4 REASONS WHY YOU NEED A PROJECT MANAGER IN YOUR STARTUP1) You need a project manager at every stage in the project. 2) You need a structured system in your startup organization. 3) You need a project manager to lead and guide the project team to produce effective project outcomes. 4) Project managers know how to use appropriate project management tools and techniques to efficiently manage your startup projects. Some startups (those that do fail) think project management should not be part of their agenda. These failed ventures think that project management tools and processes are just too formal and strict. There are too many checks and balances and formal documentations that need to be done during the project. They think that project management is too much work. Eventually, this will hinder project progress. Well, that is why they fail. A Project Needs Some Sort of Foundation To succeed in your startup venture, you need a stable foundation. A project manager is necessary in a startup, as well as in large enterprises. Startups have deadlines to meet, just like large enterprises. Startups have budgets to cater for, just like big businesses. Startups have technical requirements that need to be incorporated into products or services, just like large corporations. Just like other large businesses, the projects in a startup go through the same project cycle (project initiation, planning, executing, controlling and closing). Also, if you build up the foundation of using a great project manager, project management plans, systems, and processes, you do not have to deal with the work from disorganized paperwork, stressed out team members, and hectic schedules. To get a great project manager, get one of us from PROJACE Project Managers to get started! Four Reasons Why You Need a Project Manager in Your Startup 1) You need a project manager at every stage in the project
2) You need a structured system in your startup organization. It is common for startups to have limited resources (funds are tight!). Thus, funds are limited for hiring suitable people for your teams. Not only are the funds limited for hiring personnel, funds for tools, equipment, land, space, or other resources are limited too. Thus, it is good to have a project manager who can use resource management tools and techniques to manage and control the limited resources and team members in your startup. For team resource management, project managers can use specific tools, such as RACI Chart that clearly defines roles and responsibilities (TeamGantt provides this great RACI Chart Excel template. It's free!). Resource leveling can be used to track and optimize the use of resources in order to enhance project productivity. Other techniques like cost-benefit analysis and trend analysis are used to determine resource utilization and its effectiveness. Not only do project managers use resource management to make projects more structured, project managers also use project management systems. With tons of information coming in your startup, such as invoicing, payments, investor funding proposals, business analysis data, you really need a project management structure to sort and organize everything out. By setting up effective project management systems earlier on in your project, such as project management plans, baselines, logs, documents, organizational systems, your projects will run more smoothly with this organized foundation. You can be sure that your startup team will have a much easier time doing their tasks. 3) You need a project manager to lead and guide the project team to produce effective project outcomes. A project manager should not only be a manager, he or she should also be a team leader. A team leader should guide the followers, who are the project team members, into project success. Motivation is the key in creating momentum and long term success in the team, instead of micromanaging team members to complete their tasks. Thus, you need a good project manager to motivate your startup team members to collaborate with each other and share ideas for your product launches, promotional activities, marketing channels, pricing models, etc. A good leader also values providing support to the team. A project manager can be helpful in constantly ensuring that team members have the appropriate resources to complete their tasks and produce project deliverables. If team members are stuck, the project manager can help with identifying and addressing these obstacles that hinder progress and brainstorm ways in overcoming those challenges. Project managers can also lead the team through effective organization and communication tools. They keep track of project progress and guide team members in using communication tools appropriately, such as Trello. 4) Project managers know how to use appropriate project management tools and techniques to efficiently manage your startup projects. There are many project management tools that are built specifically to streamline project progress and lessen the workload in projects. Traditional project management tools, like Gantt Charts and work breakdown structures, are used to keep track of project progress and key project deliverables. New and more exciting technologies like online project management and organization software from Slack and Wrike can allow team members to collaborate with real-time updates. Startups and small businesses operate under high uncertainties and are fast paced. Things change. Markets evolve. Investors are always stressing about speeding up the launch of products or services. Quick decisions are needed. Project managers can apply lean startup and agile methods to manage projects. Lean startup is all about experimentation not planning. It is a learning process to quickly test and see whether a suggested business model or idea is doable by using techniques like validated learning. Other methods include SCRUM and Kanban.
There are other creative and flexible project management methods that do not deal with traditional project management steps but still provide the necessary structured project management approach that effectively accomplishes business outcomes, like the Informal Project Management Approach.
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