6 Steps Every Team Should Follow — A Project Management Guide for 2022

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ProofHub Blog

8 min readJan 23, 2019

Project Management Defined

Wikipedia defines project management as “the practice of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria at the specified time.” In simple words, it’s a process where a project manager plans, organizes and manages the efforts of his/her team in order to accomplish a successful project over a fixed period and within certain costs.

An Overview Of What’s Trending In Project Management

Since we’re about to say goodbye to another year (2018), it is important to look back and see how project management has changed over the past twelve months. Now, the question is — How was 2018 different? From what we’ve witnessed — the year 2018 has bought a major technological outbreak, especially for the business world.

Several industries, including software development, marketing, finance, and construction, have started to rely on cloud-based solutions for almost every business process. And it all makes sense because many recent studies and surveys have pointed towards the fact that with the availability of automated project management solutions, businesses have started to perform 100x better and 10x faster. Here are a few points that will provide you with a better understanding of top project management trend in 2018:

Artificial intelligence is on a rise and it is yet to see it’s complete expression in the industry. Smart managers are already injecting AI and automation into their work. The result? — better communication,
Agile isn’t new, but it has definitely become one of the most influential business trends in 2018. According to PwC, teams using agile project management are 28% more successful than those who prefer traditional project management practices.
The adaptation of Kanban continues. The industry continues to embrace this lean scheduling technique to limit the work in progress and foster a more collaborative, communicative work culture.
Employees are no longer chained to their office desk. Organizations are finally embracing the use of distributed teams. More and more companies have started to invest in deep-integration technology that improved communication between teams, regardless of the actual geographical location of every individual team member.

Simplify the way you manage your projects and teams. Switch to ProofHub.

The Project Management Life Cycle — 6 Simple Steps To Follow

One failed project can lead to lower revenue, lesser opportunities, poor resource management, depleted employee morale, and, perhaps, even failed business. Delivering a project successfully can be daunting, but it’s crucial to your business’s success. So, what’s the catch here? How can a team improve their chances of success?

Follow these 6 simple steps to deliver successful projects, every single time:

Initiating (Getting everyone on commitment)

The first step in project management lifecycle is establishing the team. From executives who will be working in the front line to those individuals who will be affected by the success or failure of the project, there are multiple people associated with a project. So, in order to make it a success, it is important that everyone involved is kept on the same page until and after the completion of the project. Getting everyone (teams, clients, and stakeholders) together at the very start of the project is important because it helps to maintain good collaboration and communication between people who are working together to achieve a specific set of goals.

Planning (Putting a smart strategy and agenda in place)

The best way to ensure that a project reaches its successful completion is to create a written plan. Now, an ideal project plan should describe components like,

What are the different phases of the project?
What are the tasks that need to be carried out in each phase?
Who will carry out each task?
What will be the overall duration of the project?
What will be the overall budget of the project?
What will be the start date and end date of each task?
What will be the end outcome or deliverable of each task?
How long will it take to complete each task?

Remember, a project plan should be kept as simple as possible. Don’t let your mind get messed up with all the names, tasks, dates, dependencies, responsibilities, and costs. Keep things clear and simple so that everyone can understand what they need to do and how it should be done in the very first meeting.

Executing (Working together with continuous and clear communication)

Once you’ve created a written plan for your project, the next step is to bring that plan to successful execution. But before you proceed with that, make sure that you’ve chosen the right communication channel for your team and the affected groups. Good communication is quite important at this stage of the project. It helps to ensure that every team member is working according to the plan and is not being isolated from the rest of the business environment. Apart from communication, another important factor that you need to keep in check while project execution is efficient file management. That means you need to make sure that all your critical business information is kept in a single place and is easily accessible to teams when needed.

Monitoring (Keeping the overall project progress in check)

A typical project involves lots of tasks and people. Now, as someone who has been held accountable for the whole project, you need to keep track of everything that is happening within the project. You need to keep a close eye on “How each team member is going about their respective responsibilities?”, “How many work hours are being spent on each task?”, “Who is on the verge of completing his/her tasks?”, and “What tasks are most likely to exceed their due date?”. All this will help you get a clear idea of how far you (and your team) have come in a project and how far you all have to go to make it successful.

Controlling (Making changes and improvements where needed)

Monitoring and controlling are two sides of the same coin. Under project monitoring, you oversee what’s happening in a project. and under project controlling, you explore ways to bring improvement to your current work in order to meet the required standards. Now, putting a control process in place is not as hard as it seems. As a project manager, you can schedule weekly team meetings where each individual’s work will be reviewed against the predefined project plan. Also, you can establish a regular reporting process for teams as well as the higher level personals to ensure that everyone is aware of the current status of the project, it’s achievements, associated risks, and the steps that are taken to resolve or mitigate them.

