Every project manager knows how much planning and governing goes into every single project they’re working on. And if you’re one – we know you’re constantly on the lookout for tools that can simplify the entire process and help you coordinate multiple projects at the same time, while catering to your clients and making sure your team isn’t overwhelmed.
You’re in luck, because we’ll talk about one of the easiest tools you can use, and it’s the employee time tracking app. Join us as we go through project life cycles and explain how time tracking tools fit into each one.
Project Initiation
The project initiation phase usually consists of broad and general decision making, like are you going to take the project, who will work on it, and what are the results. But, since this phase is so broad you might think that there’s no way a time tracker could help out. Well, you’d be wrong.
However, this is a benefit that you’ll start seeing only after you’ve used your employee time tracking app on about a dozen of projects because you’ll need to take a deep dive into the project data. The information you should focus on is the information that will help you do a feasibility study.
In other words, it’ll help you figure out if you can complete the project within the proposed budget and time frame. You can easily check how long the project (and the tasks within) took, and what were the budgets for the projects similar to the incoming one. This will help you negotiate a deadline extension, or make a decision on whether to take the specific project.
Project Planning
This is where the employee time tracking app can help out on more levels. In this phase, you’re getting into more detail. Some of the things you’re figuring out in this phase include: breaking up the project into tasks, figuring out who will handle which task, what are the deliverables, potential risk, and what should be the final timeline.
The historical data comes in handy here because you can reference previous similar tasks to determine tangible deadlines. On the other hand, current data will help you see which of your employees are currently busy. You can see who’s assigned to which project, how many tasks they have, what’s the scope and the progress on them. You’ll use this information to assign tasks to workers who aren’t currently overburdened.
Project Execution
During the execution phase, the employee time tracking app will be your additional set of eyes. You’ll keep track of the whole operation, making sure the project is progressing as planned without having to interrupt your team members to ask for updates.
At the same time, you’ll be able to detect potential issues early on, so you can change your strategy and stay on schedule despite the roadblocks.
Project Closure
When your project comes to an end, you’re gathering deliverables, creating reports for the client, and sending that final invoice. In this phase, a time tracker will give you detailed productivity and time-related data you can share with your client, to demonstrate your team’s hard work.
Thanks to these reports, you’ll be able to avoid potential misunderstandings or payment-related issues.
And, once you’re done with the client for now – you can go back, review employees’ performance, and see how each person on your team can improve in the future.
Wrapping Up
If you haven’t had a chance to work with an employee time tracking app previously, it might seem strange that it can be of such help during each phase of the project. However, after a few months of using it, you’ll see why we believe that it’s an unavoidable part of every project manager’s toolbox.
The post How Employee Time Tracking App Fits Into Your Project Life Cycle appeared first on Financial Market Brief.
