Now, jokes aside, I believe that one of the priorities of a project manager is not simply to control costs, times and tasks.
I was a rugby player and this is one of the lessons I take with me from my experience.
A project manager must have a fine understanding of the people who collaborate with him.
There are plenty of project management tools out there that promise to improve productivity, save time, and work smarter.
But which ones are really necessary? In netherlands consumer phone number list this guide we will see the 7 tools that you absolutely must have to manage your projects , working better and achieving great results.
And, above all, we will see a project management method that you can apply in any case, regardless of the tools you want to use.
Before I go, who am I?
My name is Mattia Bonetti and I am the project manager of Marketers Company , one of the companies of the Marketers group.
I often say that my role is to transform vision into execution .
What does it mean? I make ideas and projects take shape and become reality.
At Marketers we are dedicated to growing digital projects, through training or our digital marketing services.
The most important thing is that we do not have offices. Everyone works from where they prefer, without punching a time clock.
We do not measure time, but the goals we want to achieve .
Now, while this is the essence of smart working, it is not easy to implement.
The tools we will see will help you and your team to do this, better organizing the work to solve the main problems of asynchronous work.
I'd say we should get started right away.
Table of Contents show
What are project management tools really?
In a moment, we’ll look at the project management tools we use at Marketers, and I’ll also give you a method for finding the right ones for you.
But first it is important to take a small step back.
Let’s get this straight: tools won’t help you turn your ideas into projects that produce results.
It might seem absurd that I'm telling you this in an article about the best project management tools , but bear with me for a moment.
Managing a project, especially remotely, is a complex art, which involves different skills to possess.
If you are in Marketers Pro , I recommend you watch the Masterclass that Luca Cresi Ferrari , co-founder of Marketers, held on this topic.
Luca and Dario founders of Marketers
Luca (left) and Dario Vignali, also co-founder of Marketers
In the Masterclass, Luca explained exactly what strategies and procedures we use in Marketers to successfully manage different projects , even though we are all located in different places in Italy and the world.
I also created a masterclass in Pro myself where I talk about the best tools and strategies to digitize a company and manage a team completely remotely. You can find it here .
In case you're not into Pro or don't know what this is, check it out here .
But that's exactly the point.
Tools are just instruments that allow us to implement our strategies.
Upstream, it is necessary to have clear what the principles are for doing project management effectively and what the problems are to be solved a priori.
In the next few lines we will also see this, so that you can then decide independently what is right for you and, if necessary, understand what you may have done wrong so far.
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Why use project management tools?
Now, whether you are a freelancer or have a business , there are good reasons to build a project management tool system .
There are mainly 6 strategic areas that determine the achievement of a result , but we will talk about this shortly.
Now let’s focus for a moment on the problems you’ll solve with the tools you choose.
It is important to keep them in mind because, as I was saying, it is not enough to use tools to make them disappear. You have to know where to go to act.
There are 3 main problems that can jeopardize any project.
Let's see what they are.
1) Lack of clarity
If we don’t know where we’re going, no one will follow us. This is true in leadership as well as project management.
The task of a project manager , as well as of an entrepreneur or anyone who manages a project, is to trace a path that is as clear as possible.
You need to empower the people you work with to know exactly what to do.
This is even more important when working from home.
The essence of smart working lies in the possibility of working asynchronously .
I might decide to carry out my tasks in the evening, after enjoying a day in nature, while another person might be in another time zone and therefore work at different times than the rest of the team.
However, this is only possible if it is clear what each person has to do and if the project hierarchies are clear.
Who will approve the result that will be reached? It may seem trivial, but this must be decided first.
Most project slowdowns come from “bottlenecks,” which are moments when you’re waiting for someone’s decision or work.
The first rule to avoid them is to clarify immediately who will do what, so as to have a realistic idea of the time needed.
2) Communication misalignment
We said that the essence of smart working is asynchronous work and that to enable it, clarity is necessary.
This applies both at the level of the individual project and at a more general level.
Let me give you an example of what we do at Marketers.
Every Friday afternoon I post a message about Basecamp – if you’re not familiar with it, we’ll look at what it is in a bit.
It is our weekly “sprint”, that is, a message that has 2 main objectives:
Inform the entire team about what happened in the previous 7 days
take stock of what we will do in the coming week
And last but not least, test our cinema knowledge.
A few months ago I started adding a gif from a movie at the end of each message, where you have to guess the title.
A now heartfelt competition has arisen.
The winner of the first edition also took home a coveted prize:
contest marketers award
3) Misunderstandings and frictions
Yes, they are socks with my face
Now, jokes aside, I believe that one of the priorities of a project manager is not simply to control costs, times and tasks.
I was a rugby player and this is one of the lessons I take with me from my experience.
A project manager must have a fine understanding of the people who collaborate with him.
It must have clear strengths and weaknesses, merits and defects of each.
We must always remember that companies are made up of people, who must be understood and helped to express their talent.
mattia bonetti project manager marketers
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