Small projects usually refer to projects with a workload of three to ten people. Such projects are generally laissez-faire with little management and usually have the characteristics of little investment, few staff, tight time and unclear needs.
For example, small project management tools can save a lot of time and avoid wasting resources and improve project efficiency.
Here are some common problems encountered by small project teams and how project management tools can help solve them.
Due to limited resources, small project teams rarely have a dedicated project manager to control the project schedule, so that formal project management methods are often ignored.
On the other hand, due to the low direct communication cost of small projects, excessive project management processes make the project execution process more tedious.
Because of this, most small project teams encounter the following problems during project management:
1. Lagging behind in project quality and schedule
In the process of small project execution, there is a lack of unified project workflow, do not know what to do first, do not have a detailed plan, often wait for things to happen to arrange the corresponding work, resulting in project delay, project defects.
2. There are obstacles in information flow
In the management of most small projects, several people are in charge of their own affairs, without a unified platform for cooperation and exchange to communicate and negotiate with each other and record the results, resulting in the formation of information islands.
3. Insufficient control of project schedule
There is no reasonable progress plan for the overall progress of the project, no timely assignment of work tasks for each member, and no real-time tracking of the actual progress of the project, resulting in the incoherent progress of the project.
4. Project documents are not centralized
Not paying attention to the collation of project documents, not managing the project process well, not accumulating project experience, and not conducive to future work handover.
Therefore, it is urgent for small projects to introduce moderate normative management. This paper gives some effective solutions to the core management problems in the process of small project execution.
01. Demand management
For any type of project, demand stage is the most important stage, demand management is the top priority of the whole project management.
Requirements management usually includes two major aspects: requirements collection and analysis and requirements change management.
First, for requirements gathering and analysis, unclear requirements are the biggest source of risk.
In the demand analysis stage, it is necessary to spend more time, standing in the customer’s position to consider the problem, to help users to clarify the fuzzy requirements, to clarify the simple requirements, and to logical and orderly the confused requirements.
Second, no project can afford frequent requirements changes and requirements increases.
In addition to the need to refine requirements as much as possible during the requirements gathering phase, freeze requirements as much as possible during the appropriate phase.
Otherwise, the mines will be laid for serious project delays and serious overruns. In the later stages of requirement refinement, an agreement must be reached with the customer on how to pay for a freeze in demand and for later increases in demand.
02. Schedule management
Project schedule management mainly focuses on the following aspects: task allocation, human resources allocation, time allocation and project schedule coordination; Task decomposition should be reasonable and parallel as far as possible. The project schedule control should be as detailed as possible, and the review should be strict in the actual implementation process; Be fully prepared for the parts of the project that are not easy to control, such as technical difficulties and time delays from customers; Allow adequate time for testing, defect fixing, and anticipated requirement changes.
03. Risk management
Losing the effective management of project risk is one of the main reasons leading to project failure.
Even for small projects, identify project risks at the beginning of the project and assess the top risks (top 5 or 10) as the focus of observation and tracking;
In the process of project progress, we should pay attention to the emerging risks and prepare countermeasures in advance.
04. Team management
For project team management, it is necessary to make the division of labor clear and apply according to people.
According to the level of team members, reasonable workload allocation, and pay attention to the internal communication structure of the team, to avoid “mutual equality” and “misunderstanding”.
Try to keep everyone’s workload as high as possible, and try to keep the team as stable as possible after the project starts to avoid the chaos of collaboration caused by staff changes.
05. Document management
For small projects, there must be documentation requirements, otherwise it will be difficult to accumulate experience later; Second, the requirements for documentation should be moderate, that is, sufficient.
Document management in order to facilitate the follow-up work for the goal, do not do too tedious requirements, should not put a lot of energy into too tedious document preparation. In addition, attention should be paid to document versioning.
Choosing the right small project management tool is key to implementing these solutions quickly and easily.
Small projects have relatively simple requirements for software functions and lack professional software maintenance personnel. Therefore, for small project managers, easy-to-use project management software that fits the needs is the best choice.
Here we recommend 8MSaaS project management software with more than ten years of market practice experience.
CORNERSTONE ADAPTS to the actual needs of small projects and not only supports dynamic requirements management, but also can be flexibly expanded to meet the management needs of traditional project monitoring (such as time management, cost management).
The system can promote the overall standardized operation of the project, so that all work within the project management organization orderly coordination.
CORNERSTONE Project Management Software Strengths:
1- Clear the priorities of the project plan, assign the activity leader and track the project progress in real time;
2- Effective resource management skills and resource allocation, so that you can find the right project resources at any time;
3- Real-time tracking and control of project cost budget, capital plan, etc., so that you can dynamically grasp the cost;
4- Unified collaborative office platform, where all members can assign tasks and communicate with each other;
5- Provide powerful mechanisms to help you manage problems, track problems and solve problems systematically;
6- Provide flexible management of mobile App, realize todo processing, message viewing, data analysis, etc.
To sum up, small project management must combine its own characteristics and goals, and choose the project management software suitable for itself is the best.
Reasonable and effective use of project management software, not only can let us work orderly, but also to the maximum extent to ensure the achievement of project objectives. I recommend CORNERSTONE, which provides modules for task/requirements/test management, iteration planning, defect tracking, report statistics, team collaboration, wikis, file sharing, and calendars and is now free for teams of 20 or less.
