Efficient project management is essential for even the smallest of teams and the simplest of projects. Learning project management for non-project managers is easier than you might think with the right templates that take the jargon and complexity out of the job.
This article explains how you can build your project management skills and manage risks and team members. We’ll also share how you can best execute your projects with a project charter template or DMAIC template you can use on monday.com.
These templates will help you plan your projects and activities more efficiently, so you can focus on your day-to-day work. Let’s begin by laying the foundation for understanding project management and how to use the practice.
What is project management, and do you have to be a project manager to use it?
Project management applies various tools, skills, and processes to make a task—that may involve several people and sub-tasks—run more smoothly. Even those who aren’t project managers can benefit from learning and applying some of these ideas in their work.
How non-project managers can achieve success with projects
Anyone in charge of a team or a task can use certain project management skills in their day-to-day jobs. Some basic skills that can apply to projects of any size include:
- Defining the project: Understanding the scope of the project itself helps you and your team understand its overarching goals, tasks, and deadlines
- Planning the project’s execution: Not only is proper planning important, but so is setting realistic goals for getting tasks done fast with minimal hiccups.
- Risk assessment and management: Planning for potential risks often involves assessing what can derail a project timeline, how bad the effects are, and how to mitigate those risks from happening in the future.
- Choosing and engaging with stakeholders: It’s important to identify strategies and tasks that attract and engage the right stakeholders who are passionate about the project. It’s also important to give them enough incentive to stay involved with any decision-making and/or execution.
- Analyzing the outcome: Once a project has come to fruition, take note of which desired outcomes were, or weren’t, met and then assess what variables (good and bad) contributed to the actual outcome.
- Process improvement: In addition to assessing the outcome, you’ll also want to take note of how to improve the initial project processes so future ones run more smoothly and efficiently.
In smaller organizations, a manager or team leader could be in charge of these things without being a dedicated project manager. In bigger organizations where a project manager is already in place, someone who is in charge of a sub-task within a project can apply these skills to ensure their task goes smoothly without needing to adopt all the responsibilities of being a project manager. Non-project managers can use powerful work management platforms to easily and efficiently run projects of any size and scope.
monday.com can help teams successfully master project management
Collaborating with a large team and keeping track of all the elements of a project can be tricky. That’s where monday.com comes in. The platform’s communication, reporting, and tracking features help teams work together more efficiently, and they can also be a useful guiding hand for non-project managers.
There are several templates available on monday.com, covering various aspects of project management. These templates offer a simple framework for leaders to follow, so even those who don’t have a lot of experience with project management can employ best practices in their day-to-day work.
Templates that help anyone build processes that work
Among the project management templates on monday.com are DMAIC templates for process improvement and project charter templates. These templates help leaders take a systematic approach to project management and make it easier to visualize goals and progress through each phase of a project. Let’s take a look at each of them.
DMAIC Template
DMAIC is a five-step approach to process improvement that helps project managers build a consistent project plan, analyze their work and identify areas for improvement. The main purpose of DMAIC is for analysis and improvement rather than project planning. Each department involved in a project can use DMAIC to analyze their individual sub-projects.
DMAIC templates provide a step-by-step framework for implementing this Six Sigma approach to process improvement.
The DMAIC process can be defined as:
- Define
- Measure
- Analyze
- Improve
- Control
Using this process, team leaders can get a clearer idea of how their projects operate and the areas where they can improve. The framework helps leaders approach their job systematically and makes it easier to make incremental improvements.
Why use a DMAIC template?
Using a DMAIC template helps to standardize this approach across departments. It also helps managers work more efficiently because everything they need to collect and process data is available in a standard form. The template frees managers from these administrative tasks, allowing them to focus on reviewing project activities and analyzing the team’s performance.
The DMAIC template for monday.com can integrate with time tracking, workflow, and reporting views, so all the information team leaders need is available with just a few mouse clicks. This ensures consistency and accuracy when making decisions about resource management and project timelines.
Project Charter Template
Project managers use a project charter template as a high-level project plan to plan everything from the project’s team members to its activities.
Project charter templates help you visualize your goals and plan more efficiently from day one..
These templates offer an at-a-glance view of each aspect of the project, from staffing to tasks, resources and timelines, all in one dashboard.
Why use a project charter template?
The Project Charter Template for monday.com provides a customizable overview of the whole project. It breaks down each aspect of planning intuitively, so there’s no need to complete a Project Management Institute course to make the most of these tools.
Using a project charter template allows you to:
- Fully customizable project structures
- At a glance project plan overviews for long timescales and workdays
- Easy integration with automation and reporting tools
These tools increase the chance of your team successfully completing each milestone on time by helping everyone see where their work fits into the bigger project and which tasks need to be completed for the project to progress. Even small teams can benefit from employing this type of project management. Some smaller organizations are resistant to the idea of implementing formal project management methodologies. However, when leaders work with team members to improve workflows and communication, this can greatly improve productivity and increase the chances of complex projects being delivered on time.
For more insights into project management, our FAQ provides some answers to help you get started.
FAQs about project management
What are some types of project management?
There are several types of project management, and each can have a useful role in an organization. Which project management style suits your team best depends on the team’s size, the project’s scope, and the type of workflow you use.
Some of the most popular forms of project management include:
What is Waterfall project management?
Waterfall project management is a traditional methodology that takes a linear approach to describing projects. With the waterfall approach, a project is divided into clear phases, and one phase must be completed before the next one can begin. This approach works well for long-term projects with a clear and static scope but can be limiting for larger projects.
What can you do instead of project management?
Project management is important for medium-to-large-sized teams and complex projects, but it may be possible to manage a smaller project or a close-knit team with a different approach. Process management techniques are useful in environments where a team is doing a repetitive task where attention to detail is important.
For projects that are more creative, a hands-off approach may be suitable. In those cases, rather than taking a detailed approach to project management, a leader may feel more comfortable simply using time tracking and Kanban boards on monday.com as a communication tool, trusting team members to do their work effectively and report accurately.
Anyone can be an effective project manager with monday.com
Project management doesn’t have to be a full-time job. Using the templates and tools on monday.com, any team leader can take advantage of the process improvements good project management can offer.
DMAIC templates are a useful tool for helping team leaders identify areas for improvement within their teams and projects, while the high-level overviews provided by project charters make planning more complex jobs a simpler task. Check out monday.com, a project management platform for non-project managers and experienced PM professionals alike.
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