop about project progress.

Bad communication means, well, none of the above.

How to deal with communication issues

Effective project management software can help drive good communication practices. Though it’s only ever going to get the Oscar for best supporting role.

If there’s an issue with effective communication  in your team, you’re going to have to roll your sleeves up and tackle it head-on.

That might be bringing people together to thrash out a particular problem, or helping to create a project environment where constructive feedback is valued as a tool for improvement.

Anyway, back to the software.

If you’re looking to improve communication  in your organization, monday.com can help.

Our status update column type allows you to color-code updates in customizable columns. So you’ll always know where you are at a glance.

Plus, team members can leave notes on the status column for others to view at their leisure.

And confusion over ownership becomes a thing of the past when every task is assigned to an owner that’s easily viewable.

Finally, within each task, team members and project managers can communicate by tagging one another, attaching files, and creating to-do lists.

For a deeper dive into how you can use monday.com to facilitate communication with your teams, check out this YouTube video:

5. Team conflict

When asked about project management challenges, lack of strategic direction and leadership was another biggie.

This is a problem, as 14% of project managers reported that lack of direction was a cause of conflict in their projects. Additionally, 12% reported miscommunication and misunderstandings within the team as a major hurdle.

Ignoring team conflict isn’t an option for project managers. You’ll need to figure out the root cause of the issue, then take a deep breath and get it sorted.

How to deal with team conflict

Team conflict is caused by a lack of shared vision and miscommunication, leading to confusion and frustration.

Project managers need to bring clarity and cohesion to their teams to manage conflict effectively.

Project management software can be a helpful tool to tackle this challenge.

With monday.com, it’s easy to view, share, and annotate project documentation. This means the whole team can contribute to a vision document and create a shared sense of purpose.

Plus, communication can happen in-platform, which means everything is said in context. This helps cut down on misunderstandings.

6. Mismatched team skills

As a project manager, you want to create the best work environment for your team. A productive work environment comes from matching tasks to team members with the right skills to deliver.

If there’s a mismatch between requirements and skill level, the project is bound to suffer inefficiencies that could lead to failure.

Appropriately matching skills to project tasks requires the experience to know what skills are required for what tasks. It also requires project managers to get to know their team well so they can understand their skills and motivation.

How to deal with mismatched team skills

A project manager should constantly be assessing their workforce to establish whether every member of the team is being utilized effectively, based on their skills and workload.

A management platform like monday.com provides you with the opportunity to track workload  and evaluate your team members’ performances.

Project managers can easily see how much is on each team member’s plate, and a color-coded interface makes it immediately visible.

For a deeper dive into how to use workload view to manage team workload, check out our YouTube video:

7. Absence of accountability

Accountability means every member of your team is responsible for their decisions and actions. This isn’t about handing out blame if things go wrong. It’s empowering your team to get things done the way they want to, without micro-managing their every move.

Accountability in the workplace is associated with an increase in work commitment and higher performance.

However, most project teams lack accountability. When your team members aren’t accountable, commitment to the project goal — and the likelihood of project success — is reduced.

Dealing with lack of accountability

An effective project manager enables accountability clearly from the start. Setting up goals and objectives helps build accountability as everyone is clear on their responsibilities.

Shared visibility of progress against team tasks can help build accountability. It also provides an option for team members to discuss challenges they’re facing and ask for support.

monday.com allows project managers to ensure that accountability on their teams isn’t optional. Our team tasks template  works as a starting point for managers to assign owners to tasks and clearly shows status and progress during the project lifecycle.

8. Impractical deadlines

Have you ever heard the warning: “don’t overpromise and underdeliver?”

We’ve all sat on the sidelines and watched project managers who haven’t heeded these pearls of wisdom. Perhaps we’ve even been those project managers. It’s not pretty.

Ignoring this advice means deadlines are missed, quality is reduced, team members are stressed, and stakeholders are disappointed.

Unrealistic deadlines are a classic way to overpromise.

An effective project manager knows their teams’ strengths and weaknesses — along with what their team can deliver within a specified duration. They can then negotiate for achievable deadlines without rushing the work.

Giving impractical deadlines might win you the project, but it’ll also frustrate you and your team, severely affect your work outcomes, and ultimately taint your reputation.

How to deal with impractical deadlines

Unrealistic deadlines need to be tackled at the planning phase.

To determine a workable deadline, break down the project into small tasks and assign each task sufficient time.

Base each estimate on your experience of similar, previously-completed work. Good project management software can help you set realistic deadlines.

monday.com has a helpful deadline mode  that will let you set and adhere to project timelines.

Here, you can see how the deadlines are displayed directly beside the project status:

Deadlines can also be displayed as spans of time, so you’re not locked down to a single day.

For more information on using timelines to combat missing deadlines, check out this video:

9. Poor risk management

Project managers have to evaluate and manage risks throughout the life cycle of their projects.

Project managers aren’t psychic and — no matter how much you plan — some risks are going to occur.

However, experienced project managers mitigate the impact of these pesky problems by identifying “what-if” scenarios and devising contingency plans.

How to deal with poor risk management

As a project manager, you need to make sure that your team can adapt if things get out of control. A project management platform that helps you identify, manage, and mitigate risks can help.

monday.com has a useful project risk register  to help you identify, evaluate, and plan for possible incidents.

10. Finding effective project management software

Many project managers rely on project management software.

The biggest advantage of these platforms is that they can be accessed remotely, and project managers can track progress in real-time. They also centralize data and enable access by all stakeholders via multiple devices.

monday.com isn’t project management software. It’s so much more than that.

monday.com is a customizable Work OS that empowers teams to build their dream project management software. It’s easy to use and keeps all data in one central place.

With monday.com, you can tackle every challenge you might face during a project’s life cycle as swiftly and seamlessly as possible.

There are multiple ways to view a project’s status, and every team member can view each project in the way that makes the most sense for them.

You can automate many tasks and notifications so that project lags never occur. This includes email sends, status updates, and much more.

monday.com integrates with the tools your team is already using. We have integrations with apps like Gmail, Slack, Salesforce, ZenDesk , and much more.

Finally, choose from 200+ templates that are built so project managers never have to start from scratch, no matter what type of project you’re handling.

Overcome common challenges with a Work OS

The cost of project management challenges can be very high.

Unforeseen issues can cost you in wasted budget, frustrated top performers, and awkward conversations with senior management when projects aren’t completed on time.

If you’re looking for a solution to help you do much more than just overcome these project management challenges, check out monday.com. It’s got all the colors of a Rubik’s cube, with none of the frustration.

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Common Project Management Challenges & How to Address Them

Richi Gupta

Lead Product Analyst

Review Board Member

Richi Gupta, a Lead Product Analyst, excels in systems integration and translating complex business needs into actionable tech strategies. Her attention to detail, coupled with exemplary project management skills, drive ... Read more

Richi Gupta, a Lead Product Analyst, excels in systems integration and translating complex business needs into actionable tech strategies. Her attention to detail, coupled with exemplary project management skills, drive her success in product feedback management, competitive analysis, strategic planning, and budget management. As a valued member of the ProProfs Survey Maker Advisory Board, Richi's primary objective is to deliver precise and coherent content, ensuring alignment with the company's strategic vision and objectives. Read less

Project Management Expert

David Miller, a seasoned Senior Project Manager at ProProfs with over two decades of diverse expertise, shares impactful insights on project management, leadership, and personal development through his writing.

Project management is a dynamic business function filled with unexpected hurdles and challenges.

Despite careful planning, issues like poor communication, unrealistic deadlines, and limited budgets can affect the quality of deliverables.

Effective project management requires a proactive approach to overcome these common challenges and ensure a smooth path to project completion.

In this blog, we’ll explore 10 common project management challenges and provide practical solutions to help you conquer them effortlessly.

10 Biggest Project Management Problems (and Their Solutions!)

Unexpected obstacles and roadblocks are bound to arise as a project unfolds and progresses. As a project manager, prepare yourself for any situation so the project goes on smoothly, come what may!

Let’s look at some of the biggest and most common project management challenges along with their solutions.

1. Poorly Defined Project Goals & Objectives

One of the most common challenges in project management is inadequately defined project goals and objectives.

Starting a project without clear goals is like going on a road trip without finalizing a destination. You’ll have no idea where you’re going and how to get there. As a result, you’ll end up wasting time, energy, and effort.

In a similar vein, starting a project with poorly defined goals can waste considerable time and resources. 

There will be a lack of clarity and direction regarding the next steps to take, which often leads to confusion in teams, missed deadlines, and derailment of the entire project.

• Define project objectives, goals, and milestones, before starting the project.
• Prioritize the project goals based on their importance and urgency.
• Develop a powerful strategy that gives teams a direction to follow when working on a project.

When you know the goals of your project, understanding the what, why, and how will be easier for project members.

2. Scope Creep

Scope creep is a problem that sneaks up all of a sudden and affects your project timeline.

In simple words, scope creep is about a client making changes in the project’s scope , altering a project’s budget, or asking for additional changes.

Such unexpected requirements require the team to slow down or change their path in order to incorporate those changes. The result – it takes unnecessary effort, time, and money!

And the worst part?

Most clients want their mid-way scope changes to be done for the same price discussed at the beginning.

And as a result, scope changes put project managers in a difficult spot where they have to meet client requests while also ensuring the project is delivered on time.

• Conduct a detailed scoping phase to establish boundaries and deliverables. Regularly review the scope with concerned stakeholders and negotiate adjustments.
• Implement a formal change management process , discuss the change requests, and evaluate their impact on the timeline, budget, and resources. 

3. Budget Constraints 

Did you know that IT projects with a budget of $1 million are 50% more likely to fail to meet their business goals?

Now, why does that happen? 

Because project managers often don’t check whether they’re running into a budget overrun until it’s too late to redress. And, if multiple projects continuously go over budget, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep the organization afloat.

Budget restrictions and changes are among the top issues in project management.

To prevent the project costs from spiraling upwards, creating a thorough project budget is non-negotiable.

The budget holds paramount importance to overall profitability. Realistic budget planning and effective cost control will help ensure that your project remains within budget. 

• Make realistic assumptions at the time of project planning and keep your expenses in check.
• Provide timely information for daily project cost overruns and keep stakeholders in the loop always.
• Build a well-planned cost management structure and track where your money is going.

Onboard a robust project management software that offers in-built reports. 

Reports let you track your project expenditure compared to your budget allocation through real-time reports. They provide a detailed overview of total costs incurred versus your set budget and display your profit margin.

This is what a project profitability report looks like.

4. Conflicts Arising Due to Miscommunication

Did you know that more than 57% of projects fail due to poor communication.

In fact, miscommunication is one of the most underrated problems of project management that could affect the successful delivery of a project.

And miscommunication can impact team collaboration and hinder successful project delivery.

Therefore, you must prioritize effective communication in all aspects, be it gathering information, providing clear instructions, or seeking clarification. 

Clear communication minimizes conflicts arising from misunderstandings. This will enhance overall project outcomes and also prevent risks associated with miscommunication.

• Establish a proper communication plan and pre-define certain methods like emails, calls, or in-person meetings to share information.
• To enhance your communication skills as a project manager, take time to reflect on your own goals and experiences. Identify your communication objectives and pinpoint any challenges or gaps you face in achieving them.

You can leverage a project management software’s Comment functionality to collaborate with team members and stakeholders in real time.

Using this, you can discuss tasks and exchange feedback, avoiding messy email threads!

Also, you can enable notifications and effortlessly stay up-to-date without constantly seeking updates from team members or spending time sifting through emails. 

5. Lack of Alignment in the Team

97% of employees and executives believe a lack of alignment within a team drastically impacts the outcome of a task or project.

This lack of alignment often stems from low team spirit. It is the prime reason why projects lag behind and ultimately fail to accomplish the desired objectives.

But how does low team spirit crop up within a team? A few reasons for this are lack of trust, lack of transparency, poor change management, and inadequate team interaction.

Also, managing a team with diverse personalities can be challenging, as each member requires unique attention and support. Plus, each member has a distinct style of working. 

To manage and cater to their needs, you  must be flexible and empathetic. You must know how to balance the strengths and weaknesses of each member and create a harmonious environment.

• Before picking a team, identify the core strengths of the team members and the skills required for project execution . Determine their competencies and conduct training sessions to enhance their skills.
• Introduce team-building activities to help team members connect and understand each other better. 

6. Inadequate Resource Allocation

Inadequate resource allocation is among the top challenges faced during project management.

Undeniably, the efficient distribution of limited resources requires careful planning and decision-making. You must allocate resources in a way that equipment, time, and manpower are optimally utilized.

But, keeping track of every resource can be a daunting task.

For instance, consider an IT project where the team faces a tight deadline. The project manager must allocate resources wisely, assigning skilled developers to critical tasks while ensuring other project areas are adequately staffed. 

Misjudgments in resource allocation can lead to bottlenecks, delays, and compromised quality.

• Conduct a thorough project analysis to identify resource requirements and constraints.
• You can use the resource breakdown structure, resource leveling, and other techniques to ace resource allocation. These techniques help you plan, monitor and control the resource allocation process effectively and efficiently.

You can deploy a tool to plan, monitor and control the resource allocation process.

Visualizing resource allocation for multiple projects on a single platform lets you balance the workload of team members by checking their availability and bandwidth before assigning or reassigning tasks.

7. Competing Priorities

You may often ignore a particular project due to another project.

Overlapping projects are responsible for significant inefficiencies and wasted resources. They may even bring the less prioritized project to a complete halt and hinder potential benefits. 

To handle multiple projects , you need to learn to prioritize them depending on their importance and urgency.

Suppose there is Project A and Project B. Both are ongoing projects, and you have to allocate time and resources for both projects. How are you going to efficiently manage to deliver both projects with limited resources and a limited timeframe?

You may have encountered this situation multiple times and found yourself at loggerheads over what to prioritize and what to sideline. 

Don’t worry. We’re here with a solution. Read on!

• Get complete visibility into the tasks and subtasks of all your projects. Estimate the time, cost, and scope of each project to set your priorities right. 
• Assess the potential value of each project and identify the ones that should be prioritized.

8. Lack of Accountability

Imagine this : Your team is working on a project. You are 80% through the project. 

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the project is halted due to some unforeseen issue. 

Then what? Then, the blame game begins. 

Team members try to pin the project failure on other members. Guess what is happening? A positive work environment is going for a toss. It is crucial to make teams feel responsible and take accountability for their assigned duties.

Accountability in the team refers to taking responsibility for your actions and tasks. Even if one person in the group lacks accountability, it is bound to affect the overall project cycle with delayed deadlines, poor quality of work, and, ultimately, project failure. 