Closing (Tying up any last loose ends and preparing for project delivery)

The last and the final stage of the project management process is a formal project closure. Since you and your team members have put in a lot of time and efforts to bring the project to its completion, you need to make sure that everything is as expected before the final delivering of the project/product. So, when the project is finally over and all the associated tasks or activities have been completed, just go through everything one last time and tie up all the loose ends (make necessary improvements). After that, wrap up the project management process with a final project report and inform all stakeholders and participants that the project is complete.

Tools To Run Successful Projects, Every Time

#1 ProofHub
ProofHub, a single project management platform that brings together project managers, teams, and stakeholders to create project plans, manage daily tasks and to-do lists, calendar milestones, track each individual’s progress, and deliver projects successfully. With ProofHub, teams can easily drill down requirements, create notes, organize files, manage timesheets, achieve deliverables, review and proof files, and do everything else that makes the project management process successful. This tool saves teams from all the troubles and makes them productive in no time.

ProofHub features

Discussions and one-on-one chats
Custom Roles
Workflows and Kanban boards
Gantt chart tool
Time tracking
API access to data transport
Project and resource reports
Advanced activity logs
Project calendars and stand-alone calendars
Priority support

ProofHub pricing
Essential — $50/month or $45/month (billed annually)
Ultimate Control — $99/month or $89/month (billed annually)

#2 Microsoft Project
Microsoft Project is a project management solution that is designed to fit into enterprises of all sizes and industries. Its interactive dashboard and reporting features allow project managers and teams to stay on top of their assignments/projects. With Microsoft Project, project managers can create insightful project reports and help others make smart decisions during project execution. Furthermore, Gantt charts and pulldown menus in Microsoft Project helps to simplify the project planning and scheduling process. It allows project managers to plan projects seamlessly and get them completed faster.

Microsoft Project features

Task creation and assignment
Task prioritization
Collaborative project planning
Documents and uploads
Lean management
Gantt chart/project map
Calendar view
Baselining / KPIs
Project budgeting
Risk analysis

Microsoft Project pricing
Project Online Essentials: $7 per user/month
Project Online Professional: $30 per user/month
Project Online Premium: $55 per user/month

#3 Trello
Trello is definitely one of the leading project management and team collaboration applications available on the market. The application is based on the concept of boards and cards (boards refer to projects and cards refer to tasks). It aims to simplify collaboration by keeping all the tasks, files, and information organized, at one place. In addition to this, Trello integrates well with a range of third-party apps which makes it seamlessly easy to inject into your workflow. Also, its reasonably priced so it won’t break your bank while managing projects and teams.

Trello features

Drag & drop interface
Activity dashboard
Task management
Prioritizing
Project management
Project time tracking
Gantt charts
Timesheets
Third party integration
Automatic notifications

Trello pricing
Basic plan — Free
Business class plan– $9.99 per user/month (when paid annually)
Enterprise plan — $20.83 or less per user/month (when paid annually)

#4 Smartsheet
Smartsheet, a simple project management application with a spreadsheet-like interface. The application is designed specifically to help teams plan, manage, and collaborate better within the workplace. It offers a suite of project management applications, including resource management, time tracking, document management, project reporting, and issue management. With Smartsheet, businesses can standardize all the key project elements, track all the tasks, improve visibility into team priorities, increase overall project speed, and improve team collaboration.

Smartsheet features

Resource management
File management
Share entire sheet
Set permissions for access
Perform calculations and lookups
Gantt chart view
Calendar view
Reports
Automatic alerts
Custom branding

Smartsheet pricing
Individual Plan — $14/user/month (billed annually)
Business Plan — $25/user/month (billed annually)
Enterprise Plan — customized (contact the vendor for a quote)

#5 Wrike
Wrike is the ideal project management software solution for businesses with 20+ members. The software comes with enterprise-level security and scalable features that include — Gantt charts, workflow view, resource management, custom dashboards, file management, task management, auto-assignment based on task statuses, tailored templates, online proofing, and more. All in all, Wrike is a great project management tool to work with, especially for marketing and creative teams.

Wrike features

Budget management
Idea management
Cost-to-completion tracking
Customizable templates
Gantt charts
Kanban board
Milestone tracking
Portfolio management
Resource management
Time and expense tracking

Wrike pricing
Basic plan — Free
Professional plan — $9.80 per user per month
Business plan — $24.80 per user per month
Marketers plan — customized (contact the vendor for a quote)
Enterprise plan — customized (contact the vendor for a quote)