8 Project Management Tips for Your Next Web Development Project
Here's the thing: No matter how great your web development idea is, you are likely to fail without the right management system.
To become a successful web developer, you need to be effective in managing your web development projects. Doing so allows you to deliver a project on time.
In case you are not aware, your revenues do not grow overnight. It would be best if you come up with the proper plan to execute your strategies.
Here are the eight project management tips that you can apply on your next web development project:
Create a detailed and actionable plan
The key to a successful project is breaking it up into smaller tasks.
According to one episode of the PM Podcast, a project plan allows you to succeed. This is where Agile project management could come in handy.
This project management approach provides you with a clear picture of what direction you are heading. It also gives you an insight into the impact of your actions, the risks involved, and how this will help you.
It also has four primary components:
- Why or the Project Vision
- What or the Project Mission
- Who or your team members
- Success Criteria
Get to know your team
It is common to work with a team when doing a web development project. Your team is composed of developers and designers who you rely on to complete a project.
Your team will be the one who will take your project from start to finish.
Team members that work with one another are the most effective. So, you need to invest your time getting to know them. This includes understanding their workflows, personalities, usual schedule, and so on.
Doing so allows you to communicate effectively with them. And when it is easy for you to establish communication, you can plan and organize tasks, set milestones, and enjoy working with your team.
Organize a kickoff meeting
A meeting aims to create a foundation for your project. It's also a fantastic opportunity for you to inspire and energize your team.
The main goal of having a kickoff meeting is to align everyone in your team with your main project objectives. This is also a great time to discuss any misunderstandings or problems with your project.
During the meeting, you should discuss your project's primary purpose with your team. This includes the essential success factors, goals, deliverables, start and end date, your project or communication plans, and so much more.
Invest in a reliable project management software
To make your project management tasks run smoothly, you should create a centralized source of information that your team can access anytime.
This also makes communication with everyone in your team a lot easier.
A great solution to this is to research a great project management software.
Project management software allows your team to stay connected as you work on a project. This helps avoid any unnecessary confusion and enables you to get things done a lot quicker.
Create a hub for organizing everything
If you're working on a web development project, it is not surprising that you will need documentation. That's because your documentation can only help you organize it well, and it's easy to locate.
That's why you need to use a tool that will allow sub-folders and let you house various assets, like Dropbox and Google Drive.
You can visit this weekly to help you organize folders as you create new documentation, allowing any member of your team to navigate them with ease.
If you're using JIRA or Trello, use quick links on the documentation stored on this hub. You can also create a shared document with quick links that store things like designs, notes, and wireframes.
Doing so allows you to access the whole project easily. Remember, what's crucial to the design team may not be as essential to the development team. Thus, you might need to create different versions of this project document.
Communicate with your team
It would help if you communicated your needs and expectations to your designers and developers. Although this might be challenging since project managers, web developers, and designers come from different spectrums.
A dedicated Project Manager is often known to be the "idea people," while developers and designers are more on the technical side.
That's why you need to focus on communicating the right idea and paint a clear picture of the type of software solution that you want developers and designers to build.
Come up with a risk management plan
Risks can hurt the success of your project. That's why you need to know the risks that can come up early on.
The key here is to anticipate the risks that can happen and how it can impact your web development project.
High impact risks are usually the most severe. Meanwhile, low or unlikely chances can post the least threat.
It would be ideal for creating a risk mitigation plan. Doing so allows you to decrease the impact of a risk or prevent it from happening. You can start with the high impact risks and deal with the medium and low threats a little later.
It also helps that you regularly review these risks, and then add new ones later.
Focus on one milestone at a time
While it can be easy to get ahead of yourself, especially if the project is successful in the early stages, this can be damaging in the long run.
You can also take control of your project with the use of project management courses and get a head start on achieving your goals.
Think about it- you can't come up with seating for your restaurant if you don't create a kitchen first. Similarly, you shouldn't develop the frontend of your software if your backend is missing.
The key here is to achieve one milestone at a time. Slow and steady wins the race. Start by making small goals while you stay focused on the bigger picture.
Remember that web projects are not easy. But it does not mean that they can't be fun and rewarding. It may be daunting at first, but with the right strategies and tools, you will end up a winner in the long run.
Photo by Alvaro Reyes on Unsplash