Poor accountability is one of the top project management issues that need immediate attention so it doesn’t become a bigger problem in the later stages of the project. 

• Clearly define every individual’s roles and responsibilities for the task assigned to them.
• Try to direct teams toward a shared business vision. It helps team members to take responsibility for their role in the project.

9. Poor Risk Management

Identifying and planning for an uncertain situation is an essential part of a project manager’s role. 

Risks may occur due to the unpredictability of the external environment. Risks may also arise due to some underlying flaws in the project plan, unforeseen events, or market uncertainties. 

The harsh truth is that risks are natural, and we cannot really escape from them. What we can do is take the necessary steps to mitigate the risks and ensure they don’t impact a project’s success.

• Develop a risk management plan to identify every potential risk and its impact right at the start of the project. 
• Identify measures to adopt to address those risks. 

10. Getting a Robust Project Management Software

Do the above-mentioned challenges seem too overwhelming? Are you still wondering how to solve project management problems with ease?

Well, adopting the right software can help you overcome most challenges faced during project management.

There are a multitude of project management tools available on the market today, which makes it all the more difficult to choose one. While the good part is you are spoilt for choice, the bad part is the confusion that comes with it. 

So, how do you identify the right project management software?

The key to finding the right project management software is making sure that it is easy to navigate and offers all the essential features for easy project completion.

Here are some of the key project management features that your tool should have:

• Task priorities
• Gantt charts
• File sharing
• Calendar view
• Task dependencies

You get all these features and many more in ProProfs Project . It helps you establish a defined workflow for your projects, ensuring transparency and collaboration throughout.

Here’s a quick video explaining how project management software helps transform processes and simplify project management.

With the right tool in place, you can streamline operations, encourage real-time collaboration, and propel your projects toward success.

It’s Time to Say Goodbye to Common Project Management Problems  

Common project management challenges can be avoided with proper planning, a talented team, and data-driven decisions.

Better project management can help you achieve higher customer satisfaction, lower costs and risks, and improved efficiency.

But you don’t have to do everything single-handedly!

Use a project management tool that supports you and your team. Leverage the power of state-of-the-art tools like ProProfs Project to streamline workflows and keep your projects consistently on course.

Why do project managers fail?

Project managers often fail to complete projects successfully when they lack an effective approach to identify, analyze and achieve the desired project objectives.

Why do large projects fail?

Big projects mostly fail due to poor cost and poor risk assessment. Inaccurate estimation of the greatest risks like budget overruns, scope creep, and inconsistent monitoring of projects fail to deliver what was expected.

Do you want a free Project Management Software?

About the author

David miller.

David is a Project Management expert. He has been published in elearningindustry.com , simpleprogrammer.com . As a project planning and execution expert at ProProfs, he has offered a unique outlook on improving workflows and team efficiency. Connect with David for more engaging conversations on Twitter , LinkedIn , and Facebook .

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8 Common Project Management Problems (With Solutions)

October 19, 2023

Project management can be a daunting task, and the path to a successful project is often susceptible to unforeseen problems.

As a project manager, you must identify the common problems you could encounter and have solutions at your disposal.

In this blog, we will discuss eight common project management problems that could arise during any project’s lifecycle.

From mismanaged deadlines to internal team conflicts, communication breakdowns, and more.

We have also included some tips on how you can overcome these challenges and turn them into opportunities for growth.

Additionally, we delve into the role of risk management, resource allocation, managing overlapping priorities, the importance of effective project management software, and how you can improve your project management process’s efficiency.

Table of Contents

Identifying Project Management Problems

Lack of clear objectives can derail a project, while scope creep leads to delays and inefficiencies.

Budget constraints hinder project progress, and ineffective communication causes misunderstandings among team members. Poor risk management increases the likelihood of failure.

To overcome these challenges, project managers should ensure clear objectives, manage scope effectively, closely monitor budgets, establish good communication practices, and implement robust risk management strategies.

By addressing these critical criteria, project managers can become more effective and find the best solutions.

Proper planning, documentation, and realistic assumptions are essential, along with contingency plans, to handle budget changes and unforeseen obstacles.

These strategies help project managers navigate the top challenges and deliver successful outcomes.

1. Unclear Goals and Objectives

To ensure project success, it is crucial to define clear and measurable goals and objectives.

By involving all stakeholders in the goal-setting process, you can ensure alignment and foster a sense of ownership.

Regularly reviewing and updating goals throughout the project lifecycle keeps everyone on track.

Project management software helps track progress towards goals, while good communication practices ensure everyone is on the same page.

These steps help enhance project management by promoting clarity, alignment, and accountability.

2. Proliferation of Project Scope

To tackle the proliferation of project scope, it is crucial to clearly define the scope and prioritize tasks.

Establishing a change control process helps manage scope creep effectively.

Regular communication with stakeholders ensures their needs are met, and project management tools aid in tracking progress and identifying scope changes.

Continuous review and adjustment of the project plan keeps the project on track.

By employing these strategies, project managers can overcome the challenges posed by the increasing project scope.

3. Struggles with Budget Constraints

Identifying budget constraints early in the project is crucial for effective project management.

By regularly communicating and collaborating with stakeholders, you can ensure that budget constraints are understood and met throughout the project lifecycle.

Additionally, project management tools and software can help track expenses and stay within budget.

Flexibility and adaptability are also key in adjusting project plans and scope to meet budget constraints.

With proper planning and good communication practices, you can overcome the big challenge of budget constraints and find the best solutions for your project.

8 Common Project Management Problems

Addressing common project management problems is crucial for project success.

Understanding and identifying these issues is the first step towards resolution. Implementing effective solutions can help overcome challenges and improve project outcomes.

Proactively managing potential pitfalls can prevent cost overruns and delays.

Anticipating and addressing these problems improves overall project performance.

By being aware of the top challenges, project managers can develop a course of action and become more effective in their role.

1. The Client Doesn’t Like What You Created

To avoid the client’s dissatisfaction with the project outcome, it’s important to establish clear communication and understanding of their requirements from the start.

Regularly involving the client in the creative process allows for feedback gathering and prevents any unexpected surprises.

Adapting your approach to meet the client’s preferences and promptly addressing concerns or dissatisfaction can help maintain a good working relationship.

Collaborating with the client to find mutually acceptable solutions and resolve any issues ensures a positive outcome for both parties.

2. You Try to Manage Every Project the Same Way

Tailoring your project management approach to the unique needs and requirements of each project is crucial.

Consider factors like scope, timeline, and team dynamics when developing your management strategy. Adopt flexible methodologies that can accommodate different project types.

Emphasize adaptability and customization in your approach.

While past experiences can inform decisions, remain open to new approaches.

By doing so, you can become a more effective project manager and tackle the challenges that come your way.

3. Communication Breakdowns

To mitigate communication breakdowns, it is crucial to foster a culture of open and transparent communication within the project team.

Utilizing various communication channels and tools can ensure effective information sharing.

Encouraging active listening and providing opportunities for team members to voice their concerns promotes better communication.

By establishing clear communication protocols and expectations from the outset, you can avoid misunderstandings.

Regularly assessing and addressing any communication issues or challenges helps maintain smooth communication throughout the project lifecycle.

4. Internal Team Conflicts

Internal team conflicts can arise in any project, but they can be managed effectively with good communication practices and collaboration.

It’s crucial to identify the root cause of conflicts and address them openly. Establishing clear roles and responsibilities helps avoid confusion, while encouraging team members to express their opinions and ideas promotes a healthy work environment.

A process for making decisions and resolving conflicts should be established.

In some cases, bringing in a neutral third-party mediator can facilitate discussions and help find solutions.

5. Mismatched Skillsets within the Team

One common project management problem is mismatched skill sets within the team.

To address this issue, it is important to identify skill gaps and communicate the need for additional training or resources.

Consider hiring freelancers or contractors with the necessary skills to fill any gaps.

Encourage team members to share their expertise and knowledge to cross-train and improve overall skillsets.

Utilize project management software to assign tasks based on individual strengths and skill sets.

Provide opportunities for team members to attend professional development events.

6. Absence of Responsibility and Accountability

The absence of responsibility and accountability can lead to project management problems.

When roles and responsibilities are unclear, it can confuse team members.

To address this, clear tasks and deadlines should be assigned to ensure accountability.

Regular check-ins and progress reports help keep everyone on track.

Open communication and prompt issue resolution prevent problems from escalating.

Providing training and resources boosts team member confidence.

Building a culture of accountability and ownership leads to better project outcomes.

7. Unrealistic and Unmanageable Deadlines

Identifying the root cause of unrealistic deadlines is crucial for project managers.

By negotiating with stakeholders, they can set more manageable timelines.

Breaking down the project scope into smaller, achievable tasks also helps.

Implementing project management software aids in tracking progress and identifying potential delays.

To meet deadlines, outsourcing certain tasks or bringing in additional resources may be necessary.

Effective communication with team members ensures everyone understands the project goals and timelines.

2. Your Client Doesn’t Communicate Fast Enough

Effective communication is vital in project management, as it ensures that all stakeholders are on the same page and can contribute to the project’s success.

However, clients may sometimes struggle to communicate effectively, creating challenges.

Encouraging better communication from clients involves setting clear expectations and deadlines, using project management software for improved collaboration, and understanding the benefits of consistent and clear communication throughout the entire project.

By addressing communication gaps, project managers can foster a more effective working relationship with their clients.

The Role of Risk Management in Project Management

Poor risk management exposes projects to unforeseen challenges. Identifying and assessing risks enables proactive mitigation, minimizing project disruptions.

Effective risk management ensures business continuity during uncertainties, increasing project success rates.

By implementing a contingency plan and considering potential solutions, a project manager can navigate the challenges that may arise.

Good communication and proper planning are critical criteria for an effective project manager to handle budget changes and realistic assumptions.

Hard work and a good idea of the entire project can lead to more effective project management.

How Does Poor Risk Management Contribute to Project Failure?

Ignoring potential risks significantly increases the chances of project failure.

Without proper risk assessment and response planning, unforeseen obstacles can derail the project.

Monitoring risks and implementing effective mitigation strategies are crucial for adapting to challenges and minimizing setbacks.

The Impact of Inadequate Resources on Project Outcomes

Inadequate resource allocation hampers project progress, leading to delays and poor-quality deliverables.

Proper resource planning is essential for optimal project execution, ensuring the right resources are available at the right time.

Resource constraints increase the risk of project failure, as teams may struggle to meet project requirements.

Effective resource management, including assigning tasks appropriately and utilizing resources efficiently, maximizes project efficiency and improves overall outcomes.

How can Inadequate Resource Allocation derail a Project?

Insufficient allocation of resources can severely impact project success.

When teams lack the necessary resources, productivity suffers, skilled members become scarce, and deadlines are missed.

Additionally, limited resources can hinder innovation and limit the project’s overall capacity for success.

Proper resource allocation is essential for optimizing project outcomes.

Overlapping Priorities: A Project Management Nightmare

Managing competing priorities is crucial for project success.

The nightmare of overlapping priorities can lead to conflicts and delays, hindering project progress.

Clear prioritization is essential to ensure efficient resource allocation and minimize project bottlenecks. Balancing conflicting demands requires careful consideration and decision-making to avoid compromising critical objectives.

Effective project management involves maintaining focus amidst competing priorities and adapting strategies.

By prioritizing tasks and resources effectively, project managers can navigate the challenges posed by overlapping priorities and drive successful project outcomes.

Why is Managing Competing Priorities Crucial in Project Management?

Managing competing priorities is crucial in project management because it prevents scope deviations, ensures timely completion, and improves team productivity.

Balancing priorities enhances project outcomes and boosts morale. Effective priority management is essential for successful project execution.

The Importance of Effective Project Management Software

Effective project management software plays a crucial role in project success.

By choosing software that aligns with specific needs, teams can streamline communication and collaboration.

Implementation of such software leads to improved organization and efficiency while also allowing for easy tracking of project progress and deadlines.

Additionally, project management software helps mitigate risks and effectively manage resources, enabling teams to work more efficiently.

Utilizing the right software is a critical criterion for becoming a more effective project manager.

Can the Right Project Management Software Resolve Common Project Issues?

Implementing the right project management software can address communication breakdowns, prevent scope creep, improve risk management, enhance accountability among team members, and ensure clear objectives and goals for projects.

Turning Challenges into Opportunities: The Power of Solutions

Identifying the root causes of project management challenges is crucial in developing effective solutions.

By pinpointing the underlying issues, project managers can implement an action plan to proactively address these challenges.

Effective communication practices are crucial in overcoming project management obstacles, fostering collaboration and ensuring clarity among team members.

Additionally, creating a risk management plan helps mitigate potential problems and uncertainties while using project management tools streamlines processes and improves overall efficiency.

By approaching challenges as opportunities, project managers can become more effective.

How to Implement Solutions to Address Project Management Issues?

To effectively address project management issues, start by assigning responsibilities and creating a comprehensive project plan.

Set clear goals and involve the entire team in the implementation process.

Monitor progress, evaluate the impact of solutions, and make adjustments as needed.

Is your Project Management Strategy Up to the Mark?

Assess if your project management strategy needs improvement.

Identify gaps, align with organizational goals, implement best practices, and leverage tools for optimization.

How to Improve the Efficiency of Your Project Management Process?

To improve the efficiency of your project management process, streamline it by eliminating unnecessary steps.

Prioritize tasks and allocate resources effectively using a simple matrix.

Enhance collaboration and productivity through effective communication practices.

Automate repetitive tasks and save time by implementing project management software.

Continuously evaluate and refine your process for better efficiency.

In conclusion, effective project management is crucial for the success of any project.

From setting clear goals and objectives to managing budgets and resources, there are several common problems that project managers face.

However, with the right solutions in place, these problems can be overcome.

It is important to communicate effectively, resolve conflicts, and manage competing priorities to ensure smooth project execution.

Additionally, investing in the right project management software can streamline processes and improve efficiency.

If you want to take your project management strategy to the next level, sign up for our platform today and experience the difference it can make in your project outcomes.

Phillip Stemann

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What Is Problem Solving in Project Management? Here’s Everything You Need to Know

• Written by Contributing Writer
• Updated on August 4, 2023

In project management , problem-solving is a crucial and necessary skill. Whether you have failed to consider every possible factor impacting a project, a problem arises through no fault of your own, or conditions change that create issues, problems must be addressed promptly to keep projects on track.

In this article, we will define problem-solving and how it impacts projects, provide real-world examples of problem-solving, and give you a structured, step-by-step process to solve problems. We’ll also show you how earning a project management certification can help you gain practical experience in problem-solving methods.

What Is Problem-Solving?

