Project Managers Have To Budget Their Time

Project managers have a heavy load on their plate every time a project is initiated. Keeping control and track of every aspect from resources, the dividing of tasks, time sheets, milestones, project quality, and risk management, among others, can eat up every hour of the work day. The addition of a problem large enough to derail the project can send the unprepared manager over the edge. By streamlining the various processes and applying and effective, efficient thought pattern, time control can be managed.

Examine your own time management. Do your projects seem to spend the last few days or weeks trying to meet deadlines? Are you holding meetings that do not hit home or end in a less than productive outcome? Has risk management overtaken the positive movement of the project? All of this adds to an additional amount of stress and a higher level of project performance.

Part of the loss of time stems from using the same processes and procedures on a large scale project, that works for a smaller realm. Where a small project can withstand the hits and misses of efficiency, a larger project will display the glaring misuse of time. Project planning, leadership in delegating various responsibilities, and allowing resources to complete the tasks without directly performing their tasks as well as your own are some of the steps to follow. Other methods include meeting preparation, decreasing work loads, better assignments to how long it will take to complete a task, and the creation of daily and weekly plans are other procedures to integrate. It also takes a strong amount of self discipline to stay the course.

As with any other new venture, spending a week or so annotating your current time expenditures to gain an idea of areas needing improvement is the first step. Now you have a time log ready for analysis and positive corrections towards time management. How was your time spent? Social time spent is time that could have been used towards a more productive means. Phone calls, water cooler conversations that have nothing to do with the project at hand, friends and acquaintances that come by to chat, all conquer your day’s allocation of time. No one says you have to be unsocial, but it becomes a problem when the frequency keeps you from being productive. Activities can be adjusted by giving each one a time limit, and sticking to it. Then move to the next.

Unpleasant tasks on your list can become a time deterrent, by delaying to complete the responsibility. Self discipline grinds through the difficult task, and frees up time for other more enjoyable endeavors.

Moving from one task to the next one on your list can eat up valuable time. By working on similar responsibilities you can realize a time saving from moving between tasks.

Resources exist for a reason. To free up your time for important assignments delegated to you. Performing the work of another may be easier if you do it yourself, but it also takes time away from you. Especially if the job in question takes half hours, hours or more to accomplish. Delegate tasks accordingly, and spend time on training your resources to perform their own tasks with quality. In the long run, you gain an ample amount of time spent on yourself.

Related to the above is lending assistance to others. Helping a co-worker is part of the team work mantra, but there must exist a limit to how much time is spent. An entire day can fly by before you realize you personally accomplished nothing on your own list of tasks. This includes how your own manager utilizes your time. Working on tasks that are incorrectly defined, not fully planned and thought out, usurp time that can be used better when the tasks are finalized and clearly state what needs to be performed.

Appointments and meetings are known for eating away at the day. Some managers spend entire days in meetings from dawn to dusk. How many of these meetings could have been handled by teleconferencing? By keeping your own schedule book, you will have a viewable list of meetings and appointments in the foreseeable future. Now you can pare down the list, eliminating the unnecessary appointments. Long lunches that could be cut down, meetings where someone else can take your place as proxy, interviews that can be shortened and more can save time. In the time you just saved, you can now add activities that hold meaning and substance.

Project deadlines are a bane to managers if the timelines and estimated deliverable was not allocated enough time for completion. As everyone knows, rushing through a project opens up greater possibilities for errors and additional problems. Each and every project, no matter how large or small, should be treated in the same manner. Does everyone agree on how long it will take for the entire project to reach completion? In breaking down the larger sections into smaller, more manageable parts, are your time estimates honest and true? Do you review each step of the smaller section, responding to any difficulty in a timely manner? If a certain task deliverable can not be performed in given time frame, it is not going to happen. Missed deadlines not only impact you as a manager, but other teams and departments as well. Sales, Marketing, Distribution and other departments work on a schedule, just like you. Missing a release date can mean the difference between dissatisfied customers, and a gained foothold by the competition.

Unrealistic deadlines can be handled by obtaining an extension, gaining additional resources for assistance, changing the expectations of the project deliverables, or providing senior management with a timely warning of the missed deadline with the accompanying reasons. Otherwise, accepting an unrealistic deadline leaves the responsibility on your shoulders, with a failed project response in the distance.

Projects should contain extra time for quality reviews at a calm, leisurely, easy going pace. Instead of stressed, frazzled nerves looking for errors and quality, sharper eyes and mindsets are reviewing the finalized product.

How you allocate your personal time and management also affects the team members. Rationing tasks to team members should be handled in the same mind frame of time management. These tasks should have an attainable completion date, with you as the manager reviewing the team member’s progress and tracking the movement to ensure timely completion. The following day after the proposed date provides positive intervention if the deliverable date is missed, and you are on top of things without forgetting to follow up.

An often missed issue is the long term goals. They have their place of importance, but do not necessarily have a due date. Therefore, they are easy to forget or ignore. These goals also fall into the realm of time management. Since these issues do not have a deadline, they can be allocated a block of time as it fits into your time log, and performed on a regular basis without forgetting they exist.

Good time management exists through discipline, placing efficiency and effectiveness at the forefront. It also gives you a new structured approach to achieving control. Time management, soft skills, and new procedures to acquiring project success can be obtained with a PMP certification training course. Many project leaders discover better methods to reach project expectations and delivery by utilizing the fine K Alliance training describing the Project Management Book of Knowledge.

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