Theres a reason why project managers brood skepticism when you tell them you expect every step of your original project plan to be completed on time and within budget.
Even if you follow all of the essential project management best practices, theres still the potential of something going off track. Projects are tough to finish and the PMI Pulse of the Profession survey highlights this challenge.
The surveys respondents said roughly 43% of their completed projects did not stay within their original budget and 48% missed the initial deadline. To keep projects from going rogue, you’ve got to get a lot of things right.
Dont freak out and think every project is doomed. You have to stay updated and learn from others to better manage your projects in the future and keep them within budget.
To help new and experienced PMs, weve put together a list of 10 project management best practices you have to know to succeed. No matter where you are in your project, find the best practices you need to successfully launch.
IT project management involves leading technology initiatives to successful completion. With the rapid pace of change in the tech industry IT project managers need to stay on top of the latest best practices.
In this article, we’ll explore 12 key best practices that can help IT project managers deliver projects on time, within budget, and with maximum business impact.
Kick Off Projects With Clear Goals and Alignment
Before diving into execution, it’s important to align all stakeholders on the project vision, goals, scope, roles and responsibilities. This is best done through an in-person project kickoff meeting.
Key steps in the kickoff include:
- Reviewing business objectives and how the project will impact them
- Defining the project scope and out-of-scope items
- Assigning roles for project team members and stakeholders
- Establishing communication norms and cadence of status updates
- Building rapport between team members and external stakeholders
Taking the time for proper project initiation and team alignment sets the stage for smooth execution down the road.
Break Down Work Into Smaller Pieces
IT projects often involve large, complex initiatives like software development, infrastructure upgrades and enterprise system implementations.
It’s easy for the project team to get overwhelmed by the sheer scope of work required. That’s why it’s critical to divide the work into smaller, more manageable segments.
Agile methodologies like Scrum do this by organizing work into short 1-4 week sprints. But even traditional waterfall projects can benefit from decomposing work into phases and milestones.
The project manager should facilitate this work breakdown process and make sure there is clarity within the team on priorities and dependencies between work items.
Assign Owners to Every Task
Bigger projects involve many different team members with specialized skills. Make sure every task has a single owner responsible for completing it.
This principle of “single-piece flow” is borrowed from lean manufacturing. When accountabilities are unclear, things slip through the cracks leading to delays, friction and rework.
The project plan should clearly indicate owners for each task. Collaboration and oversight is still required between tasks, but having single-point accountability per task brings focus and efficiency.
Empower Team Members to Make Decisions
As Henry Ford once said, “If you need a decision made, ask someone. If you want something done, ask everyone.”
While the project manager provides guidance and oversight, empower team members to make decisions themselves whenever possible. This increases engagement, learning and ownership over project outcomes.
Clarify which types of decisions can be made independently by team members versus those that require the project manager’s input. Then give team members the space to self-organize their work.
Conduct Daily Standup Meetings
Short daily standup meetings are a simple way to improve project coordination and transparency. Each team member provides a quick update on:
- What they worked on yesterday
- What they plan to work on today
- Any blocking issues or risks
These standups sync up the team and surface obstacles early before they turn into bigger problems. Keep standups focused and under 15 minutes. Issues that require deeper discussion can be covered offline after the standup.
Consider using project management software or tools like Slack for standups with remote teams.
Prioritize Regular 1:1s
While team standups are great for daily coordination, regularly scheduled 1:1 meetings let project managers have more meaningful discussions with individual team members.
Use 1:1s to check on progress, unblock issues, provide developmental feedback and strengthen interpersonal relationships. These dedicated touchpoints lead to more engaged team members.
A simple framework for 1:1 meetings:
- First 5 minutes: Personal check-in
- Next 25 minutes: Discuss work – projects, issues etc.
- Last 5 minutes: Share feedback, appreciation
Actively Manage Risks and Dependencies
Every project has risks and dependencies that can derail timelines if unmanaged. Maintain a risk register to track identified risks, their likelihood/impact, mitigation plans and owners. Review this regularly with the team.
Stay on top of external dependencies that could potentially delay project tasks. Find ways to reduce dependencies whenever possible. Manage unavoidable dependencies proactively through sync-ups with external parties.
Focusing on risks and dependencies helps project managers anticipate potential schedule deviations and take preventive action.
Maintain a Centralized Knowledge Base
IT projects generate tons of information – requirements, design documents, status reports, meeting notes, issues and other data. Retaining project knowledge becomes harder as team size increases.
Using a centralized system to store, organize and share project information makes knowledge transfer seamless. Sharepoint, Confluence, Notion and Smartsheet are popular platforms.
The project manager should index key project documents, maintain version control and set permissions for easy discoverability and access.
Automate Repetitive Processes
Many administrative aspects of project management – status reporting, resource allocation, budget tracking etc. involve repetitive manual work. Identify such efforts that can be automated using workflow tools.
For example, automatically collate status updates from multiple sources into a project dashboard. Or use a workflow bot that reminds team members about incomplete tasks.
Automating repetitive tasks saves time for high-value work like risk mitigation and team mentoring. Even simple rules-based automation can significantly boost team productivity.