Problem-solving is a process to identify roadblocks or defects that arise during a project. A structured system to define problems, identify root causes, brainstorm and test solutions, and monitor results can affect change to improve performance and overcome challenges.

Effective problem-solving enables teams to deal with uncertainties or gaps in planning to minimize the impact on outcomes.

The Importance of Problem-Solving in Project Management

During a project and operation, problems can arise at any time. You may find that your planning before launching a product, for example, did not consider all the factors that impact results. You may find that you were too optimistic about project timelines, performance, or workforce. Or, as many of us discovered over the past few years, supply chain disruption may make even the best project plans obsolete.

Regardless, your job is identifying, solving, and overcoming these problems. Project managers must be skilled in leading team members through a structured approach to resolving problems.

Proactive problem-solving requires careful consideration of all the variables in a project, including preparation to:

• Achieve project objectives
• Address obstacles before they arise
• Manage project risks and contingency plans
• Manage communication and collaboration
• Provide a framework for time and cost management
• Provide a pathway for continuous improvement

Also Read: 10 Tips on How to Increase Productivity in the Workplace

Problem-Solving Steps in Project Management

While the process you choose to solve problems may vary, here is a seven-step framework many project managers use. This problem-solving method combines primary and secondary problem-solving steps.

#1. Define the Problem

• Gather data and information from key stakeholders, team members, and project documentation. Include any relevant reporting or data analysis
• Itemized key details, such as a description of the problem, timelines, outcomes, and impact
• Frame the issue as a problem statement

A good example of a problem statement might be: An unexpected demand spike has exceeded our current production capacity. How can we still meet customer deadlines for delivery?

#2. Analyze Root Causes

• Break down issues into smaller components to diagnose bottlenecks or problems
• Identify the organizational, mechanical, environmental, or operational factors that contribute
• Distinguish between one-time issues vs. systematic, ongoing areas that need improvement

When analyzing root causes, it’s common to find multiple factors contributing to a problem. As such, it is essential to prioritize issues that have the most significant impact on outcomes.

#3. Brainstorm Potential Solutions

• Holding specific sessions focused on brainstorming ideas to resolve root causes
• Build on ideas or suggest combinations or iterations
• Categorize solutions by types, such as process or input changes, adding additional resources, outsourcing, etc.)

In brainstorming, you should refrain from immediately analyzing suggestions to keep ideas coming.

#4. Evaluate Potential Solutions

• Reframe the problem and concern for team members, providing a framework for evaluation such as cost, timing, and feasibility
• With ideas in hand, it is time to evaluate potential solutions. Project managers often employ strategies such as weighted scoring models to rank ideas.
• Consider the pros and cons in relation to project objectives

As you narrow the list, getting additional insight from subject matter experts to evaluate real-world viability is helpful. For example, if you are proposing a process change in operating a machine, get feedback from skilled operators before implementing changes.

#5. Decide on a Plan of Action

• Make a decision on which course of action you want to pursue and make sure the solution aligns with your organizational goals
• Create an action plan to implement the changes, including key milestones
• Assign project ownership, deadlines, resources, and budgets

Defining what outcomes you need to achieve to declare success is also essential. Are you looking for incremental change or significant improvements, and what timeline are you establishing for measurement?

#6. Implement the Action Plan

• Communicate the plan with key stakeholders
• Provide any training associated with the changes
• Allocate resources necessary for implementation

As part of the action plan, you will also want to detail the measures and monitoring you will put in place to assess process outcomes.

#7. Monitor and Track Results

• Track solution performance against the action plan and key milestones
• Solicit feedback from the project team on problem-solving effectiveness
• Ensure the solution resolves the root cause, creating the desired results without negatively impacting other areas of the operation

You should refine results or start the process over again to increase performance. For example, you may address the root cause but find a need for secondary problem-solving in project management, focusing on other factors.

These problem-solving steps are used repeatedly in lean management and Six Sigma strategies for continuous improvement.

Also Read: 5 Project Management Steps You Need to Know

How Project Management Tools Can Help You in Problem-Solving

Project management software can guide teams through problem-solving, acting as a central repository to provide visibility into the stages of a project.

The best project management software will include the following:

• Issue tracking to capture problems as they arise
• Chat and real-time collaboration for discussion and brainstorming
• Templates for analysis, such as fishbone diagrams
• Action plans, assigning tasks, ownership, and accountability
• Dashboards for updates to monitor solutions
• Reporting on open issues, mitigation, and resolution

Examples of Problem-Solving

Here are some examples of the problem-solving process demonstrating how team members can work through the process to achieve results.

Sign-ups for a New Software Solution Were Well Below First-Month Targets

After analyzing the data, a project team identifies the root cause as inefficient onboarding and account configurations. They then brainstorm solutions. Ideas include re-architecting the software, simplifying onboarding steps, improving the initial training and onboarding process, or applying additional resources to guide customers through the configuration process.

After weighing alternatives, the company invests in streamlining onboarding and developing software to automate configuration.

A Project Was at Risk of Missing a Hard Deadline Due to Supplier Delays

In this case, you already know the root cause: Your supplier cannot deliver the necessary components to complete the project on time. Brainstorming solutions include finding alternative sources for components, considering project redesigns to use different (available) components, negotiating price reductions with customers due to late delivery, or adjusting the scope to complete projects without this component.

After evaluating potential solutions, the project manager might negotiate rush delivery with the original vendor. While this might be more expensive, it enables the business to meet customer deadlines. At the same time, project schedules might be adjusted to account for later-than-expected part delivery.

A Construction Project Is Falling Behind Due to Inclement Weather

Despite months of planning, a major construction project has fallen behind schedule due to bad weather, preventing concrete and masonry work. The problem-solving team brainstorms the problem and evaluates solutions, such as constructing temporary protection from the elements, heating concrete to accelerate curing, and bringing on additional crews once the weather clears.

The project team might decide to focus on tasks not impacted by weather earlier in the process than expected to postpone exterior work until the weather clears.

Also Read: Understanding KPIs in Project Management

Improve Your Problem-Solving and Project Management Skills

This project management course delivered by Simpliearn, in collaboration wiht the University of Massachusetts, can boost your career journey as a project manager. This 24-week online bootcamp aligns with Project Management Institute (PMI) practices, the Project Management Professional (PMP®) certification, and IASSC-Lean Six Sigma.

This program teaches skills such as:

• Agile management
• Customer experience design
• Design thinking
• Digital transformation
• Lean Six Sigma Green Belt

You might also like to read:

5 Essential Project Management Steps You Need to Know

Project Management Frameworks and Methodologies Explained

13 Key Project Management Principles and How to Use Them

Project Management Phases: A Full Breakdown

How To Develop a Great Project Management Plan in 2023

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12 Project Management Challenges and How To Solve Them?

Project Management is a multifaceted discipline that involves a range of tasks that must be completed adequately without hitting a wall to ensure the project is done well. The projects go from planning to execution; the obstacles are the reasons that they may lose track of the goal they are trying to reach. Identification of these obstacles as well as providing a solution on how to address them is at the core of a project manager’s responsibilities.

1. Scope Creep

Scope creep stands of the spread and out of control increase of a project scope that brings additional work and resources incorporated beyond the initial schedule.

Solution: For scope creep compensation, outline the project objectives and the scope boundaries at the onset to keep things under control. Consistently communicate with all the stakeholders and set up a formal stipulated process of change control in the scope for approval of the changes.

2. Resource Management

When it comes to effective resource management, this includes identifying and assigning the appropriate number of people, physical resources, and equipment in the effective time frame. Inadequate resources or incorrect allocation can cause delays and inability to do their job smoothly and well, respectively.

Solution: Implement resource management software and processes to determine resources demand, setup utilization optimization, and tackle resource conflicts in a timely manner.

3. Communication Breakdowns

The organization of interactions can cause a blocker of cooperation and misunderstandings, slow-down, and disputes within the group.

Solution: Initiate appropriate communication platforms within the team, project sponsors and stakeholders that provide a free and open communication space. Keep your project stakeholders regularly informed about progress, current and potential problems, and risks utilizing different communication tools, meetings, reports, and e-mails.

4. Risk Management

Every project is sensitive to the risk that may occur and lead to its failure. Non-observing of the risk evaluation, assessment and reduction, reshines project failure .

Solution: Apply risk management process that based on IDENTIFICATION of the potential risks, ANALYZE its impact and likelihood, DEVELOP a response strategy, and CONTINUOUSLY monitor and control the risks for the project lifecycle.

5. Stakeholder Management

Keeping track of and involving stakeholder’s expectation and engagement for the project success is a significant task. Independent consideration which disregards or does not resolve the fundamental stakeholder’s issues will cause opposition, delay or loss of project.

Solution: Early in the project, identify all the concerned parties (stakeholders) and create a stakeholder engagement plan with communication strategies that specify roles, duties, and responsibilities of each stakeholder. Run communication with stakeholders on a regular basis, organize conversations with the purpose of collecting their feedback, eliminate their concerns and keep them abreast with the project progression.

6. Unrealistic Deadlines

Unlikely deadlines can reduce the possibilities of good work, and teams can’t meet their full potential.

Solution: Perform detailed feasibility and budgeting studies, taking into account the project objectives, resources, and constraints, in order to come up with manageable timeframes. Look at the substitutions, risks, and uncertainties, invite negotiations when setting deadlines, and be prepared to back and adjust timelines as necessary.

7. Lack of Accountability

Absence of accountability can give rise to many problems in project teams , such as setting late deadlines for deliverables, having low-quality output, and blaming each other for failures.

Solution: Ensure everyone on the team knows what they need to do, what they are responsible for, and that they are expected to follow clear guidelines from the beginning. Promote responsibility by ensuring the creation of a society in which people feel like real owners, are honest, and act together. Carefully assign responsibility to team members, also being helpful and positive while at the same time evaluating their performance and contribution to the team.

8. Poor Quality Management

The main issue with poor leadership that could lead to rework, customer’s dissatisfaction, and program termination is low-quality management.

Solution: Set quality assurance processes and standards in place to allow for deliverables that both meet and exceed stakeholder expectations. Be sure to carry out periodic quality evaluations and inspections during the project at every stage in an attempt to recognize and address any quality issues in time.

9. Change Management

Many times projects encounter changes like requirements, scope, or priorities, and these unanticipated dependencies lead to a reduction in the progress of projects if they are not effectively managed.

Solution: Set up a help-tack management change process where the change will be requested, approved, evaluated, and implemented. Serve messages to likely readers and estimate how this can affect the project objectives, timing, and resources, then go ahead.

10. Inadequate Planning

Incorrect planning that lacks the right approach may lead to unmet requirements, moving beyond the scope, and other project-related problems. You spent time and effort in the planning of your project. The plan includes setting objectives, scope, deliverables, milestones, and schedules.

Solution: Bring in the key stakeholders in the planning process to create a checksum and get approval. Ongoing monitoring and modification of a project plan should occur at the relevant times of the project process.

11. Technology Constraints

At the level of technology, outdated software systems, incompatibility among new technology tools, and limited access to technology may block the advancement and collaboration of the project.

Solution: Make technology assessments in advance and make sure that you have the necessary resources, i.e., equipment and infrastructure, at your disposal in order to keep up with the project activities. Offer personnel members lessons and support so that they can be able to efficiently use technology to perform project activities.

12. Team Collaboration

The proper coordination of work team members is a fundamental necessity for the realization of project objectives. Nevertheless, matters of distance, cultural disunity, and opposing objectives may become a solid background for forming an efficient collaboration.

Solution: Implement a collaborative team atmosphere through frequent communication and establishing trust and respect among team members. Take advantage of collaborative tools and techniques like virtual meetings, document sharing platforms, and team-building activities that counteract any difficulty that comes with remote collaboration.

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Projects in project management are a minefield of pitfalls, but they could be managed if you have the right plan, utmost attention to details, and thought-out strategies. The PMs should endeavor to deal with the situation, which can be found at the level of organizational design, workload allocation, human communication breakdowns, and working with stakeholders for the complex jobs to end in a positive way.

Frequently Asked Questions – Project Management Challenges

1. what is scope creep, and how can it be avoided .

Scope creep means losing control of the project’s scope as it gradually grows beyond its initial scope. To guard the project against scope creep by defining clear project objectives and scope boundaries, implementing the change control process, and regularly communicating with stakeholders for expectation management.

2. How can project managers effectively manage resources? 

Through the application of resource management tools and suitable techniques, project managers are able to pinpoint resource requirements, carry out optimal resource utilization, and resolve resource conflicts quickly.

3. Why is stakeholder management important in project management? 

Stakeholder management encompasses working with critical stakeholders to identify obstacles for them, take care of their needs, and ensure the realization of project success should all the obstacles be addressed. Failure to involve stakeholders or to give the required attention to their concerns can lead to resistance against the project, delays, or failure of implementation.

4. What are the key components of a robust risk management process? 

The strongest risk management plan includes defining potential risks, evaluating both their probability and severity, creating a risk response strategy, and agreeing on risk monitoring and management measures through all project phases. The risk management approach that ensures that threats are averted and chances are maximized can only guarantee efficient project completion.

5. How can project managers foster effective team collaboration in a virtual or remote work environment? 

Virtual or distributed teams and the managers leading them can enhance their collaborations simply using tools like video conferencing, chat, and project management apps . Creating ample communication channels, setting responsiveness goals, and organizing virtual team-building activities can aid in collaboration, increase team coherence, and keep group performance at the same level despite teammates not being physically present.

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8 Steps for Better Issue Management

Issues happen. And if you want your project to be a success, you need to have a plan in place to respond quickly and effectively to any issues that arise. These steps are part of a best practice issue management process and are a core essence of good project management.

What Is Issue Management?

Issues are anything that comes up in the course of your project to impact the plan . Issues might be previously defined risks, or not. What you want to avoid is a form of collective project amnesia where issues come up and never get resolved. (Issues have a funny way of resurfacing when they don’t get resolved.)

Issue management in a project begins with a plan that defines activities and business rules to manage and control issues that arise during a project.

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Issue Tracking Template

Use this free Issue Tracking Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

Types of Project Issues

Of course, the first thing you need to do for issue management is to identify the issues. There can be many issues, some of which fall under these four categories.

• Major Problem: one that could impede progress or the successful completion of the project and requires immediate attention.
• Opportunity: not all issues are bad, some can offer an unforeseen opportunity.
• Concern: is not a major problem, but it’s something you want to stay aware of, because it could develop into something that requires attention.
• Situation: is another issue that might be a concern or a major problem, but develops from a situational standpoint.

Some examples of these issues are problems with staff of suppliers, technical failures, material shortages or delays and super-successful promotion.

