Businesses are built on strong management and great staff. So, for those team leaders who not only have to be on top of their own work but also oversee their team’s, work-life can quickly become overwhelming. It can be hard enough to make sure all your own work gets finished but add team management to that list and it is not hard to see why project deadlines, specific tasks, etc are sometimes missed. Furthermore, due to the pandemic and the move to hybrid working, the team they are overseeing are often working remotely, from different locations and therefore may not be clear on which tasks need prioritizing or even need to be completed resulting in less important tasks being cleared first or tasks being completely forgotten.
Therefore, task management software such as Microsoft Planner or Projects plays a key part in helping to manage the team’s main projects, assignment priorities, and daily to-do lists.
What is task management software?
Task Management Software is much more than a plain, modest to-do list app. At its centre, it assists project management within teams and supports whole team management. Also known as task tracking software, it examines each task from beginning to end and aids you in tracking precisely what your team needs to do and the timeline in which they need to do it. Furthermore, it assists team managers in overseeing workflow on an individual and team level, providing them with a solid picture of what the team is working on (and needs to be working on) at any particular time.
Step 1: Develop your teams plan with task management software
The best task management solution will make getting set up straightforward and will assist you in:
- Designing and naming your strategy
- Pinpointing and make a list of those people who will be working directly on the plan.
- Building ‘buckets’ to separate and sort out all tasks. These buckets will ultimately include particular tasks and to-do lists.
Additional features for overseeing your plan
If possible, your task tracking software will recommend many modest (but important) features to streamline admin and increase teamwork. It will also help team managers deal with matters such as setting up email notifications and adding, eliminating, or providing plan ownership to team members. Plus, you will save a lot of time if your business software allows you to copy plans.
Step 2: Create tasks for your plan
You have produced your plan and created your buckets. Now it’s time to pinpoint tasks and set up the detailed areas that need to get done.
Let’s use an example: your company needs to create a brochure that requires two versions – one to be printed, and one for your website, a slightly different downloadable version. Utilizing your task management software, you can create individual tasks that include things like:
- Revising brochure content.
- Rewriting the content and getting approval.
- Designing the layout.
- Printing.
- Creating the web layout.
- Broadcasting the brochure online.
Once the tasks have been created, they can be arranged into the corresponding buckets.
Step 3: Designate tasks and adjust all task’s to-do lists
The next step is to allocate individual tasks to plan participants.
For every task, you can:
- Attach a description.
- Insert a to-do list (including a daily to-do list if needed) within each task.
- Give start and end (due) dates.
- Set tasks according to priority (namely important to low).
Identifying and highlighting tasks
When setting up tasks, you’ll probably observe some common features. Using the previously mentioned example, both the web-based and print brochures will most likely be created by the same individual and therefore, will use the same images. This author and the images may also be seen in other tasks connected to this, such as marketing tasks.
Utilising the task management tool, you ought to be able to identify your tasks according to a selection of different characteristics, such as time limits, task members, etc, assisting you in the future if you ever need to search tasks for the same traits.
Employing task management software with additional apps
Arguably one of the most significant things about task management software is that it can be utilized alongside other valuable business products.
If possible, your software will permit you to add documents, photos, and links straight to and/or within the tasks themselves—synchronising with any external apps you or your company may use on a regular basis for things such as scheduling, emails, and content innovation.
To put it another way, task management software turns into the central location for all to work together in order to get the job done.
Step 4: Begin pursuing the tasks and to-do lists with your team
Once you have your plan and its tasks established, this is where task management software really begins to display its importance.
Log on to your company dashboard daily and you can:
- Debate tasks with your team within the software solution.
- Establish every task and stay informed of its progress.
- Look at progress charts of the plan and all tasks.
- Find tasks on the calendar.
- Switch and alter responsibilities and move and shift tasks.
- Give guest access to any contributors who are outside your company.
Task management for teams doesn’t need to be a challenge if you have invested in the correct tools. Even better, as this type of software is so intuitive, neither you nor your team needs to be IT specialists in order to understand it.
If everybody understands precisely what needs to get done and when it needs to be done, with the access needed to the right information and sources required, it can be simple to achieve any and all project targets.
Task management software is just one of the many tools that our great team here at Business Cloud Integration can help you with. We are a highly regarded, certified Microsoft partner and specialize in providing affordable digital transformation services to help you engage your customers, enable your business, and accelerate your results. Get in touch with us today for a no-cost, no-obligation consultation and see how we can help you to revolutionise your business.
