Measures to improve project planning

Project planning balances time and resources against the project to determine the margin. A good project planner will be able to define the skill sets needed for a project as well as determine the milestones for each project.

From creation of the project definition document to the audit and implementation of your team’s skill sets, there is a proper method to planning a project and getting it completed. Once you improve your project planning, you can significantly increase your profits.

Improves the Project Estimation Process

Upfront planning and estimation are two of most crucial metrics that influence the final outcome of a project. Once you take the time to properly plan your projects and execute on that plan, it will be easier to come up with project estimations in the future.

Being able to correctly estimate how long a project will take saves you from spending too much on unforeseen events, having to hire out at the last minute or struggling to come up with resources that aren’t available. It has a direct impact on your finances because you are able to give your client a better quote estimate and ensure you’re not undercharging for each project.

You Will Gain a Better Understanding of Your Resource Capability

Resource Capability Planning goes along hand in hand with project management. When you improve your project planning, you can analyse the impact of delivering projects and services on resource capability in real time, thus allowing you to better manage customer expectations. It helps you reduce costs because you know at any given time which resources you have available and which ones will need to be replaced or invested in.

Plan Projects in a Consistent Manner

Improved project planning will also lead to consistency across the board, leading to an at-a-glance overview of tasks, activities, roles, responsibilities, and needed deliverable. It helps minimize the risk of incurring extra cost by ensuring projects are not only delivered on time but that they stay on budget too.

Optimizes Your Resource Usage

As mentioned before, resource planning goes along hand in hand with project planning. When you plan your projects correctly, you will be able to assess the availability of specific resources, schedule tasks accordingly and account for unavailable resources by using alternative approach, such as a trade off or re-prioritizing tasks.

Gain Actual Visibility in the Status of Deliverable

Project deliverable represent the quantifiable goods or services produced as the result of the completed project. Whatever the deliverable may be in your specific case, effective project management will allow your superiors to gain actual real time visibility into the status of each deliverable which in turn will help them assess how the company will profit from each project.

Improve Budgeting/Cost Control

Another benefit of improved project management is the ability to improve your budgeting and cost control at the same time. After an established routine, you will be able to create project budgets at the planning stage and avoid going over budget. You will be able to monitor the allotted budget in terms of planned vs actual which will help create future predictions with more accuracy.

Facilitate Team Collaboration

Using planner software provides a central place where your team can communicate and work in synergy to ensure project is completed successfully. They can share individual task accomplishments as well as clarify whether their assigned projects are waiting on someone else before they can be completed. There is no need for complicated email chains which can often get lost.

In addition to that, the communication channel provided by such software can also be used to brainstorm tactics and solve problems on the spot.

Minimize and Reduce Project Risks and Failures

In line with the tip above, a good project planning tool will allow you to monitor project risks in a central location as well as implement pro-active measures to mitigate or completely eliminate the risk. This leads to more projects being completed on time and on budget at the same time.

Gain a Real-Time picture of Project Progress

Tracking project progress is essential for ensuring the deadline and the budget of the project is met. Using the software to track how your project is doing at each stage will provide you with a repeatable method of capturing project progress as well as a set of reporting tools that you can use to show your executives the status of any project.

Your employees will be able to update the status of your task and mark the completed percentage and as the manager you can carry out a full review and submit the report when and as needed. In a nutshell, project planning software gives your business a simple but powerful tool that will ensure all the key persons have actionable real time overview of project status.

Measure Productivity

If you’re still using spreadsheets to keep track of your employee’s time sheets and expenses, now is a great time to change that. Those two metrics are key to determining project success but they can often be misplaced or filled out incorrectly.

Project planning software eliminates the risk of inconsistencies because it keeps everyone accountable and allows you to track how your employees are spending their time. You can then improve cash flow by fully automating the project time billing.

Improve Customer Satisfaction and Response Time

For those projects that depend on customer feedback or them delivering certain assets, project management tool is the saving grace. You can respond to customer issues in a timelier manner as well as assign deadlines to clients for times that they need to deliver an asset that is crucial for project completion. This leads to an increased volume of happy clients and customers which leads to more profits down the line.

Reduce Billing Errors

If you opt for block metric planning combined with planning software, you will be able to reduce billing errors because you will be able to have an accurate overview of time spent on any given task. You will also be able to automate the billing of your products and services which help you retain your cash flow and eliminate the need for refunds.

Improve Reporting and Analytics

Using a spreadsheet may seem like a great idea to manage your projects but it comes with one fatal flaw: there is no way to produce accurate reports that you can present to executives or clients. Project management software will have all the tools needed to produce reports on employee performance, project costs, progress, profitability, resource utilization, budget management, and more. Accurate reports will improve your company’s image leading to customer satisfaction and more work for you in the future.

Final Thoughts:

The above are just some of the ways proper project planning can help you increase profits. Stop wasting your business’s resources and invest in a project planning tool today.

Do share your thoughts about these measures to improve project and how helpful it is in our comment section below.

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