8 Steps for Consistent Issue Management

There is so much to know about issue management. It’s a big topic and one that every project manager will have to deal with during their project.

Unlike risk, an issue is not a potential problem. An issue is happening in the here and now.

Managing issues is no different than managing a project in that it requires a process and a plan to implement the strategy. These steps will help you have a framework to control issues as they arise in your project.

1. Create Register

The only way to start is by identifying issues and collecting them in a document so that you can start to respond and track progress in resolving them. Ideally, create a collaborative document online. In the same way, you might manage risks or changes, you want to manage issues by tracking them in a log or register. Without a process or a tool to report on the issue, it’ll be lost in the shuffle of the project. You need to report on issues and notify others so that others can confirm if the issue remains.

2. Report Promptly

Timing is important. If you allow reporting to lag, you lose the opportunity to resolve the issue before it becomes too large to fix or requires so many resources as to be a project-buster. Communication is key and channels must be open to get that information out to the right people as fast as possible. If you’re reporting promptly , you better resolve promptly. Sitting on a known issue is asking for trouble.

3. Log Issues

Make sure people know who can log issues and that they do so. If there isn’t someone who logs the issue, then you are going to have issues falling through the cracks. That makes more cracks in your project until it eventually just falls apart. You want to keep a detailed record of this process. There is nothing too small. It might seem insignificant to you, but it could hold the key to unlocking the solution to the issue. Plus, a log provides an archival tool for future use.

4. Assign Actions

Put a name next to the action, too, so there is clear responsibility defined. Issues are only resolved when there is clear ownership, someone who is tasked with identifying, tracking and closing the issue. You need to have a point person who is tasked with everything related to that issue and doesn’t move on from it until the issue is closed. Accountability is critical in issue management.

5. Monitor Progress

Are people following up on their action items ? Validate status regularly. The status of the issue is a crucial distinction. If the issue has been resolved but resources are still working on it unnecessarily, then that’s another issue. Notify everyone frequently. To prevent allocating unneeded resources to an issue, you want to have complete transparency. Everyone must know the status of the issue to work most efficiently. Project dashboards can keep everyone aware of the issue status.

6. Assess Impact

Define the escalation scale and make sure the actions taken are being measured. But escalate appropriately. You don’t want to throw all your resources where only some are needed. That said, you also don’t want to create any unnecessary roadblocks to stall a speedy recovery.

7. Approve Resolution

Make sure that issues are double-checked after they are marked as resolved. While there is an owner to the issue, there must be someone who is managing the process, so they can check the work and make sure it aligns with the overall project and strategic goals of the organization. Only once all those ducks are in a row can the issue be closed.

8. Close It Out

That’s when we come to our final step. Closing the issue. Move resolved issues off the list. That feels good, doesn’t it?

More Free Templates to Help with Issue Management

Issue management is difficult without project management software to connect teams in real time and help managers keep track of those issues as they work toward being resolved. But if you’re not ready to invest in those tools there are other means to manage the issue management process. ProjectManager has dozens of free project management templates that can help. Here are just a few.

Project Dashboard Template

Once you have that issue tracking template, you’ll want to complement it with our free project dashboard template for Excel. While it doesn’t update in real time like on our software, you can see use it to track the progress and performance of your team as they work on resolving project issues.

Project Status Report Template

You have your issues in templates that can help you track the progress, but you’re also going to have to report on that progress to your stakeholders. That’s where our free project status report template for Excel comes in handy. There’s a space for the data you need to keep stakeholders updated here, from key project highlights to those action items that need immediate attention.

3 Things to Avoid in Your Issue Management Process

There are many things you can do to help your issue management process. Just as important are those things you need to avoid. When working on issue management, be sure you don’t fall into these bad practices.

• Not Using an Issue Log: It might feel as if an issue log is just one more useless piece of paperwork. When issues arise, just resolve them. But an issue log is a place where teams can identify issues, managers can analyze, track and record their resolution for future reference.
• Not Identifying Issue Type: Knowing the type of issue you’re dealing with helps you track and assign the right team members. There are differences between technical, business process and resource issues and they require different approaches.
• Not Noting Issue Status: Again, it might feel like a waste of time, but knowing the status of an issue (open, investigating, implementing, escalated or resolved) is essential when tracking issues throughout your project.

ProjectManager and Issue Management

Issues are unavoidable. They’re a part of managing any project. That’s why ProjectManager , online project and work management software, has simple issue management tools that track issues in real time.

Kanban Boards for Issue Management Workflows

Get transparency into your team’s process as they identify and resolve project issues with kanban boards. Multiple project views mean managers can plan with Gantt charts while teams work with kanban boards that allow them to manage their backlog and collaboratively plan sprints. Managers can customize workflow to automate task approvals and oversee their work to reallocate resources as needed to avoid bottlenecks.

Real-Time Dashboards for Issue Tracking

Further oversight is provided with real-time dashboards that require no setup. The live dashboard automatically captures project data, crunches the numbers and displays time, cost and more metrics on colorful graphs and charts.

Reports to Fine-Tune Your Issue Management Process

One-click reporting keeps you on top of progress and provides detailed data for presenting issue resolution to stakeholders. All reports, from status reports to timesheets, can be filtered to show only the data you want to see. Share with stakeholders as a PDF or printout.

When you put it all together, ProjectManager is the ideal software for managing project issues. Get started for free today!

If you want to learn more about project issues, watch the tutorial video below.

Watch a Video on Managing Project Issues

If you’re more of a visual learner, ProjectManager has you covered. We have hundreds of training videos on our site and even more blog posts that focus on every aspect of project management. In this tutorial video, Jennifer Bridges, PMP, gives you the basics on managing project issues.

Here’s a screenshot for your reference.

Good luck with your projects!

Pro tip: An issue can be a risk that has come to pass in your project, so it makes sense to brush up on how to manage project risk . There’s a process for managing risk that can also help with managing issues.

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Article • 8 min read

What Is Project Management?

Managing complex tasks and people.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

Project management is the process of organizing the way that changes are implemented efficiently within an organization.

Many businesses achieve their goals by completing projects that contribute to their objectives. Often, projects have a finite length, involve a number of activities and people, and have deadlines and fixed budgets. Project managers plan and monitor these, and take corrective action when appropriate.

The Benefits of Developing Project Management Skills

No matter what your role, you may have to manage, or play an active role in, a project at some point during your career. It takes a great deal of skill to do this well, but the time you invest in building good project management skills can pay off enormously.

You contribute to meeting an organization's objectives by completing projects on time and on budget. This can produce real business results and enhance your reputation. And, when you know how to organize, schedule and delegate tasks, you can also reduce stress for yourself and your team members.

Project Management Approaches

Once you are familiar with the many tools that can help you manage your projects more efficiently, you may want to learn more about the main project management methodologies.

One is PMBOK®, which stands for Project Management Body Of Knowledge. This approach centers on common project management skills, such as budgeting and managing inputs and outputs, and it's commonly used in the U.S.

PRINCE2® stands for PRojects IN Controlled Environments. This accredited approach is widely used in the U.K. and other English-speaking countries. You use it to, among other things, clarify people's roles, keep lines of communication open, manage project risk, and establish base costs.

Agile Project Management is another popular approach. This often works well for projects in complex, fast-moving environments, because it allows you and your team to respond flexibly to changing needs and requirements.

We explore key tools from these frameworks and others with the resources below.

Project Management Approaches: an Overview

There are many tools, techniques and processes that will help you manage your projects more efficiently. We've listed some of the most popular ones below to get you started.

Project Management Frameworks

When you set up a new project, you need to look at lots of different factors, such as benefits, risks, budget, and objectives. Articles in the Project Management Frameworks section show you how to build the foundation of your project, and look at all angles before getting started. Some useful articles include:

• How to Write a Business Case : You've got a great idea for a new project. Learn how to write a business case, so that you can get approval and funding.
• Risk Impact/Probability Chart : This tool helps you identify the risks in your project, and estimate how likely they are to occur.
• Project Charters : A project charter sets out the purpose of a project and explains what you expect from each member of your team.

You may have to juggle a number of people working on different tasks during a project. Our scheduling articles help you plan how to complete tasks smoothly and on time.

• Action Plans : Use an action plan for small projects, so you don't forget any important steps or tasks.
• Gap Analysis : Gap analysis helps you to identify what you need to do to meet your project's objectives.
• Gantt Charts : Help you schedule medium and large projects, so that you can complete them in the most efficient way.

Scope Management

If you've already managed projects, you know that they can quickly spiral out of control as people add more requirements. This is why being able to manage the scope of a project is such an important skill. In this section, you'll learn how to keep your project tightly focused. These tools will help:

• Business Requirements Analysis : This article shows you how to define exactly what work you must deliver.
• The MoSCoW Method : Agree with stakeholders on what will and will not be delivered as part of the project.
• Scope Control : Scope control is an essential project management skill because it stops people from making too many changes and additions during your project, which can seriously disrupt the project schedule.

Building Support for Your Projects

Your project may need the backing of many stakeholders, such as your boss, colleagues, the leadership team, clients, or key suppliers. Once you know how to pitch your idea and build support, you can get your project off the ground with the right resources in place. These articles explain how:

• Stakeholder Analysis : Learn how to identify the key people you need to win over, and decide how you'll communicate with them.
• The Responsibility Assignment Matrix : This tool defines who has ultimate responsibility for key tasks.
• Influence Maps : These help you identify the obvious and not-so-obvious influencers on your project.

Project Communication

Projects rely on good communication. Our project communication articles help you do this effectively:

• Project Dashboards : This simple tool allows you to communicate progress quickly and easily.
• Project Milestone Reporting : Keep projects on track by evaluating where you are at significant points.
• Effective Scrum Meetings : Scrum meetings are part of the agile approach to project management, but they're useful in any type of project. They help you to motivate team members, and keep things moving forward.

Change Management

It takes a great deal of skill to make widescale transformation stick within an organization. Our Change Management articles show you how to overcome common barriers and work with people to implement new initiatives successfully.

• Overcoming Cultural Barriers to Change : Learn how to address cultural issues that could slow or prevent an upcoming change.
• Kotter's 8-Step Change Model : This framework helps you achieve your change program's objectives.
• Why Change Can Fail : There's a right and a wrong way to implement change. In this article, discover what not to do during a change initiative.

Project Improvement and Review

The Project Improvement and Review articles explain how to analyze your project's progress, so you can continuously improve.

• After Action Review (AAR) Process : Learn how to evaluate your project as it progresses, so that you can make adjustments and improve performance.
• Post-Implementation Review : Use this process to analyze your project's deliverables, and determine whether additional work would deliver even greater benefits.

No matter what your role, it's likely that you will have to manage, or play an active role in, a project at some point during your career. When you know how to juggle multiple tasks, people, deadlines, and responsibilities, you will strengthen your reputation and improve your promotion prospects.

Take time to learn about the various project management frameworks to run a successful project from start to finish. Discover how to schedule people and tasks more effectively, and build support for your ideas so that you get the backing and funding you need to get started. Last, familiarize yourself with change management strategies, so that you can encourage others to overcome their reluctance to change.

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Introduction to Problem Solving in Project Management

Definition and importance of problem solving.

Problem solving is the process of identifying and resolving issues or obstacles that arise during a project. It is a critical skill for project managers as it allows them to overcome challenges and ensure the successful completion of a project. Effective problem solving enables project managers to make informed decisions, mitigate risks, and maintain project timelines and budgets.

Role of Problem Solving in Project Management

Problem solving plays a central role in project management. It helps project managers identify and address issues that may hinder project progress. By actively solving problems, project managers can minimize the impact of obstacles on project outcomes and ensure that the project stays on track.

Benefits of Effective Problem Solving

Effective problem solving in project management offers several benefits. It improves project efficiency by eliminating roadblocks and streamlining processes. It enhances team collaboration and communication as team members work together to find solutions. It also boosts stakeholder satisfaction by addressing their concerns and delivering successful project outcomes.

Understanding the Problem

Identifying and defining the problem.

In order to solve a problem, project managers must first identify and define it clearly. This involves gathering relevant information and data related to the problem. By understanding the problem statement, project managers can analyze its root causes and develop appropriate solutions.

1. Gathering Information and Data

Project managers should gather all available information and data related to the problem. This may include project documentation, stakeholder feedback, and historical data. By collecting comprehensive information, project managers can gain a holistic view of the problem and make informed decisions.

2. Analyzing the Problem Statement

Once the problem is identified, project managers need to analyze its statement. This involves breaking down the problem into its components and understanding its impact on the project. By analyzing the problem statement, project managers can prioritize their efforts and focus on the most critical aspects.

Determining the Root Cause of the Problem

Identifying the root cause of a problem is essential for effective problem solving. It allows project managers to address the underlying issues rather than just treating the symptoms. Various techniques can be used for root cause analysis, such as the fishbone diagram and the 5 Whys technique.

1. Techniques for Root Cause Analysis

The fishbone diagram, also known as the Ishikawa diagram, is a visual tool that helps identify the root causes of a problem. It categorizes potential causes into different branches, such as people, process, equipment, and environment. By analyzing these branches, project managers can pinpoint the root cause.

2. Importance of Identifying the Root Cause

Identifying the root cause is crucial because it allows project managers to implement targeted solutions. By addressing the underlying issue, project managers can prevent the problem from recurring in the future and ensure long-term project success.

Developing Problem Solving Strategies

Brainstorming techniques.

Brainstorming is a creative problem-solving technique that encourages the generation of ideas and solutions. There are various brainstorming techniques, including traditional brainstorming and mind mapping.

1. Traditional Brainstorming

Traditional brainstorming involves a group of individuals coming together to generate ideas. Participants freely share their thoughts and suggestions without any judgment or criticism. This technique encourages the exploration of diverse perspectives and fosters creativity.

2. Mind Mapping

Mind mapping is a visual brainstorming technique that helps organize ideas and connections. It involves creating a central idea or problem statement and branching out with related ideas. Mind mapping allows project managers to visualize the problem and its potential solutions.

Analytical Problem Solving Methods

Analytical problem-solving methods involve structured approaches to problem solving. Two commonly used methods are the fishbone diagram and the 5 Whys technique.

1. Fishbone Diagram

The fishbone diagram, as mentioned earlier, helps identify the root causes of a problem. By analyzing different branches, project managers can uncover the underlying factors contributing to the problem and develop appropriate solutions.

2. 5 Whys Technique

The 5 Whys technique involves asking “why” multiple times to uncover the root cause of a problem. By repeatedly asking why a problem occurred, project managers can dig deeper into the underlying causes and address them directly.

Decision-Making Approaches

Effective problem solving requires sound decision-making. Two decision-making approaches commonly used in project management are cost-benefit analysis and multi-criteria decision analysis.