Track Project Performance Metrics
“What gets measured gets managed.” Key project performance metrics like budget utilization, schedule adherence, quality and scope creep must be monitored continuously.
Set up dashboards, reports and alerts to track metrics at a project and task level. Analyze trends, diagnose issues through data and course-correct.
Important IT project metrics include:
- Schedule performance – Planned vs actual % task completion
- Budget performance – Planned vs actual cost
- Scope creep – % increase in original scope
- Quality – Defect rates or system uptime
Conduct Retrospective Meetings
Retrospectives provide opportunities for the team to reflect on what’s working well and what can be improved. Have retrospective discussions at project milestones and at completion.
Gather honest feedback from the team on:
- Team dynamics – communication, collaboration
- Processes – requirements, testing, risk management
- Tools and technologies – what helped, what hindered
Distill learnings into concrete actions to enhance performance on future projects. Continuously improving project execution and teamwork is key.
Celebrate Small Wins
The long, grinding nature of big projects can be demoralizing for teams. That’s why it’s important to celebrate small wins along the way.
Examples of small wins could include completing a milestone, fixing a major bug or getting an important sign-off. Recognition from the project manager and teammates goes a long way.
Celebrating small wins breaks up the monotony and gives teams motivation to power through. It also contributes to a culture of appreciation and positivity.
Continuously Uplevel Your Own Skills
Leading complex IT initiatives requires technical know-how, people skills and business acumen. Project managers should dedicate time to build skills across these areas.
- Take courses to stay updated on the latest project management and leadership best practices
- Get certified in approaches like Agile, Lean and DevOps
- Rotate across different types of IT projects to expand your experience
Great project managers are lifelong learners. Develop a growth mindset and invest in your own learning. It will compound and you’ll become an even better project leader over time.
Key Takeaways
Here are some key takeaways on IT project management best practices:
- Conduct thorough project initiation with all stakeholders
- Break down work into small, manageable pieces
- Promote clarity of task ownership within teams
- Empower team members to make decisions themselves
- Hold daily standups and regular 1:1s
- Actively manage risks and dependencies
- Automate repetitive tasks for efficiency
- Track and analyze key performance metrics
- Continuously improve processes through retrospectives
- Celebrate small wins, not just major milestones
- Keep growing your project management skills
While every project and team is unique, putting these best practices into action will go a long way in delivering successful IT initiatives. Feel free to modify and customize them based on your own organizational context.
Establish clear and consistent communication
Regular communication is a foundational best practice for successful project managers. Whether its your internal team, stakeholders, or your clients, communication has to work as a two-way street.
The Teamwork.com guide 5 tips for fostering collaboration with your clients explains the power of communication the best:
And for your internal communications, make sure you keep everything in one centralized space. This limits the confusion of where to go to get information, handoff documents, or get updates on the overall progress.
Instant messaging chat software makes life a lot easier when creating project spaces. This is especially true when you can integrate it into your project management software.
Having access to direct chat or video chat, with one member or your whole team, makes for faster problem solving and decision making. Whatever platform you use, its important to establish and maintain clear communication channels for all stakeholders to stay informed.
And when it comes to camaraderie and a shared sense of purpose, there’s no substitute for face-to-face communications – even if those faces might be a little pixelated for the foreseeable future. Set up regular project meetings (in person or via video calls) to review progress, boost transparency, and enhance accountability.
Maintain a schedule and cadence
This project management best practice is as much about taking care of your team as it is about hitting your deadlines. Your goal is to avoid overloading your team’s workload while still making consistent progress.
Set a schedule that’s realistic and achievable—and can get the project done on time.
To do that, work backward from the estimated completion date to create your project schedule. What are the milestones you need to achieve? What tasks? When do they each need to be completed to avoid delays?
Be careful, here. Don’t just look at dates on the calendar. Look at your team’s availability, budget, and resource requirements.
Your initial schedule will be based on assumptions, past experience, and estimations. Thats okay. But using a tool like Teamwork.coms Project Schedule View gives you the insight to make better scheduling decisions.
Teamwork.com makes it simple to get an overview of each individuals allocated workload. There you can see allocated hours, budgets, and task details or milestones to get a better understanding of what your team can handle.
Project Management Best Practices | TeamGantt
What are the best practices in project management?
One broad area of best practices in project management might be the most important: building good teams. Without good teams, projects are very likely to fail. Certifications can be important, including the well-regarded Project Management Professional certification from the Project Management Institute.
Are the nine elements of project management effective in project management training?
The Project Management “Nine Elements” Checklist was used to assess the health of an example project. In summary, it can be concluded that the Nine Elements of project management are effective in project management training and have earned an important place among the myriad of benchmarked practices and maturity models.
Are project management best practices obsolete?
Sensible project managers are looking out for lessons learned throughout the entire project.” Here are several past best practices that experts say are less important — or are obsolete — as projects and project management have changed. Many in-person meetings, with team members and with clients, are unnecessary and wasteful.
What is the best project management method?
Project managers have mixed and matched to come up with new hybrid approaches, such as Lean Six Sigma or Scrumban (Scrum and Kanban). The best project management method for you will depend on your project, team, organization, and tools.
