The definition provided by the Project Management Institute (PMI) states that successful project management is ‘the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements’. Whether you’re in charge of a huge conglomerate or you run a small/medium sized enterprise, you are going to come up against projects in the natural course of business.

When the term, ‘project management’ is thrown around, people normally assume that it only relates to large businesses which have a separate department dedicated to this activity. Any business owner can don the Project Manager hat if the situation calls for it, but for smaller businesses it becomes a necessity owing to costs and a shortage of qualified personnel. Nevertheless, successful project management is something that all businesses should have on their agenda.

In its simplest form, successful project management involves setting a budget and timeframe for a specific task and completing it in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible. This is something every organization should strive to achieve. Here is how you can elevate your business with successful project management irrespective of its size.

1. Clarify the Scale and Scope of Your Project

This is the first step for any project manager. The goals of the project, its scale and scope must be clearly defined. Every team member should have thorough knowledge about the basics of the project ie what it will accomplish, how much it will cost, what is its timeframe, and what methods will be utilized to accomplish it.

As a project manager, you should understand all the specifics of the project, and attempt to make the relevant team members understand the parts pertinent to their tasks as well. Make sure that the scale of the project is clear. Certainly, do not go in blind into a project whose scope lies completely outside of your domain/industry. If this happens, it is best to bring in a consultant from that domain/industry. Herein also lies the importance of selecting and prioritizing the right projects.

2. Delegate Job Responsibility Appropriately
How job responsibilities are distributed within the project team might have everything to do with how your project turns out in the end. The project team has to be selected with care and only those employees with the relevant skill sets should be considered for a place in the team. Everyone on the team should be there because they have something integral to contribute.

The project manager should see that responsibilities or segments of the project are handed over to the most suitable team members and that they are held accountable for the same. All members should have clarity regarding their assigned role and duties in the team.

3. Invest in the Right Project Management Software
In this day and age, when intelligent software is making everyone’s jobs easier in every industry, it would be foolish not to invest in a good quality project management software. You can choose the one that works best for your firm depending on its size and industry. The right project management tools are out there, and they will fit your business and its needs perfectly.

A project management software like ProofHub organizes all your tasks and relevant communications for you. Project management tools will handle scheduling, collaboration, identifying the progress of tasks, and much more for your project. AI enabled project management solutions are capable of identifying the delays that the project team might face, based on historical data of similar projects undertaken by the company in the past.

4. Take Risk-Mitigating Measures
Your project management tools should give you a sufficient idea of the risks you are most likely to face in the course of a specific project. The job of a project manager is to identify these risks in advance and take the appropriate preventative measures so that the project team does not have to encounter these risks at all.

If however, this does not work out and the team has to inevitably face the risk, the manager should have a backup plan in place. It should involve mitigating measures to lessen the severity of the blow. Increase the success rate of your projects by ensuring their survival even after the disaster strikes.

Final Words
Successful project Management is not easy. It involves a number of complex tasks depending on dynamic variables and requiring a lot of collaboration, planning, and interdepartmental support as well. Project managers need exceptional organizing and communication skills to fully exploit the potential of a project team and enable them to put in their best work towards it. A good project manager will try to maximize the efficiency of project management teams and deliver excellence overall.

Even when a project fails, the project manager will gather the learnings from the project in order to avoid those same mistakes in future projects. It is worth noting that the right project management system will assist both project managers and their teams in meeting their goals effectively. With these learnings, your company can become one of those rare ones with more successful projects than unsuccessful ones.

Author Bio:

Nidhi is a Software Analyst by profession at SoftwareSuggest, she meticulously studies and write reviews about Software in categories such as Project Management, HR management and ERP Software etc. She is a Google certified in Digital marketing with good analytical skills. In her spare time she loves reading fictional novels.

How project management makes your business successful was originally published in ProofHub Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.