1. Cost-Benefit Analysis

Cost-benefit analysis involves evaluating the costs and benefits associated with different solutions. Project managers weigh the potential advantages and disadvantages of each option to make an informed decision. This approach helps prioritize solutions based on their potential impact.

2. Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis

Multi-criteria decision analysis considers multiple factors or criteria when making a decision. Project managers assign weights to each criterion based on its importance and evaluate potential solutions accordingly. This approach ensures a comprehensive evaluation of available options.

Implementing the Solution

Creating an action plan.

Once a solution is determined, project managers need to create an action plan to implement it successfully. This involves setting clear objectives and goals and assigning tasks and responsibilities to team members.

1. Setting Clear Objectives and Goals

Clear objectives and goals provide a roadmap for implementing the solution. Project managers should define specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) objectives to ensure clarity and focus.

2. Assigning Tasks and Responsibilities

Assigning tasks and responsibilities ensures that each team member knows their role in implementing the solution. Project managers should clearly communicate expectations and deadlines to facilitate smooth execution.

Executing the Action Plan

During the implementation phase, project managers need to monitor progress and make necessary adjustments. Effective communication and collaboration among team members are crucial for successful execution.

1. Monitoring Progress and Making Adjustments

Project managers should regularly monitor the progress of the action plan and identify any deviations or roadblocks. By making timely adjustments, project managers can ensure that the solution stays on track and achieves the desired results.

2. Communication and Collaboration During Implementation

Open and transparent communication is essential during the implementation phase. Project managers should encourage team members to share updates, challenges, and suggestions. Collaboration fosters a supportive environment and enhances problem-solving capabilities.

Evaluating the Solution

Assessing the effectiveness of the solution.

After implementing the solution, project managers need to assess its effectiveness. This involves measuring outcomes and results and collecting feedback from stakeholders.

1. Measuring Outcomes and Results

Project managers should measure the outcomes and results achieved through the implemented solution. This may include evaluating key performance indicators (KPIs) and comparing them to the initial problem statement. Measuring outcomes provides insights into the solution’s effectiveness.

2. Collecting Feedback from Stakeholders

Feedback from stakeholders is invaluable for evaluating the solution. Project managers should actively seek feedback from team members, clients, and other relevant stakeholders. Their perspectives can highlight areas of improvement and inform future problem-solving strategies.

Identifying Lessons Learned

Documenting successes and failures is crucial for continuous improvement. Project managers should identify and document lessons learned from the problem-solving process.

1. Documenting Successes and Failures

Project managers should record both successful and unsuccessful problem-solving experiences. Documenting successes helps replicate effective strategies in future projects, while documenting failures allows project managers to learn from mistakes and avoid similar pitfalls.

2. Incorporating Lessons into Future Projects

Lessons learned should be incorporated into future projects to enhance problem-solving capabilities. Project managers can create knowledge repositories or conduct training sessions to share best practices and ensure continuous improvement.

Continuous Improvement

Encouraging a culture of continuous improvement.

To foster continuous improvement, project managers should encourage a culture that values learning and innovation. Team members should feel empowered to suggest improvements and experiment with new problem-solving techniques.

Implementing Feedback Loops and Learning Mechanisms

Feedback loops and learning mechanisms facilitate continuous improvement. Project managers should establish regular feedback sessions, retrospectives, or post-project reviews to gather insights and identify areas for growth.

Leveraging Problem-Solving Skills for Future Projects

Problem-solving skills developed during a project can be leveraged for future projects. Project managers should encourage team members to apply their problem-solving expertise and share their insights with colleagues.

Recap of Key Points Discussed

In this article, we explored the importance of problem solving in project management. We discussed the definition and benefits of effective problem solving, as well as the role it plays in project success. We also delved into understanding the problem, developing problem-solving strategies, implementing the solution, evaluating its effectiveness, and embracing continuous improvement.

Importance of Ongoing Problem-Solving Skills in Project Management

Ongoing problem-solving skills are essential for project managers to navigate challenges and ensure project success. By continuously improving their problem-solving capabilities, project managers can adapt to changing circumstances, mitigate risks, and deliver exceptional results.

Final Thoughts and Recommendations

To excel in problem solving, project managers should stay updated with industry best practices and leverage available tools and techniques. They should foster a collaborative and innovative environment that encourages creativity and critical thinking. By prioritizing problem solving, project managers can overcome obstacles and drive project success.

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• What is Agile Project Management?
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7 Main Project Management Activities + Sample Activity List

It seems like you are ready to take on the challenges of project management !

It is a dynamic process involving various activities, skills, and techniques. The main goal behind project management is ensuring the successful delivery of the project within a fixed timeframe and budget.

Managing projects may seem daunting, but with the right mindset and knowledge of activities, you can ensure a smooth and successful execution.

As per pmi.org , a poor project management plan can waste almost 8.8% of the investment. But don't worry; we've got you covered with a comprehensive guide to the essential project management activities in this article.

What Are Project Management Activities?

As a project manager, you'll need to break down the project into a series of related sub-tasks or activities that need to be completed in order to achieve the project's goals.

Project management activities are nothing but the specific actions project managers take to achieve a project's objectives. Each activity has a specific start and end point and a deadline to be met. Such activities are crucial for the successful delivery of the project.

Every project is unique! So, the key to success is tailoring project management activities to fit your project's needs.

A well-defined and sequenced activity plan provides project managers with a framework for monitoring and controlling the project's progress. It is where tools like network diagrams and Gantt charts come in handy. They will help you with the following:

• Understanding the overall flow of the project
• Determining project dependencies
• Identifying the start and end dates for project activities
• Tracking progress throughout the phases of a project lifecycle

Importance of Project Management Activities

Project management activities prove that project managers have a realistic and comprehensive project plan.

It ensures the successful completion of the project, resulting in a project that meets its goals on time and with the desired outcomes.

By breaking down a project into smaller, more manageable activities, project managers can:

• Monitor progress
• Control development
• Identify potential problems at any stage

Project management activities help to identify and address potential problems early on, which can help to prevent them from becoming major issues.

It allows project managers to make informed decisions, stay organized, and keep the project on track, avoiding unnecessary delays.

Lastly, project management activities can reveal what to change in the original plan, enabling project managers to make changes as the project evolves.

Difference Between Activities And Milestones

Complete knowledge of the difference between project activities and milestones is crucial for effective project management and successful completion.

Both play essential roles in making your project a success. So, before we dive deep into the project activities, let's understand the difference between project activities and milestones!

Project Milestones – These are significant events that mark important points in your project's life cycle. These could be completing a project phase, delivering a major project deliverable, or completing a critical task.

Project Activities – Each milestone is achieved by completing a series of tasks and subtasks, which are known as project management activities.

Real-life Example of Project Management Activities and Milestones

The image above is an example of launching a brand new website where we have defined the milestones for each week.

Each milestone includes a series of subtasks (activities) to be met. For Example, to achieve the milestone of designing the landing page (week 5), we need to complete the following subtasks or activities,

• Prepare a color palette
• Design a hero section
• Design header and footer
• Write eye-catchy and concise headlines
• Strategically include CTAs
• Check for responsive design

Note that similar to project activities, milestones help project managers to track progress, identify potential problems, and stay on top of the project's budget and timeline.

What Is A Project Activity List?

Developing and executing a project plan can be time-consuming and challenging.

The key is to create a list that includes all planned project activities. It is a critical step toward the project's success as a project manager or team member.

The project team can identify each task, execute it within a defined timeframe, and ensure successful project completion using a comprehensive project activity list.

An activity list ensures that everyone involved understands their role, the project timeline , the required activity resources, and other relevant information. Additionally, you can manage the project better, track progress, and communicate effectively with stakeholders.

Steps To Creating A Project Activity List

Breaking down all the project work into small units called activities or tasks is crucial for successfully delivering a project. Here are the steps you need to create a project activity list.

1. Project Planning

Planning is the foundation of successful project management.

It allows us to define our objectives, identify the steps required to achieve them, and allocate resources accordingly.

You need to create a comprehensive project plan that outlines all the important details, including its project deliverables , budget, resources, and deadlines. Doing so gives you a project roadmap to keep everyone on track and help them achieve project goals.

Careful project planning allows us to minimize risks and maximize our chances of success.

Note that project plans are not set in stone and may change during the execution phase.

So, it is better to plan for potential problems and be ready to adjust the plan accordingly. With your well-defined project plan, your team can work together to ensure that the project progresses in the right direction while being flexible and adaptable to unexpected changes.

2. Creating WBS (Work Breakdown Structure)

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a project management tool that can help you break down your project into smaller, more manageable tasks to save time and effort.

It can make project management easier and more efficient. It begins with identifying the major activities in project management and then subdividing them into smaller, measurable tasks and subtasks.

To create a WBS,

• List all major project deliverables
• Break each deliverable into smaller activities
• Break each activity into individual tasks and subtasks
• Allocate Resources : identify the necessary resources and timelines for each task and subtask

This approach will help you monitor project progress and control the work more effectively.

It would be best to involve the project team in the WBS preparation process so everyone understands the project objectives and requirements.

The completed WBS should be reviewed and approved by the project stakeholders, including the project sponsor , manager, and team members, to ensure everyone agrees on the scope of work and the project plan.

3. Determining Dependencies

After dividing your project into activities, identify the relationship between each activity and the factors affecting its completion.

There are two types of dependencies: internal and external.

Internal dependencies occur when an activity is related to other activities within the project. It means one activity cannot be started until a related activity has been completed.

On the other hand, external dependencies occur when an activity is related to the factors outside the project, such as environmental, regulatory, or technological factors.

The start and finish conditions of activities can be used to classify the dependencies into four types:

• Finish-to-start (FS): An activity must be completed before another activity can begin. It is the most common type of dependency.
• Start-to-start (SS): An activity must begin before another activity can also begin. This dependency is used when two activities must be synchronized to start simultaneously.
• Finish-to-finish (FF): An activity must finish before another can also finish. This dependency is used when two activities must be synchronized to end simultaneously.
• Start-to-finish (SF): An activity must start before another activity can finish.

Understanding the dependencies between activities is critical for developing a realistic project plan that can be completed on time and within budget.

4. Sequencing Activities

Once you identify the activities and determine their dependencies, it is time to order them.

Your goal is to establish a highly efficient task flow by prioritizing the order of the activities.

It needs to be done properly to ensure that the project activities are completed in the correct order for a smooth and timely progression.

I suggest using dedicated project management software with Kanban tools for effective activity sequencing for comprehensive insights.

Project management software provides an excellent solution for visually representing the project and its phases. It allows for real-time updates and progress reports , resulting in a smooth and timely project progression. Product and software development teams have to use such tools.

However, you can use tools like whiteboards, note cards, or sticky note pads for sequencing activities.

For a more comprehensive understanding of the project activities, involve the team and gather multiple perspectives. This approach will also help you identify potential issues or challenges associated with your project.

5. Scheduling Activities

Once the sequence is established, you can estimate the duration of each activity and schedule project activities accordingly.

Make sure to properly define the duration and timeline for each activity and allocate resources to achieve your project goals within the given timeframe and budget. It is important to create a realistic schedule and avoid overestimating the work that can be done within a given timeframe. Use workflow management software or Gantt charts to visualize the entire project in one place.

When estimating the duration of each activity, we can use data from previous projects to establish baselines for each task. We must properly allocate internal and external resources such as personnel, equipment, and materials.

Note that we may need to adjust the schedule throughout the project's life cycle due to unforeseen events.

Regularly monitoring the project's progress and communicating with stakeholders can help us identify issues early and make timely adjustments.

6. Risk Management

Risk management is a crucial aspect of project management!

Uncertain events that can positively or negatively impact the achievement of the project goals and objectives are known as project risks .

A robust risk management plan is paramount in confidently delivering your project on time, within budget, and to the desired quality standards.

It's essential to implement it throughout the entire project management life cycle to avoid project risks. You can brainstorm with your project teams or use risk management technology to develop a plan outlining the steps to mitigate, monitor, and control the risks.

In general, it includes the following steps,

• Creating a comprehensive list of milestones and activities
• Determining all the possible risks associated with each milestone and activity
• Analyzing the probability of the risk
• Assessing the risk impact on the project

Once you identify all the risks, the key is to prioritize the risks and focus on the most critical ones.

Note that you should frequently monitor and review project progress to identify new risks that may arise, assess their impact, and update the risk management plan accordingly.

7. Preparing Activity List

Now is the right time to create a highly detailed activity list that includes project tasks, sub-tasks, the duration for each of them, and the resources required.

An activity list helps ensure everything is always in order and up-to-date, leading to incredible results.

It is not a one-time document but rather a dynamic one that can be regularly reviewed and updated throughout the project to ensure that it remains accurate and up-to-date.

As a project manager, you have a critical role, and creating a comprehensive activity list is crucial. By defining all the major deliverables and tasks mentioned in the previous steps, you will clearly understand what must be done, how, by whom, and when.

With an activity list, you can ensure that everyone involved understands their tasks and the sequence in which they must execute them.

A team leader plays a vital role in executing the tasks defined in the project activity list.

Activity List Example

Imagine that Jason is about to renovate his home; here is the Project Activity List prepared for him:

Start Date – May 13, 2023 Estimated Completion Date – August 30, 2023

This is a simple activity list where Jason is the project manager responsible for the delivery of the project. It helps Jason with the following,

• Project scope management
• Project initiation
• Cost management
• Forming a communication plan with stakeholders
• Obtaining the desired outcome.

Note that the key to success is practice! You can start with any project on your mind and create the activity list right away.

Explore Further

• How to Write a Project Plan in 9 Simple Steps
• What Are Milestones in Project Management (+ Examples)
• 12 Key Benefits of Using Project Management Software
• What Is Digital Project Management? [Ultimate Guide]
• How to Overcome Parkinson’s Law to Get More Done in Less Time
• 10 Effective Tips on How to Manage A Project from Start to Finish
• Project Failure | 7 Reasons Why Projects Fail & How to Avoid It
• 9 Essential Roles In Project Management

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5 Phases of Project Management Life Cycle | Complete Guide

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If you’re just diving into the world of project management for the first time, you might feel intimidated by starting a new project. Fortunately, you can utilize the project life cycle, which is a set of stages that takes a project from start to completion. Read on to learn about each phase of the project lifecycle, its role in the success of the project, and how you can properly manage each phase for optimum results.

What are Project Phases?

