Tips to improve your Project Management Skills as a Small Business Owner

Written By: Rashi Saral

Project Management as the word indicates the management of the project that the organization undertakes for achieving the goals and targets of niche. There is a multitude of skills a project manager requires to accomplishing the various projects of the firms. For the startups, there is a quintessential requirement for learning the skills to manage the projects they are in. Managers have the great responsibility to lead their teams with the appropriate skills; if they don’t possess them then the chances of achieving the goals are negligible. I, with deep interest of learning the Project Management skills and preparing a guide on it, interviewed the CEO of BUSINESS CONNECT. With his astounding and inspiring experience, he was thrilled to share with me the key skills which the small business owners ought to take care of. Below is the list, I have prepared with a lot of research and analysis, so here we go:

Create a plan or Planning- Planning is essential in every sphere of life. We should have the clarity about our goals, time, resources, cost, etc. for the small or large projects. Without proper planning, the team will be directionless. So, project manager should plan ahead each and every fine detail associated with the project.
Setting the deadlines: The time slot should be fixed for carrying out the multiple tasks in the project. If there are no proper deadlines, then the employees will not take the work seriously and also the time of the project will stretch. The management and supervisors should allot the time limit to the team members.
Taking follow ups without proper follow ups we cannot track the actual progress of the project, so manager ought to take the follow ups and gives the reminders to the team. For example- if employee A has completed the task X in a given period of time, it should be checked by the manager above her.
Leadership- For the flow of process, an exemplary leader is required. Leaders direct the flow of work in the business, motivates her team, represents the team, suggesting the solutions at the time of adversity, takes the responsibility for the accomplishment of the goals, so as to assure the qualitative delivery of the work.
Research and information- For carrying out any assignment, people should give the adequate time to research and analysis. The success of the project is directly proportional to the amount of information the team has. A qualitative research should be done on the project by the team members. Ample information, starting from the marketing strategy to the cost should be acquired by the team.
Effective Communication- There should be proper and clear communication between the project manager and her team. Proper and effective sharing of ideas via meet ups, emails, calls, messages need to be there for the success of the assignment. In a team also, members should be communicative towards each other.
Providing feedback- In order to ensure the quality of the work and also for the sake of improvement, managers should provide the proper feedback to her team members individually. In the professional world, growth depends on your attitude towards the feedback. Always, always provide the feedback if from the heart you want some spellbound results.
Cost inputs- For any business, capital is the prime factor for running it. This includes the estimation of the project cost, who are going to be the investors? What are the resources required?There are numerous marketing strategies with the overall cost the managers need to look into.
Training and support-For assuring the quality of work and the growth of the employees, project managers should design the proper training curriculum so as to develop the skills of the employees so that they can render the excellent service. If the employee is not working up to the level, valuable support should be provided to her by the mentors.
Risk Management-We are all aware, wherever there is a business,there is always a risk connected to it. The managers should find out the strategy for managing the risks, it can be of cost, risk of trying something new in the venture, hiring of the employees, etc..