This is why you should consider tracking your projects

The US economist Peter Drucker once said: “You can’t manage, what you can’t measure”. And we think he’s right. How can you manage a project, when you don’t know exactly what’s going on? A lot of managers wait for the end of their projects, to evaluate them. But what do you do, if you spent more money than expected? And what if the project took you 4 months longer than expected?

It’s simple, you can’t do much because it’s already too late. Now, a lot of people disagree and say this is how you learn from your mistakes and you will perform better next time. But how can you be so sure, that you won’t make the same mistakes again? You can’t. You probably won’t be able to learn from your mistakes, unless you know when and where you made them in the first place. So here is what you should do to detect your mistakes on time: start tracking your projects from day 1.

Create Teams

First of all, you consider assigning a project to a team. This way, you will know who is responsible for it, which will already give you a better overview of who is doing what.

Plan in detail

Second, plan your project in detail. Discuss what the budget is and how much time you will need for it. Be realistic. Try to think of problems that could occur and include them in your schedule.

After that, think of all the tasks you want to complete. Check if you have enough team members to achieve the project on time. It’s always better to include the right amount of people in the early stage of the project than later.

Execute your plan

Once you have your team and project schedule, start with the execution. Keep in mind, that it’s important to communicate in your team. Make sure that everyone is keeping track of their work. Transparency is not about controlling your team members but it’s about ensuring the project is going the way you planned it. If everyone acts responsibly and tracks every milestone, you will be able to see whether your project is going well or not.

Now, even when everything seems to go well, problems occur all the time. This is something you have to expect. You will be able to detect what the problem is on time, if you keep up with everything you have been doing. This way, you can fix the issue right away and don’t have to wait until the end of the project. Knowing mistakes as soon as possible saves a lot of money and time.

Tracking is about improving your performance

Nevertheless, project time tracking is not only about, finding your mistakes on time, but it’s also about measuring your performance. Over time, you will learn to have a better feeling of allocating your resources. The more projects you complete, the easier it will get to know how much time, money and team members specific tasks take. It’s always good to know how well you’re performing. It motivates you to do even better than last time. And if you see that certain tasks require more people, then you will know better at the beginning of a project and ask for help right away.

In the end, there is always room for improvement. But knowing where to improve, that’s the real challenge. This is where we want to help you.

TimeTrack is an efficient Time Tracker Software for Businesses and Individuals. Never worry about time tracking management again and try our easy-to-use project time tracking software.

Set it up in a few minutes and keep up with your performances. Know your strengths and acknowledge your weaknesses. You can only improve, if you know what your mistakes are. Are you ready to find out? Learn more about TimeTrack.

Ivana Spiridonovic

Zeitmanagement ist für Unternehmen, egal ob klein oder groß, ein wichtiges Thema. Als ausgebildete Betriebswirtin und jahrelange Expertin bei TimeTrack setze ich mich täglich mit dem Thema Zeiterfassung auseinander. Die Tipps und Tricks, die ich in dem Bereich entdeckt habe möchte ich Ihnen weitergeben. 

Außerdem schreibe ich gerne über meine Erfahrungen im Projektmanagement. Dabei lege ich viel Wert auf Team Management, überschaubare Arbeitsprozesse und transparente Kommunikation – meiner Meinung nach die Grundlagen für jedes erfolgreiche Projekt.