Project phases are smaller portions of a project that represent distinct goals or milestones in the larger project lifecycle. Within the project lifecycle, there are 5 project phases, as defined by the Project Management Institute: 

• Project Initiation
• Project Planning
• Project Execution
• Project Monitoring and Control
• Project Closure

Each phase comes with specific requirements of the project team, as well as key deliverables and action items that keep the project moving forward successfully. Mastering project phases is essential for keeping the project on track while completing essential tasks and checkpoints throughout the process. 

Read more: 14 Important Questions Project Managers Should Ask the Team

What are the 5 phases of project management, project initiation phase.

A team’s performance during the Project Initiation Phase can result in either authorization, delay, or discontinuation of a new project.

The main goal of the Initiation Phase is to ensure that the project meets business needs and that stakeholders and project teams are aligned on the project success criteria throughout the project life cycle.

To achieve the project goal, it’s best to involve internal and external stakeholders from the Initiation Phase . This way, you can effectively align expectations and increase the likelihood of completing all the deliverables throughout the project management life cycle.

During the Initiation Phase, the entire project team defines the project idea, and the project sponsor evaluates it and authorizes the project to proceed. The project manager starts the documentation process, which includes the justification, deliverables, risks, estimated cost, and resource requirements.

The Project Charter is a key deliverable of the Project Initiation Phase and contains all this information. It is the first formal definition of the project. It authorizes the project to exist, establishes the authority of the project manager, and documents high-level requirements, project milestones, and success criteria.

Another important document in the Initiation Phase is the Stakeholder Register. This document includes information about all the stakeholders of the project. It identifies the people, groups, and organizations that have an interest in the task, project, and its results.

Approval of the Project Charter signals the advance of the project to the next phase, the Project Planning Phase.

Read more: What is a Project Charter? Complete Guide & Examples 2023

Project Planning Phase

Once the expectations and success criteria are clear, the next project management life cycle phase focuses on planning each task the team needs to perform to cover the scope, achieve the deliverables, and meet the overall goal.

In the Project Planning Phase, the project team members dive into specific requirements, tasks, timelines, and actions. The project manager works with the entire team to create the design, enumerate the task list, and estimate the budget.

The project team builds the resource plan, the communications plan, and the initial project schedule. The project manager also establishes the roles and responsibilities of the team and stakeholders. The project scope is finalized depending on approved available resources and client priorities.

During the Planning Phase , the project team finalizes the Work Breakdown Structure, Project Plan, Requirements List, Communications Management Plan, and other relevant documents to iron out the workflow and coordination with involved parties.

The Project Plan is a key deliverable and contains a detailed work breakdown structure (WBS) or task list with start and end dates, and estimated effort and duration. It identifies milestones, resources, and the schedule. It also includes task dependencies that will allow the project team to use the critical path method if it chooses.

Other important deliverables are the Communications Management Plan, which helps facilitate effective communication with stakeholders, and the Resource Allocation Plan which identifies the schedule of project team resources as to their availability during the whole project life cycle.

Something PMs should keep in mind: As you discover more information, you may have to adjust your previous Project Plan and related procedures. More complex projects will require more back-and-forth approvals for every task created.

Project planning is an iterative process so the project manager should review, revise, and revisit all the plans at least once a month until the completion of the project. It is crucial for the project team to involve relevant stakeholders in this stage of the project life cycle as well.

Read more: Project Management Communication Plan

Project Execution Phase

The Project Execution Phase is where the project team executes and follows through on tasks based on the Project Plan. At this stage, the team spends most of its time coordinating with people, helping to ensure quality work, keeping track of resources, and updating stakeholders.

Sometimes called the Implementation Phase, this is the phase when the project manager tries to manage every task and aspect of project delivery to keep the project on track for the remaining duration of the project life cycle.

The project team focuses on achieving all the objectives set in the earlier phases. At this phase, the project leader likely uses project management software to assign every task to team members. Tools that centralize task information, along with resource availability and team communication can simplify and optimize the needed project management processes.

Quality Assurance documentation, meeting minutes, and Work Orders are some of the documents created during the Execution Phase of the project management life cycle.

It’s also likely that you’ll discover new information that will require a revisit and update of the initial project management plans. Be vigilant with change requests, and make sure that the necessary adjustments are managed.

Read more: Understanding Different Types of Stakeholders and Their Roles

Project Monitoring & Control Phase

The best way to ensure progress and improvement is by tracking and reviewing project performance.

Simultaneously during execution, the project team carefully tracks the progress of the project based on the Project Plan established earlier. Tracking the performance of the project through various metrics is crucial to ensure the project stays on schedule, within budget, and within scope.

The project team keeps track of change management documents, spending records, QA checklists, and team time tracking. They are able to measure where efforts and resources go throughout the project life cycle, crosschecking it with the Project Plan.

Both the Execution Phase and Monitoring & Control Phase are critical times that can determine project success. Aside from monitoring the progress of tasks, the project manager also tries to identify issues or risks, creates a mitigation plan with the team, and reports the project status regularly to stakeholders.

Being diligent in recording and measuring project progress puts the project team in a strategic position. They can identify bottlenecks and initiate essential discussions or project management process improvements.

Having a proactive approach will allow the project team to respond rapidly to any change in the plan. Consistent and appropriate status reporting will update interested stakeholders and provide them the opportunity to intervene in or redirect the project as needed.

If additional planning, time, or resources are needed, you’ll need to communicate them to relevant project stakeholders before it’s too late. You’ll also have the data and results to back up your requests, so you have a better chance of justifying your requests and maintaining their trust despite circumstances.

Read more: 10 Best Project Management Software Buyers’ Guide

Project Closure Phase

In the last project management life cycle phase, all the activities related to its completion are concluded. These may involve the submission of a final deliverable, fulfilling contractual obligations, terminating relevant agreements, and releasing project resources.

The causes of a project closure can be completion, cancellation, termination, or transfer to a new organization. The documentation required to complete Project Closure will differ depending on the situation.

In this phase, the project manager communicates the final project disposition and status to all stakeholders. This phase also ensures to inform participants and stakeholders of any follow-on activities or continuing product life cycle so they can communicate and coordinate with the people in charge.

Regardless of the outcome of the project life cycle, however, it would be good for the team to conduct a project retrospective. During this post-mortem activity, the project team can process new lessons and ensure the improvement of current project management processes for a future project.

During the project closeout, documents to turn over can include various project documentation, final meeting minutes, and other closure reports. These documents can identify and capture lessons learned and best practices for future reference and reuse.

It is a good idea to organize and store project materials in a shared team folder. These materials can provide reference during performance evaluation. The opportunity to continuously test, improve, or reinvent ways to manage the whole project life cycle can help grow the organization and its business.

Read more: How to Host a Good Project Post-Mortem Meeting

VIDEO: Recap of 5 Project Management Phases

Why Are Project Phases Important?

All projects go through each of the five phases regardless of their size.

The decision to officially divide a project into phases is an excellent way to manage the team’s focus, allocate resources, and align the entire project life cycle with clients and stakeholders.

By thinking in terms of phases, the project team ensures that deliverables produced at the end of each phase meet the project’s goals. Managing a project by phase also makes sure that the team is properly prepared for the next phase.

Project life cycle phases provide additional benefits. The approach provides a structured approach for project delivery. Defined activities, outputs, and responsibilities create a clear and common roadmap for the project team to follow.

Defined phases and defined roles show a visible framework easily understood by all team members and stakeholders. Assignment of responsibilities by phase clarifies what the team should only be doing in each phase and helps streamline communication.

Working on projects phase by phase helps track and link progress directly to each phase. Completion of each phase is easily recognizable by all involved.

Another benefit of project management by phase is the progressive evolution of the project. This helps identify areas that need greater attention for a particular phase. It also marks clearly the points and opportunities for structured reviews to support project governance.

While PMBOK recommends assigning project phases according to a project’s life cycle, project teams can follow their own system depending on their industry, organizational policies, and other relevant factors. For example, teams and organizations focused on monitoring the usage of resources can use the critical chain project management methodology.

Read next: Key Project Management Terms and Concepts

Throughout the project lifecycle, there are a variety of tools that can be used to limit stress, automate workflows, and keep the project moving successfully. 

Gantt Charts

Gantt charts are a powerful planning tool that can help teams visualize individual deadlines against task dependencies and overall project progress. This type of chart can be especially useful early on in the project lifecycle, particularly the planning stage. 

Project Management Software

Project management software solutions are likely the most well-known tools in project management—and for good reason. Within one application, users can set task deadlines, view project overviews, extract data about project progress, automate workflows, and more. 

Collaboration Tools

Whether it’s a remote team, in-office, or a hybrid blend, collaboration is one of the most important elements of running a successful project. While some project management software solutions offer built-in collaboration tools, utilizing the power of other tools that are directly centered around team communication, such as Slack, can ensure the team has a central space to communicate updates. 

Throughout the project lifecycle, the project manager takes ownership of the project and relays updates to team members. As each phase of the project progresses, the project manager will facilitate discussions, track progress, and address any roadblocks.

The project initiation phase is arguably the most important phase of the project lifecycle, as this is when the project is conceived and approved so that work can begin. During this phase, it’s common for a team to present a proposal in order to gain approval for the project.

Read more: Project Proposal with Template

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Problem management: 8 steps to better problem solving

Problem management is an 8 step framework most commonly used by IT teams. You can use problem management to solve for repeating major incidents. By organizing and structuring your problem solving, you can more effectively get to the root cause of high-impact problems—and devise a solution. Solving the root cause prevents recurrence and creates a repeatable solution to use on similar errors in the future.

In an IT department, errors and mishaps are part of the job. You can't always control these problems, but you can control how you respond to them with problem management. Problem management helps you solve larger problems and reduce the risk that they’ll happen again by identifying all connected problems, solving them, and planning for the future.

What is problem management?

Problem management is an 8 step framework most commonly used by IT teams. Your team can use problem management to solve for repeating major incidents. By organizing and structuring your problem solving, you can more effectively get to the root cause of high-impact problems—and devise a solution. Problem management is a process—used mostly by IT teams—to identify, react, and respond to issues. It’s not for every problem, but it’s a useful response when multiple major incidents occur that cause large work interruptions. Unlike problem solving, problem management goes beyond the initial incident to discover and dissect the root causes, preventing future incidents with permanent solutions.

The goals of problem management are to:

Prevent problems before they start.

Solve for repetitive errors.

Lessen each incident’s impact. 

Problem management vs. incident management 

Example: Someone leaves their unprotected laptop in a coffee shop, causing a security breach. The security team can use incident management to solve for this one, isolated event. In this case, the team could manually shut down the accounts connected to that laptop. If this continues to happen, IT would use problem management to solve the root of this issue—perhaps installing more security features on each company laptop so that if employees lose them, no one else can access the information.

Problem management vs. problem solving

While similar in name, problem management differs slightly from problem-solving. Problem management focuses on every aspect of the incident—identifying the root cause of the problem, solving it, and prevention. Problem solving is, as the name implies, focused solely on the solution step. 

Example: You’re launching a new password management system when it crashes—again. You don’t know if anything leaked, but you know it could contain confidential information. Plus, it’s happened before. You start the problem management process to ensure it doesn’t happen again. In that process, you’ll use problem solving as a step to fix the issue. In this case, perhaps securing confidential information before you try to launch a new software.

Problem management vs. change management 

Change management targets large transitions within your workplace, good and bad. These inevitable changes aren’t always negative, so you can’t always apply problem management as a solution. That’s where change management comes in—a framework that helps you adjust to any new scenario.

Example: Your company is transitioning to a new cloud platform. The transition happens incident-free—meaning you won’t need problem management—but you can ease the transition by implementing some change management best practices. Preparing and training team members in the new software is a good place to start.

Problem management vs. project management

Project management is the framework for larger collections of work. It’s the overarching method for how you work on any project, hit goals, and get results. You can use project management to help you with problem management, but they are not the same thing. Problem management and project management work together to solve issues as part of your problem management process.

Example: During problem management, you uncover a backend security issue that needs to be addressed—employees are using storage software with outdated security measures. To solve this, you create a project and outline the tasks from start to finish. In this case, you might need to alert senior executives, get approval to remove the software, and alert employees. You create a project schedule with a defined timeline and assign the tasks to relevant teams. In this process, you identified a desired outcome—remove the unsafe software—and solved it. That’s project management.

The 8 steps of problem management

It’s easy to get upset when problems occur. In fact, it’s totally normal. But an emotional response is not always the best response when faced with new incidents. Having a reliable system—such as problem management—removes the temptation to respond emotionally. Proactive project management gives your team a framework for problem solving. It’s an iterative process —the more you use it, the more likely you are to have fewer problems, faster response times, and better outputs. 

1. Identify the problem

During problem identification, you’re looking at the present—what’s happening right now? Here, you’ll define what the incident is and its scale. Is this a small, quick-fix, or a full overhaul? Consider using problem framing to define, prioritize, and understand the obstacles involved with these more complex problems. 

2. Diagnose the cause

Use problem analysis or root cause analysis to strategically look at the cause of a problem. Follow the trail of issues all the way back to its beginnings.

To diagnose the underlying cause, you’ll want to answer:

What factors or conditions led to the incident?

Do you see related incidents? Could those be coming from the same source?

Did someone miss a step? Are processes responsible for this problem?

3. Organize and prioritize

Now it’s time to build out your framework. Use an IT project plan to organize information in a space where everyone can make and see updates in real time. The easiest way to do this is with a project management tool where you can input ‌tasks, assign deadlines, and add dependencies to ensure nothing gets missed. To better organize your process, define:

What needs to be done? 

Who’s responsible for each aspect? If no one is, can we assign someone? 

When does each piece need to be completed?

What is the final number of incidents related to this problem?

Are any of these tasks dependent on another one? Do you need to set up dependencies ?

What are your highest priorities? How do they affect our larger business goals ? 

How should you plan for this in the future?

4. Create a workaround

If the incident has stopped work or altered it, you might need to create a workaround. This is not always necessary, but temporary workarounds can keep work on track and avoid backlog while you go through the problem management steps. When these workarounds are especially effective, you can make them permanent processes.

5. Update your known error database

Every time an incident occurs, create a known error record and add it to your known error database (KEDB). Recording incidents helps you catch recurrences and logs the solution, so you know how to solve similar errors in the future. 

6. Pause for change management (if necessary)

Larger, high-impact problems might require change management. For example, if you realize the problem’s root cause is a lack of staff, you might dedicate team members to help. You can use change management to help them transition their responsibilities, see how these new roles fit in with the entire team, and determine how they will collaborate moving forward.

7. Solve the problem

This is the fun part—you get to resolve problems. At this stage, you should know exactly what you’re dealing with and the steps you need to take. But remember—with problem management, it’s not enough to solve the current problem. You’ll want to take any steps to prevent this from happening again in the future. That could mean hiring a new role to cover gaps in workflows , investing in new softwares and tools, or training staff on best practices to prevent these types of incidents.

