Vartika Kashyap December 17, 2020 Managing a startup is extremely challenging as you need to streamline almost every operation of the business. Be it the teams, work procedures, internal and external communication, etc. you need to put efforts to make sure things work out well.
As the leader of a startup, you have to be smart enough to tackle all the issues and make smart decisions to ensure that your business gets off the ground.
But, how would you do that?
Well, the success of a startup depends upon a number of factors. One of the most important thing that decides the success of your newly established business is how you manage and deliver your projects.
For any startup, bringing all the employees together to collaborate and manage tasks of a project are a tough row to hoe. But there’s a specific type of management discipline that deals with how you manage your projects. Yes, I am talking about project management.
Many startups often misjudge project management to be useful only in big organizations or companies that have become stable. Just to make it clear to you, project management is extremely important and crucial even for businesses that are new.
Stats That Signify the Importance of Project Management
Here is some statistical data that you should carefully observe to understand the importance of project management for a startup:
- According to the PMI’s Pulse of the Professional global survey of 2017, companies that implemented well-known project management practices wasted 28 times less money all because their strategic initiatives offered good results.
- The 2015 edition of the PMI’s Pulse of the Profession suggested that project management can improve the success rates of projects by reducing risks and cutting down overall costs.
- Another PMI global survey conducted in 2018 has revealed that only 58% of organizations are aware of the importance of project management.
- The Project Management Survey 2017 conducted by KPMG showed that 60 % of organizations managed their projects using a portfolio structure and 80% of organizations used more multiple project management methodologies.
These stats provide a clear idea project management can assist organizations to handle their projects better with better chances of success. However, you will also notice that not every organization is utilizing project management to its fullest.
As a startup owner, you need to keep in mind that project management is a great way to drive your projects towards success. By managing projects in a professional manner, you will be able to improve the overall outcome of your business.
Key Advantages of Implementing Project Management
It’s time to take a look at the key advantages of project management that will motivate you to make it an integral part of your startup:
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Streamlines Project Process
Startups usually have a limited number of projects with them, and they simply can’t afford to lose even a single one of them. To ensure this, it is essential to complete the project within the assigned time limit and make sure that all the requirements of clients are met to their satisfaction.
What project management does is that it can help your organization to streamline the whole project process, which includes different stages, namely initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and delivering the project.
With project management, you can pay attention to all the stages of the project process and use various methods and techniques to ensure timely completion of a project.
2. Ensures a Well-Organized Workflow
Tasks are visibly the most important part of any project and it’s crucial not to mess with any task that can negatively affect the whole project.
By dividing the whole project into tasks and creating the workflow, you can prevent a chaotic situation from happening where teams have no idea about what tasks they need to work on at a particular time.
Project management takes care of dividing the whole project into smaller tasks and identifying all the stages that a task needs to move through before being marked as completed.
It is also convenient to delegate tasks and you can stay updated about who’s working on what task throughout the project life cycle.
3. Helps to Identify Risks
Needless to say, risks are associated with almost all projects. However, to minimize the chances of a risk causing project failure, you need to anticipate all the risks beforehand.
When you have all the information about the project and its tasks, you can put efforts to identify what tasks or activities can cause the project to go off track.
Project management allows us to assess the potential risks and take necessary actions to prevent or minimize their impact on the project.
Risk identification and mitigation is an integral part of project management. As it’s unlikely for a project to progress exactly according to its initial plan, it’s always best to keep a check on possible situations that can affect the outcome of the project.
4. Keeps Costs and Budget Under Check
Costs can have a significant effect on the budget of a project. Usually, when you don’t control costs incurring in a project, the likelihood of budget overruns increases manifold.
And this results in either low profits or charging extra from clients, either way, it’s not good for any company, especially startups because it will garner negative reviews.
Cost controlling is an inseparable part of project management that simply makes sure that all the project work gets completed within the predefined budget.
Project management deals with resource allocation and time tracking to make sure that funds of a project are spent thoughtfully. You can keep an eye on all the expenses and pinpoint activities/tasks that are increasing the overall cost of the project.
5. Promotes an Increase in Productivity
Project development is an effective way to boost the productivity of teams working on the project.
It’s quite evident that when you streamline all the operations that contribute to the project progress, more work can be done in less time.
Moreover, when each individual working on the project is well aware of his/her responsibilities and tasks, they can schedule their work accordingly. At any point in time, they know what tasks they are supposed to be doing and by when.
Project Management Software: A Must-Have Technology to Use in Your Business
It requires a lot of skills and knowledge to be good at project management. Making use of the right tools to manage projects is another big challenge, especially if you are someone new to project management.
Instead of using multiple tools that are intended to help you out with your projects, I recommend you to use an all-in-one project management software (PMS).
By using project management software, you never have to worry about switching between multiple tools that lead to wastage of your precious time.
You can manage several projects at once and get a wide range of tools that will help with task management, risk management, resource management, and much more. In fact, there are certain tools embedded in PMS that promote team collaboration and make sure that everyone is on the same page.
As per the report by PWC, nearly 77% of companies use project management software and most high-performing projects are also linked to project management software.
From my experience, I can tell you that startups should make more use of a PMS because it will help them to manage both projects and teams. Additionally, it will become much easier to scale the business and expand teams using PMS technology.
To Sum it Up
Project management is absolutely essential for a startup to smoothen almost all the activities from ground level to supervisory level. As the owner of a startup, you need to embrace project management and make it a crucial unit of your organization.
Good Luck!
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