A project manager often performs so many tasks that it can be challenging to place a genuine value on their worth. We will reveal several benefits of project management to help you see how a project manager could be a valuable asset to your software development team. Beyond that, we will also share multiple tips for successful project management.
Project management benefits
How can project management benefit your organization or software development team? Have a look at the benefits below.
Better Organization for Developers
It is easy for a software project to come undone when many moving parts are involved. A project manager can emphasize organization via project plans and other PM tools that help programmers focus on when, why, and how tasks should be completed. This keeps everything together and streamlines the software development process to avoid any hiccups that can hamper productivity.
Reading: Top 5 Project Management Certifications
Increased team efficiency
When you assign a project manager to your development team, you have a person whose role is dedicated to ensuring that work is done when it needs to be and is completed on schedule. The project manager can also help everything run smoothly, so your developers can focus on coding and fixing bugs instead of unnecessary distractions, allowing them to create top-notch software.
Increased code output
Project management can seem like a burden for many software developers tasked with the role. Remove that burden by hiring a project manager, and your development team can put out higher-quality products while also taking on more projects to increase output and boost your organization’s bottom line. Programmers should program applications and removing project management tasks from their to-do lists frees them to focus on the current development project.
team development
A software team will have a difficult time growing if they have to complete tasks and manage them simultaneously. With a project manager in place, the latter responsibility gets removed, allowing software developers to focus on their craft to build better products.
A project manager gives teams the power to reduce stress and invest time in their everyday tasks and collaborate so they can develop innovative approaches to deliverables. It also frees up time for coders to grow in their knowledge and role as developers (more time to read resources and become better programmers).
Reading: Project management software for developers
Improved quality
Software developers who are expected to work and manage projects simultaneously could sacrifice quality when creating products. A project manager can assume the management role to relieve developers of such extraneous duties, so they can focus on their work. More importantly, they can enhance quality by proofreading content, performing internal reviews, and ensuring that everything is up to snuff before releasing it to stakeholders or the public.
Added flexibility
Team members may not have the time to look for risks or changes that can negatively impact the software development process, as they are often too busy completing their assigned tasks. Project managers are typically tasked with this role while being versed in methods to adapt, which adds flexibility to a team.
Enhanced Transparency
Your development team and stakeholders can enjoy increased transparency thanks to project management reporting that offers details on timelines and budgets. This can also improve accountability within the organization, so everyone fulfills their roles properly.
Combine all of the project management benefits listed above, and you can positively impact your business’s bottom line while making your entire team and stakeholders happy.
Reading: Best Project Management Tools for Developers
Satisfied Staff And Clients
Project managers remove a lot of the stress involved with software development. As long as managers fulfill their roles and ensure projects are completed on time and within budget, both staff and clients will walk away happy.
Ways To Ensure Successful Project Management
Projects that are correctly managed give organizations the ability to improve their development processes, create innovative products or services, and give customers what they need. What does it take to properly manage a software project so your time and money are well spent? Follow these tips, which should lead to successful project management for your software development team.
Take Your Time With Initiating And Planning
You can prevent disaster down the line by investing time (and, if necessary, money) into the initiation and planning stages that are crucial to the project life cycle. When unsuccessful development teams look back and wonder why a project failed, it can usually be pinned on a lack of proper planning and research.
Before a project begins, be sure to agree on and establish team objectives, priorities, and requirements, so everyone is on the same page. If not, confusion could appear later on when it is much harder to handle.
Emphasize transparency and accountability
Unless you are 100 percent lucky, your projects will probably experience sensitivities and complexities along the way. You can easily overcome these obstacles if you have a culture of transparency and accountability in place, as your development team can pinpoint problems and take ownership without creating unnecessary conflict.
A great way to generate transparency is to ensure everyone is involved in the planning process. Assign tasks via workflows, so everyone knows where they stand and what they are responsible for. This can create accountability while avoiding morale-damaging micromanagement. It can also improve motivation among developers, leading to a higher quality end product.
Reading: What is Agile Project Management Software?
Define Your Project Scope Accurately
Statistics show that over half of organizations suffer from unexpected changes to a project’s scope when it is already underway. this”scope creep” can negatively impact a software project’s bottom line and timeline.
How can you avoid it? Although it may appear from some factors that are not under your control, you can reduce the risk of scope creep by having an experienced project manager, team members, and stakeholders collaborate during the initiating and planning stages.
Choose Your Methodology Or Framework Wisely
A project management methodology or framework is a set of processes and principles that guide, plan, execute, and manage projects. For your software project to run smoothly and efficiently, you will need to find the proper framework (waterfall, critical path, etc.) to fit your needs. If you are unsure which framework is ideal for your team, do your research first, as it will determine how your work is visualized, prioritized, and completed.
Create Realistic Schedules
A software team’s schedule must balance workloads with the intended delivery date to be realistic and attainable. The schedule must also be communicated appropriately, so everyone is on the same page. In doing so, you can avoid delays that can increase your costs, stress your developers, and dissatisfy your stakeholders.
Keep In Touch With Stakeholders
Clients, product managers, executives, and internal product users are examples of stakeholders. Each is invested in the project’s success in some way. As such, they should be involved in the development process so they can provide support either financially or in some other fashion.
Reading: Overview of Gantt charts
Manage Your Resources
To attain maximum efficiency and stay within budget, a project manager must employ resource management practices that involve a mix of pre-planning, allocating resources, and scheduling. Resource management can keep costs low and boost morale by ensuring that team members are not overworked.
Use A Project Management Tool
Managing a massive software project can be tricky without the help of project management software. Several such tools on the market can help you assign tasks, collaborate, create detailed reports, invoice, and more so your projects are streamlined and as issue-free as possible.
read more project management tutorials and PM tool reviews and comparisons.