Read: Turn your team into skilled problem solvers with these problem-solving strategies

8. Reflect on the process

The problem management process has the added benefit of recording the process in its entirety, so you can review it in the future. Once you’ve solved the problem, take the time to review each step and reflect on the lessons learned during this process. Make note of who was involved, what you needed, and any opportunities to improve your response to the next incident. After you go through the problem management process a few times and understand the basic steps, stakeholders, workload, and resources you need, create a template to make the kickoff process easier in the future.

5 benefits of problem management

Problem management helps you discover every piece of the problem—from the current scenario down to its root cause. Not only does this have an immediate positive impact on the current issue at hand, it also promotes collaboration and helps to build a better product overall. 

Here are five other ways ‌problem management can benefit your team:

Avoids repeat incidents. When you manage the entire incident from start to finish, you will address the foundational problems that caused it. This leads to fewer repeat incidents.

Boosts cross-functional collaboration. Problem management is a collaborative process. One incident might require collaboration from IT, the security team, and legal. Depending on the level of the problem, it might trickle all the way back down to the product or service team, where core changes need to be made.

Creates a better user experience. It’s simple—the fewer incidents you have, the better your customer’s experience will be. Reducing incidents means fewer delays, downtime, and frustrations for your users, and a higher rate of customer satisfaction.

Improves response time. As you develop a flow and framework with a project management process, you’ll be better equipped to handle future incidents—even if they’re different scenarios.

Organizes problem solving. Problem management provides a structured, thoughtful approach to solving problems. This reduces impulsive responses and helps you keep a better problem record of incidents and solutions.

Problem management leads to better, faster solutions

IT teams will always have to deal with incidents, but they don’t have to be bogged down by them. That’s because problem management works. Whether you employ a full problem management team or choose to apply these practices to your current IT infrastructure, problem management—especially when combined with a project management tool—saves you time and effort down the road.

With IT project plans, we’ve made it easier than ever to track your problem management work in a shared tool. Try our free IT project template to see your work come together, effortlessly.

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What Is Project Management? (A Comprehensive Guide)

Plan, manage, and organize your projects with this comprehensive guide. Because projects are how things get done.

Caylin White

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Who doesn’t love a good project? If you want to deliver project goals on time and within budget, all while satisfying stakeholders, efficient project management is essential. But what does ideal project management include? What are the best frameworks, and which tools are critical to success? 

This definitive guide to project management with Salesforce addresses all the questions you may have — no matter what size your business. You will gain insights into project management processes, optimal frameworks, and managing a project effectively, as it should be.

Here’s what we’ll cover: 

What is project management? Why is project management important? Who uses project management? What are the five stages of project management? What are the four types of project management? Eight tips for successful project management

What is project management?

Project management is the process of leading a team to achieve all goals within specified constraints. Typically outlined in project documentation created at the project’s inception, the main constraints include scope, time, and budget. 

For instance, your objective may be to launch a new product, develop software, or organize a networking event. To attain your end goal, project management encompasses:

• Establishing goals
• Scheduling tasks
• Managing teams
• Monitoring progress
• Collaborating with stakeholders

Numerous structured frameworks, such as Agile , Kanban , or Scrum , can be employed to reach your project objectives. While these frameworks take different approaches, each is focused on bringing the necessary steps to complete your project on time and within budget.

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Why is project management important.

Project management is vital as it provides the leadership, motivation, and problem-solving skills to introduce new products or services, boost revenue, and meet organizational objectives. 

Prioritizing effective project management styles enables proactive and continuous workflow improvement, preventing mistakes and overspending. The most successful companies understand how to manage a project efficiently and productively.

Who uses project management?

Organizations of all sizes, from large enterprises to small or medium-sized businesses , employ project management. Whether you’re leading a team in the office or managing remote teams globally, effective project management ensures your organization reaches its goals. 

Project management encompasses various project types, including (but not limited to):

• Product and service development
• Software engineering
• Event planning
• Construction projects
• Marketing campaigns
• IT system implementations

Traditionally, a project manager leads the project team and is responsible for the project’s overall success, assigning tasks to team members, monitoring progress, and ensuring deadlines and budgets are met. Multiple team members can share project management responsibilities in smaller teams without a dedicated project manager.

What are the five stages of project management?

Successful project management begins by designing and following a straightforward road map to set expectations. The number one thing to do before initiating any project is to outline the project roadmap at the beginning. Because if you want to go somewhere, and you don’t have a map, you’ll probably get lost.

To help you create your roadmap, let’s delve into the five essential phases of project management. Here’s a high-level overview of each:

1. Initiating

In the project initiation phase, essential preparations are made to complete the work on time and within budget. This phase involves:

• Defining the project scope
• Providing a high-level project overview
• Establishing budgets

For larger projects, a project charter or Project Initiation Documentation (PID) may be created to delve deeper into these areas. Planning and creating a clear and deliberate project plan ensures all team members work toward a common goal. During the project planning phase, you will:

• Select project team members
• Outline deliverables
• Estimate required project resources
• Determine associated activities
• Set key milestones and dates

Additionally, you can outline your team’s project management methodology with options such as Agile, Waterfall, Scrum, Lean, or Kanban.

2. Executing

During the execution phase, you will carry out your project plan to deliver products to stakeholders. This stage runs concurrently with the monitoring and controlling phase and may involve:

• Managing workflows
• Recommending changes
• Suggesting corrective actions

Ultimately, it’s about maintaining control, collaborating with the entire team, and staying on track.

3. Monitoring 

Regular monitoring is essential in any project life cycle to answer the question: Where are we versus where should we be, per the project plan? Effective monitoring requires:

• Regular project check-ins
• Use of proper project documentation and tracking tools to visualize project progress. Visual and real-time monitoring is more effective.

4. Controlling

When you’re in the controlling phase of your project you’re essentially taking what you learned in the monitoring phase and making positive changes to the course. You see where things are going well or not so well, and you course correct. This includes: 

• Altering the goals of the project
• Enlisting help from various stakeholders to change course
• Using new tools to provide insights into your project progress

The closing phase, also known as “project delivery” or project closeout, involves wrapping up all activities and delivering the final product. This handover could be to the client, an internal team, or an external stakeholder. It may include concluding contracts or agreements and conducting a comprehensive review or audit.

What are the four types of project management?

Various project management types and frameworks can lead to successful project management. Choosing the right one is crucial, as it determines how you structure your team and plan and monitor your projects. 

Here are the descriptions of the leading project management frameworks:

1. Waterfall

Waterfall project management focuses on meticulous planning, breaking down, and scheduling the entire project from start to finish sequentially. It’s best suited for teams capable of defining all project requirements upfront and comfortable with fixed deadlines.

Agile is an iterative approach that enables quick responses to project feedback. It prioritizes adaptability, collaboration, and incremental delivery, making it ideal for complex projects with evolving requirements, especially in software development.

Kanban focuses on continuous improvement through visualizing and managing the flow of work. Tasks move across the Kanban board as the project progresses, allowing for rapid adaptation and resolution of bottlenecks. It is beneficial for projects with unpredictable workloads.

Scrum divides larger projects into shorter sprints, adapting to project demands as it evolves. It defines rules for team size, roles, planning, meetings, and deliverables.

Eight tips for successful project management

Effective project management allows companies to develop products or services, optimize operations, and provide value to customers with minimal friction and greater efficiency. To succeed in project management, follow these tips:

• Invest in the initiation and planning stages to avoid later confusion.
• Choose the proper framework or methodology for your project.
• Promote a culture of transparency and ownership to improve communication and collaboration.
• Define a realistic project scope to prevent scope creep.
• Prioritize efficient scheduling for better time management.
• Practice effective resource management to maximize efficiency.
• Engage your stakeholders and maintain strong communication throughout the project.
• Leverage tools like Salesforce to streamline project management workflows and facilitate decision-making.

PRO TIP : Enlist artificial intelligence (AI) for your project management needs. AI is ushering in a bold era of effectiveness in project management. Project managers who fully embrace AI are 30% more likely to deliver their projects on time, and 23% more likely to meet or exceed return on investment (ROI), according to a recent PMI survey .

Be a project management pro

Help your project come to life with the right tools and processes in place. There is nothing better than seeing a project become reality. From small business to enterprise, your projects make a big impact. Start mastering project management with Salesforce today and unlock the potential for successful and efficient project delivery.

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13 Key Project Manager Roles and Responsibilities

“ Being a Project Manager is like being an artist, you have the different colored process streams combining into a work of art. ” – Greg Cimmarrusti

At the heart of successful project management is a project manager, who like the ‘captain of a cruise ship’, ensures a smooth ride. When it comes to the roles and responsibilities of the project manager, it starts with creating strategies, delegating tasks , monitoring progress, ensuring coordination among team members, and collaboration. 

However, if you think you could master these skills, and become a successful project manager , slow down, my friend! There is still a lot to come. Intriguing tasks like team building, acting as a bridge between your team and the client, and ensuring timely completion are all part of the p roject manager’s tasks .

Ready to become a leader who gets things done? Say goodbye to email chaos and switch to ProofHub for effective work management!

Project manager roles and responsibilities

Roles define what you need to do for the project. These roles define how you relate yourself to your team members and customers. Responsibilities are further dependent on your role.

Responsibilities are day-to-day activities and tasks that you do every day in the office. These activities and tasks together contribute to accomplishing your role as the project manager. These responsibilities may vary depending on the stage of the project and several other reasons. 

So without further ado, let’s discuss the roles & responsibilities in detail along with actionable tips and examples.

1. Defining goals and roles 

Let’s take an example of a website-building company. You will first start by making a bigger picture of the major attributes to which your company contributes. This primarily depends on your customers or the niche in which your business serves.

Defining the role of HR would be limited to hiring and other practices related to administration. Similarly, developers would focus on coding and developing websites. 

However, as a project manager, your role would be the center to hold the entire project together. Ensuring enough manpower and resources, and conveying task details to individual team members are all roles of a project manager. 

2. Keeping the team close-knit

Focus on building a team that ‘works together’. Start by defining primary roles for the departments. To simplify this process, define goals! When you know what your goals are, you will be able to define roles for each department with ease. 

With clearly defined roles, maintaining harmony in the team and fostering trust within its people is the next process so that everyone can achieve more and achieve fast.

For this, you need to ensure that:

• Every member of your team gets regular feedback.
• Everyone understands their individual tasks. 
• Everyone communicates well. 
• The team has enough resources and tools for effective collaboration .

3. Delegating work effectively

As a project manager, it becomes critical to delegate tasks to your team members effectively. It is a leadership style that every project manager has to learn and adapt. You should not misuse this responsibility by blaming or degrading your team members.

You should understand the strength and weaknesses of your team members and delegate the tasks to them accordingly. Your team members must be able to prioritize tasks .

This is where you need to think smart! 

Think out-of-the-box!

How about getting help from a project management tool? 

This will simplify not only the delegation process but also help in effectively managing the schedule of the project. 

ProofHub is an all-in-one project management and team collaboration tool . You can use this tool for delegating tasks, monitoring progress, communicating with your team members, and also for real-time collaboration .

Take control of your projects with ProofHub: Track, manage, and prioritize tasks effortlessly in one centralized platform!

4. Employee feedback 

Of all the roles you are involved in as a project manager, gathering employee feedback plays the most crucial role. As the project progresses, it is essential to review the performance of your team members. 

It is obvious that over the course of the project, the roles of different individuals may change. Therefore, such reviews will help in providing feedback to your team members about updates.

It is important to note here, that the objectives of the company might not have changed, but the way to reach there would have. This is the reason why you need to be in close proximity to your team at all times.

5. Planning everything from execution to delivery

Ideally, you should have a strategy to achieve more in less. By more I mean, more outcomes, more quality, and more client satisfaction, while less refers to less resources and less time. In simple words, you must chalk out a pathway that will help you to complete the project successfully and efficiently. You could use any approach like Agile, Waterfall, etc. However, remember that your team should also be comfortable working in this environment. 

All in all, for strategies and planning your project manager skills should involve 

• Breaking the project into tasks and sub-tasks. 
• Steady progression by taking up tasks in small chunks.  
• Setting an appropriate schedule for the development of certain deliverables. 
• Defining milestones. 
• Highlighting the project dependencies.

Effortlessly plan tasks, collaborate seamlessly with your team, organize files efficiently, and deliver projects on time – all within a single platform!

6. Directing the team to achieve a common goal

You should ensure that your team is on the right track toward success. 

Have you ever seen what a good shepherd does? 

He guides all his sheep and goats on the track toward greenery. 

Similarly, keep your team members motivated, so they continue moving on the right track. It is your responsibility to ensure that your team showcases their full potential. In some instances, you will have to own up tasks of other domains. 

For wisely directing your team your project manager attributes must be similar to that of human resources like

• Negotiating current employees’ job responsibilities, 
• Managing their time, and achieving their commitment to the project, 
• Bids may be required, and 
• Contracts will need to be reviewed and keeping everyone in check to make sure that the team moves along in accordance with the plan.

Moreover, implement Agile practices in your teams. This is how you can improve the accountability of the team members. This would help the team become cross-functional which would mean that you will be making the team:

• More adept to taking on challenges and dealing with changes in client requirements.
• More capable of coordinating with clients and juggling responsibilities,
• More comfortable with changing roles and working in more niches than just one.

7. Managing time 

Time is the most crucial resource in project management . This decides the base on which the entire project revolves. You should be able to negotiate deadlines on behalf of your team members. 

Effective time management is possible through strategic planning and scheduling. Delegate tasks to your team members and set a deadline. 

Identifying bottlenecks early also plays an important role in the timely completion of a project. When you forecast your available resources effectively, you will be able to face sudden challenges related to resources and solve them with ease. 

Pro Tip: I always encourage my team members to use the Pomodoro Technique. This basically means they work with full focus for 25 minutes, and then take a break for 5 minutes. This technique prevents burnout and improves the overall productivity of my team. 

Stop wasting time manually scheduling your team’s resources. Find the best resource scheduling software for your needs with just one click!

Streamline productivity, save time, and discover clarity with ProofHub!

8. Monitoring progress and tracking roadblocks

This is the most time-consuming part of your daily work routine. There are a lot of technicalities related to this phrase. Excessive monitoring may cause resentment among your team members. And at the same time if you do not have real-time updates on the project progression, then you will not be able to forecast timely completion. 

Project management software come in as a savior at this point. With ProofHub you have complete control over your team. You can view task progression and workload on your team members. These details will help you to forecast resources and identify bottlenecks, and areas for improvement of your team. 

