samedi 9 novembre 2013

5 Tips for Managing Resources

A lire sur:  ProjectManager.com

One of the biggest challenges for a Project Manager, especially on large, virtual or distributed teams is keeping on top of what your team members are doing day-to-day. So read this newsletter to learn...
You can make things easier by following these 5 tips to manage your project team.
#1: Meet regularly
Even if your team is split across many locations you can still meet up regularly. Use collaboration tools, video conferencing or plain old phone calls. However you do it, make it as easy as possible for everyone to join, taking into account time zone differences and the flexible working arrangements of team members.
Meeting regularly will help the individual team members come together as a project team and also help you keep on top of who is doing what.
#2: Use resource reporting
Resource reports can show you when one team member is overloaded with project work. They can also show you who has time available to take on more tasks! These resource planning tools will help you keep track of how much work has been allocated to each team member, their availability and capacity to do any other work.
It will easily calculate and display the variance between these so that you can see at a glance what changes you need to make to ensure your team can complete all the project tasks required without struggling with the weight of too many assignments.
#3: Use time sheets
Time sheets help you record progress in real-time and allow each team member to demonstrate what they have been up to that week. This gives you really valuable information about how quickly they're working and completing their tasks, which can help you reschedule activities in case of delays. After all, not everyone works at the same pace so it is worth tracking time to see how accurate your project estimates have been and what, if anything, needs to be reforecast now your team has started working on it.
#4: Monitor progress
You can manage your team's work more effectively if you know that your project is on track. Use status or progress reports to get the data you need to establish how well your project is doing. Reports will tell you how far you are ahead of plan or behind schedule by using the task estimates and actual time sheet data to calculate progress. This is the easiest way to see if you are going to hit your project deadlines or not. And if you aren't, you'll get an early warning through the reporting tools and you can make changes to your resource allocation, tasks or the people involved to bring the project back on track.
#5: Make time to socialize!
Meetings are one thing, but bringing a team together with common goals takes more than just regular status updates. Make time to hang out with your team members and socialize together. You don't have to do anything expensive, as even talking about a sports match or sharing lunch together counts.
The more 'together' your team feels, the easier it will be for them to work directly with each other and with you as you will have increased the levels of trust in the team to the point that they work effectively and successfully on their tasks, making it easier to manage the project and them as individuals.

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