We currently live in a world that is flooded with many different scenarios and projects in our daily working life. Ultimately, these variables affect us so much that productivity suffers on multiple levels. We simply cannot wrap our heads around such complications, even if we have a proper strategy or an effective mindset leader who can help us get through that ordeal.
In this brief article, we will help you study some effective tools and techniques that can be used in various areas of organizational culture that make it easier for you to create an efficient strategy and successfully deliver a first-class project.
Project Management Techniques
Below are some of the most noteworthy project management techniques that are commonly used in the industry at this moment.
- Classic technique
The classic technique is a great procedure that includes a proper plan to cover all the upcoming work activities, the tasks to be done and what should be the application chain that defines the task to be done first, allocating the right resources and tasks according to their importance, giving and receiving appropriate feedback from the team which helps in team building as well as monitoring the quality of work done and how deadlines are met by the team.
- Waterfall technique
The waterfall technique is also a traditional project management tool because it builds on the classic approach mentioned above and takes it to a whole new level.
As the title suggests, Waterfall technology relies on your project management tasks to be handled in a proper sequential where the next task is executed and performed well when the previous task is completed. Just like a waterfall, tasks in this form flow into the desired direction smoothly but only if they are completed in a sequential fashion.
- Agile Project Management
Agile Project Management is the most famous and most outstanding project management technique in its application, because it deals with projects in a completely different way from other traditional procedures.
The Agile approach is basically squashing the steps of a big project into shorter sprints that help with a detailed analysis of the entire process during the development phase. This detailed analysis helps in effective planning and adaptation according to the needs and changes required in the project as it takes proper shape.
All of these activities lead to strong continual improvement during the development phase, and also teams become more organized, collaborative and tend to achieve the best possible results.
Agile frameworks usually include different techniques like Scrum, Kanban, FDD, DSDM, etc.
- Rational Unified Process (RUP)
RUP is an amazing framework that has been specifically designed for the software market where the software development teams and the projects they are working on can benefit from this framework and achieve the best possible results.
A rational Unified process describes the implementation of a sequential or iterative development process like the Waterfall technology, but with little change as the feedback collected to improve the project in all future iterations and modifications, is taken from direct product users.
- Program Evaluation and Review Technique
The program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) is a great software management technique that is widely used in many different fields and industries. The way this technique works is that it facilitates the project with quite complex and amazingly detailed blueprint scenarios that help the development team correctly visualize the entire process and its end results on PERT charts.
The main advantage of this technique is that it performs an effective analysis of the tasks that are performed within the project. This helps the team keep track of all their development activities and fix their weaknesses.
This technology was originally designed by the US Navy during the Cold War era which helped them to increase the efficiency of the work activities conducted in developing new technologies.
- Critical Path Technique
The critical path technique is an amazing procedure that is used for various projects and tasks to schedule and plan work activities, according to the requirements mentioned in the project brief. This technique is also associated with the program evaluation and review technique method mentioned above.
This is a great technique that is used to detect and confirm the longest path of tasks to be performed. This means that the activities that are supposed to occur on a particular path are of such critical importance that the tasks can be performed individually and not in a sequential.
This critical significance that the technique discovers is useful because then the development teams can control the project by playing head-to-head and completing critical tasks first. This saves them valuable time and they can complete the project with relative ease, once the most important work is done.
- Critical Chain Technique
The Critical Chain Technique is an incredible derivation from the PERT and Critical Path Project Management methodologies. It has a more relaxed approach in terms of task orders and scheduling and suggests that there should be more flexibility while allocating resources to different tasks and more attention to analyzing how team time is spent on different project activities.
The CCT (Critical Chain Technique) suggests that the work should be done on the basis of prioritization and also that the dependencies related to the project should be properly analyzed while the time spent on different activities should be optimized more carefully.
- Extreme Project Management (XPM)
Extreme Project Management has a more loose and optimistic approach when it comes to planning a project. It insists that the approach should be open-ended, and there should be less formality in the company culture, and management behavior should not be strict and inevitable.
Project Management Tools
Here is a list of tools that you need to use during the project management.
- Organizing Workflow & Planning
The most important part and the actual start of any project is the planning phase which is basically the core of the whole process. This step defines who the project will be implemented and how it will be shaped so that the required quality can be ensured and achieved in the future.
Large companies tend to use end-to-end solutions like MS Project that are designed for larger teams. But for smaller teams, it’s different. There are a lot of different alternatives on the market that you can equip yourself with that don’t have all the fancy features of those comprehensive solutions, but still get the job done with their planning and roadmap features, which are useful for visualizing the future project progress.
- Communication
Since it is a key factor in almost all techniques and methodologies not only in the context of project management but also in other areas of the market, communication within the project team must be frequent and effective. You can use emails for all formal stuff, but you can also use apps like Skype and Slack to have impromptu conversations between team members which will increase team collaboration which leads to positive growth in productivity.
- Scheduling and Time Management
Money is the main factor in developing a project or anything really. And while on some projects you are allowed to spend more resources and time without thinking, in others you have to be careful in which you spend the revenue.
This is because of the limited resources and time the project has from the start and also because you don’t have to spend valuable resources on teams and equipment that may not be available even when you envision the work to be done. Therefore, you should always schedule appointments and clarify/confirm dates with all team members before spending all revenue in an empty room full of resources but no manpower.
Optimus Institute offers you Project Manager Program that designed for anyone who wishes to start his career as a project manager, or an existing project managers to enrich their knowledge and practice.
PMP from Optimus provides you with all knowledge needed to successfully manage any project, understanding the importance of managing information and implications of different business risks.
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