Further, you need not overburden yourself with responsibilities. Automation (in the form of automation of repetitive tasks) comes in handy and ensures that project progression is not hindered. 

9. Conducting regular meetings

The first thing before conducting meetings is that you should prepare an agenda. This will ensure that your team is aware of the purpose of the meeting. 

“ Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together” . – James Cash Penney

Regular team meetings depend on the project methodology you are working on. In Scrum methodology, there is a 15-minute meeting every day. This is the time for you to establish a status quo with your new team members. 

If you are using a project management tool, then it is not important to have daily meetings or long meetings. As long as your team members are on the same page, you can let them work independently. Modern workplaces have very short meetings that are mostly focused on the agenda that is shared well before the meeting starts.  

On a project management tool , your team can collaborate, discuss and share files in real time on the centralized platform, thereby eliminating the need for physical meetings.

10. Establishing a shared vision

Your vision should match the vision of the business. This is how you will be able to focus your efforts in the right direction. 

Then comes the part where you convey this to your team members. Having all your team members on the same page is necessary for motivating and inspiring the team. 

In order to establish a shared vision, you need to bring enthusiasm and positive vibes into your team. This helps your team to understand the workload and make all possible efforts to convert goals into missions. 

You are responsible for setting the appropriate tone for smoother sailing down the road. 

A vision fosters team cohesion, boosts creativity and motivation, and imbibes a purpose that helps in the successful and timely completion of the project .

11. Managing documentation and reports

As the project progresses, there will be hurdles, milestones, and other issues that may creep up. It is essential for you to maintain a record of time and budget. 

These documents and reports will come in handy for identifying areas where there is a need for improvement in future development programs. Also, these documents will help you to prepare reports for submission to clients. 

Further, these documents play two additional functions, in the overall project progression –

• To maintain a record of what has been done in the project and who has been involved in it.
• To ensure that the project satisfies all the project requirements.

Pro Tip: Not a biased one, but how can I not say this? ProofHub is your best friend for managing documents and reports! 

Depending on the size of the project, you will have to manage various documents and reports. ProofHub offers you visualizations, reports, and data dashboards to simplify this complex task.

Further, ProofHub acts as a centralized platform for storing all information related to the project such as – who is responsible for what, who reviewed them, the completion date of various tasks, etc.

No communication gaps, no more disorganized work, no more failed project in 2024!

12. Coming up with a plan B

A major responsibility comes with the fact that as a project manager, ‘you should always be on your toes’. Not literally! You will hurt yourself in the process. 

Preparedness for unforeseen events and circumstances is essential for ensuring that the project is risk-proof. 

In order to keep a cycle moving, you pedal continuously, even if the roads are bumpy. 

Similarly, for a project to have a steady progression, you need to keep putting in effort. As a project manager, you should be familiar with the basics of risk as well as change management. 

You must know how to:

• Arrange for extra resources.
• Manage time in difficult circumstances.
• Have an alternate plan to justify the expectations of the clients. 

13. Coordinating with the clients

Your responsibilities also include coordinating with the clients! Not as easy as this sounds, this can in some instances become challenging. 

You are primarily responsible for negotiating the requirements of the project with the clients and the stakeholders. It is necessary for you to bring clarity to the clients about how they should go about the project and everything that the team can do for them. 

As a PM, you become the bridge between your team and the clients. Any changes or feedback from the client should be conveyed to the individual team member in the most effective manner. 

Bear in mind, the following points for smooth coordination

• Share feedback often for continuous improvement of your team, as well as the performance of the whole project. 
• Appreciate positive feedback and celebrate accomplishments. 
• Avoid the blame game, especially in case of negative reviews.

What does a project manager do?

A project manager plays a crucial role in planning, executing, and closing projects. The role involves a wide range of responsibilities to ensure that a project is completed successfully, on time, and within budget.

It becomes the project manager’s responsibility to complete the company’s most important projects, and for this, you will have to polish your leadership skills , coordination abilities, and motivational skills continuously. 

The importance of a project manager

89% of organizations have a project management office. This shows the growing necessity of PMO in almost every business.

Let’s briefly discuss the importance of a project manager – 

1. Realistic planning  

A successful project depends hugely on planning and creating a strategy. Never underestimate the planning phase. Random estimates and approximate delivery dates are recipes for project failures .  

This is where you lay the foundation for the project. The smooth project progression and the timely completion of the project depend completely on effective and realistic planning. 

2. Set clear focus and objectives

Try letting your team members work on a project without proper objectives and focus . You will see them create a muddle out of the project!

As a project manager, it is your responsibility to set guidelines for the steady flow of the project. Right from start to end, you need to ensure that your team members stay on track in order to ensure timely completion of the project. This is like herding a sheepfold safely from the barn to the pasture.

3. Simplifying complex issues 

Your expertise as a project manager shows when you break down tasks into manageable chunks for your team. This helps them in setting priorities as well as milestones.

This will contribute towards the timely completion of the project. You will be able to handle complex issues with better agility when working on small tasks.

“I would like to take you back to 2017, the controversy around Google’s diversity memo. Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, and Alphabet Inc. handled this incident with transparency, inclusivity, and grace.

His skills as a seasoned manager were on display when he organized town hall meetings to address this issue. He did not focus on trying to silence the employee and ignore the issue but rather chose to openly discuss this issue portraying diversity and inclusion. He also reaffirmed the company’s commitment to a supportive and inclusive work environment.“

Although the example is of a CEO, while we are talking about project managers, my aim here was to portray how to act quickly and respond to critical issues effectively. These are the skills that define a successful project manager and sets them apart.

4. Quality control

A team can complete projects on time, but the essential component is ensuring quality. Completed projects may become useless if they do not fulfill quality requirements. 

A project manager ensures the quality of the project by defining standards. This lets the team members know what they are aiming for. 

5. Cost factor

As per a study , 9.9% of every dollar is squandered due to poor project performance. A project manager helps in saving a lot of money for the organization. 

As a skilled project manager, you should be able to improve efficiency, mitigate risks and optimize resource utilization. All these factors help in combating the waste of resources and help in the growth of the organization.

What qualifications do you need to be a project manager?

Let’s now talk about the point of qualifying to become a project manager. 

If you believe you have the capabilities of being a project manager, you need to authenticate them in the form of certificates or experience. 

Getting a (PMP)® certification is one of the key requirements for becoming a project manager. Project managers having this certificate have an elite identity. They showcase leadership and expertise in working. 

Project Management Professional (PMP)®

This certification is valid across the globe. However, to get this certificate you need commitment and perseverance. Along with real-world project management experience, the basic requirement to qualify for this certification includes 

👉A four-year degree 

👉36 months of experience leading projects in the past eight years

👉35 hours of project management education/training or CAPM® certification

Or in case you have a High school diploma, then you will require

👉60 months of experience leading projects in the past eight years

Project Management Institute (PMI) is the apex body that has the ultimate control over issuing the (PMP)® certification. 

So, fellow project managers, we’ve journeyed through the 13 key roles and responsibilities that define our craft. From captains of the ship to expert jugglers, we’ve explored the diverse landscape of project management.

Now, you might wonder, “ Can I embody all these roles? Can I excel in each responsibility?” Absolutely! No project manager starts as a master of all trades. It’s a continuous learning process, filled with triumphs, setbacks, and “aha” moments.

Embracing these roles isn’t about rigid checklists. It’s about adapting and evolving as each project unfolds. It’s about harnessing collaboration, communication, and innovation to guide our teams to success.

Cheers to the adventurous road ahead!

What are the two types of project managers?

The two types of project managers are traditional project managers, who use pre-existing structured methodologies, and agile project managers, who use adaptive and iterative approaches.

What skills are required to be an effective project manager?

Effective project managers require skills such as leadership, organization, communication, problem-solving, adaptability, and client management skills to successfully plan, execute, and complete projects within the set time and budget.

What are the main challenges faced by project managers?

The main challenges faced by project managers include managing scope creep, understanding priorities, communication issues, resource utilization, and meeting project deadlines.

How does a project manager plan and organize projects?

A project manager plans and organizes projects by defining project objectives, setting timelines, allocating resources, identifying priorities, setting milestones, and developing an efficient management plan.

What is the difference between a project manager and a project team member?

A project manager is responsible for the execution and the overall project, while a project team member is an individual contributing to specific tasks or activities within the project.

What tools and software are commonly used by project managers?

Project managers commonly use project management software or tools for simplifying the overall project progression. The most preferred tools include ProofHub, Asana, Microsoft Project, and so on.

How does a project manager track and measure project progress?

A project manager tracks and measures project progress by using key performance indicators (KPIs), milestones, regular updates, progress or analysis reports, and by using project management software.

What are the qualities of a successful project manager?

Effective communication, strong leadership, organizational skills, adaptability, problem-solving abilities, risk analysis, client management, and the ability to motivate and empower team members.

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Six essential elements of the project discovery phase

Embarking on a new software development project is similar to setting sail on uncharted waters. While the destination might be clear, the journey itself can be fraught with unexpected challenges and detours. To pilot your software development successfully, a thorough project discovery phase is a top priority. This initial step lays the groundwork for the project’s success by ensuring that all stakeholders are aligned, potential risks are identified, and resources are efficiently allocated. But what exactly constitutes a robust project discovery phase? There are six essential elements that form the backbone of this critical process:

1. Stakeholder identification and engagement

Identifying stakeholders is the first step in the project discovery phase. They range from internal team members and executives to external clients and end-users. Understanding their expectations, needs, and concerns is paramount for the project’s success.  

Learn more about the discovery phase: https://www.altamira.ai/discovery-stage/    

However, stakeholder identification goes beyond merely creating a list of names. It involves actively engaging these individuals in meaningful conversations to ensure their voices are heard, and their insights are integrated into the project plan.  

To achieve this, conducting interviews, surveys, and workshops can provide valuable insights into stakeholder perspectives, enabling the project team to gather comprehensive input.  

2. Defining clear objectives and goals

Clearly defining the project’s objectives and goals is the next step during the discovery phase. Vague or ambiguous goals can lead to project failure, where the project’s direction becomes uncertain, and resources are misaligned. To avoid this, collaborate with stakeholders and establish clear, measurable objectives everyone agrees upon.  

Use frameworks like SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals to articulate these objectives precisely.   

Well-defined goals serve multiple purposes:  

• Provide a shared understanding of the project’s purpose and desired outcomes among all stakeholders, minimising misalignment and potential conflicts. 
• Enable the project team to develop a comprehensive project plan and allocate resources effectively to achieve those goals. 
• Establish a framework for tracking progress and making data-driven decisions throughout the project’s lifecycle. 
• Provide a basis for evaluating the project’s success and identifying areas for improvement in future endeavours. 

By investing time and effort in clearly defining objectives during the discovery phase, organisations can significantly increase the likelihood of delivering successful projects that meet stakeholder expectations and achieve the desired outcomes.  

3. Comprehensive requirement gathering

Without a detailed understanding of what is needed, the project can quickly go off course, leading to missed expectations, scope creep, and potential failure.  

This process involves eliciting requirements from stakeholders, analysing these needs, and documenting them in a structured and comprehensive manner. Various techniques can be employed to ensure all requirements are captured, such as:  

• User stories: Brief descriptions of a feature or functionality from the perspective of the end-user, helping to align the project with user needs. 
• Use cases: Detailed scenarios that outline the steps and interactions required to achieve a specific goal or objective. 
• Requirement workshops: Collaborative sessions involving stakeholders to discuss, refine, and prioritise requirements. 

By investing time and effort in thorough requirements gathering during the discovery phase, project teams can significantly increase their chances of success, as they will have a clear roadmap to guide their efforts and ensure alignment with stakeholder expectations.  

4. Risk assessment and mitigation planning

Every project carries inherent risks that can derail its progress or hinder its success. The discovery phase presents a perfect opportunity to identify potential risks proactively and develop strategies to mitigate them. By asking the question, “What could go wrong?” early on, project teams can pre-empt many issues that might arise later in the project lifecycle.  

Risk assessment involves a systematic process of identifying potential risks, analysing their potential impact and likelihood of occurrence, and developing mitigation plans to address them. This proactive approach to risk management can save considerable time, resources, and headaches down the line.  

Several tools and techniques can be employed during the risk assessment process, such as:  

• SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis: This framework helps identify internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats that could impact the project. 
• Risk Matrices: These visual tools plot risks based on their likelihood and potential impact, helping to prioritise and focus on the most critical risks. 
• Risk Workshops: Collaborative sessions involving stakeholders to identify, discuss, and prioritise potential risks and develop appropriate mitigation strategies. 

By thoroughly assessing risks during the discovery phase, project teams can develop contingency plans, allocate resources for risk mitigation, and establish monitoring mechanisms to track and respond to emerging risks effectively.   

5. Resource allocation and budgeting

Ensuring adequate resources are available is a critical aspect of the project discovery phase. This involves identifying and allocating the necessary resources—whether human, financial, or technological—to successfully bring the project to fruition.  

The resource allocation process should address the following key aspects:  

• Human Resources: Identify the specific roles, skill sets, and the number of personnel required throughout the project’s lifecycle, considering potential fluctuations in resource needs at different stages. 
• Financial Resources: Develop a comprehensive project budget for all anticipated costs, including personnel, equipment, software, infrastructure, and potential contingencies. 
• Technological Resources: Assess the hardware, software, and infrastructure requirements necessary to support the project’s objectives, including any specialised tools or platforms. 
• Availability and Timing: Ensure that the identified resources (human, financial, and technological) are available when needed, aligning with the project’s timeline and milestones. 

By thoroughly addressing resource allocation and budgeting during the discovery phase, organisations can avoid unpleasant surprises, ensure the project’s financial health, and increase the likelihood of success. An accurate budget and resource plan serve as a solid foundation for effective project execution and stakeholder confidence.  

6. Timeline and Milestone Planning

How long will the project take? Your project definitely needs a detailed timeline with clearly defined milestones so you can track progress and ensure its timely completion. The discovery phase should include the development of a project schedule that outlines key tasks, deadlines, and dependencies.  

Using tools like Gantt charts and project management software can help visualise the project timeline and make adjustments as necessary. Setting realistic milestones allows for regular progress checks and helps keep the project team focused and motivated.  

The project discovery phase is much more than a preliminary step; it is the foundation upon which the entire project is built. By focusing on stakeholder engagement, defining clear objectives, gathering comprehensive requirements, assessing risks, allocating resources wisely, and planning a detailed timeline, you set the stage for a successful project.   

Are you ready to embark on this journey with confidence? The efficiency of your discovery phase can make all the difference between a project that merely reaches its destination and one that exceeds all expectations.  

Featured image credit: Ussama Azam/Unsplash

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