What is Project Management?

Project management is the process of planning, executing, and managing team work through a set of standardized phases, tools, and techniques. Widely used methodologies include Agile, Scrum, Lean, Kanban, Six Sigma, and Waterfall.

Projects are the lifeblood of every business, which means project management is the heart.

Without upfront planning and preparation, established processes, strong leadership, committed team members, and the right tools, your project will probably flounder.

Those are pretty high expectations, and you might be wondering how you’re supposed to pull together everything you need.

That’s why I’ve put together the ultimate guide to project management.

First, we’ll look at modern methodologies and which one you should use. Then, you’ll learn how to customize your approach so it’s optimized for your team’s end goal, working style, and more.

After that, we’ll dive into the apps you can use to be far more efficient.

Finally, I’ll let you in on what I’ve learned about project failure: the most common causes, how to avoid it, and the signs of a project that’s in trouble.

Ready to take your team to the next level? Let’s go.

Believe it or not, companies didn’t use established frameworks to manage their projects until the 1950s.

Each leader devised their own approach. As you can probably guess, that meant almost every project was tackled in a different way.

While using individual methods can work, having a system that the entire team uses over and over again is helpful for several reasons:

• It saves time upfront, since every member already knows the basic process and steps involved

• It makes results more uniform and predictable

• It allows the team to refine its system over time as they become aware of its strengths and weaknesses

• It lets employees reuse some of their work

A project management methodology will ultimately save your company time, money, and resources. But that hinges on one crucial decision: picking the right PM methodology.

Kanban method

Kanban is a project management method that uses visual workflows to keep tasks organized and moving forward. It originates from Toyota’s “Just-in-Time” production system, where the goal was to do only what’s needed, when needed, and in the amount needed.

Here’s an example of how it can be used.

Imagine you’re renovating your house. There’s no way you can accomplish everything in one fell swoop. Instead, you start work in the kitchen, then do some updates in the master bedroom, then go back to the kitchen once your new granite has come in… You get the drift.

With Kanban project management, projects are still broken into pieces, but each piece can be worked on throughout.

There’s not really a defined workflow — it’s essentially ongoing.

Benefits: When your team is in-sync, Kanban can work like a charm. People can work fairly independently; plus, you can easily get an overview of the project’s status at any given moment.

Drawbacks: If your team isn’t highly unified, or its members need a lot of oversight, the project will struggle. Furthermore, it’s not well set up for projects with a high number of dependencies.

The Waterfall approach

The waterfall approach is a method that requires the team to start with their end goal, then map out every stage of the project needed to achieve that end goal — all before any work happens.

One of the first systems to emerge, Waterfall is also one of the most famous. It’s highly likely you use a version of Waterfall in your own life without realizing it. Think about the last time you decided to, say, cook dinner.

You probably thought about all the steps involved — picking a dish, figuring out which ingredients you needed, going to the store, and actually preparing the meal — and then performed those steps in sequential order.

That’s the Waterfall method.

Once the project starts, you go by your results, rather than the clock. If you’re supposed to conduct 30 user interviews in phase one, you can’t move on to phase two until all 30 are finished — even if that means you’ll spend more time than you allotted.

Benefits: If you’re dealing with an incredibly complex product, having this much structure will keep your team members focused and motivated. Waterfall is also extremely fault-tolerant; if you need a "perfect" product (like a car or an aspirin bottle), it’s ideal.

Drawbacks: Tight deadlines don’t mix well with Waterfall. There’s no way to adapt this system to unexpected delays. Some people also dislike how rigid it is, saying this stifles creativity. It’s usually not the optimal choice for software products or creative work, as they often change on a dime.

Lean project management

Lean project management is a method that aims to deliver more value for less waste, and originated from the manufacturing sector. However, in the past decade, the number of startups branding themselves as "lean" has exploded — especially in the tech world.

Software and industrial companies may seem pretty different on the surface. But every type of business can benefit from the methodology’s core goal of high value and minimal waste.

The "build-measure-learn" feedback loop is at the center. Essentially, you build the most basic version of your product (or a subset of your product). Then, you test your idea (ideally by taking it your actual users or the closest possible approximation). Finally, you use the results of your testing to either continue on the same path or chart a new course.

Benefits: Lean teams can react and adapt to change without slowing down. They tend to produce extremely cost-effective results, which is obviously key when you’re strapped for cash.

And since lean requires you to gather feedback at every stage of the process, there’s very little danger of creating a fantastic product that no one wants.

Drawbacks: Unlike other project management systems, lean is pretty bare bones. There aren’t a ton of rules or formal processes to follow.

You’ll need to develop your own way of doing things, which isn’t always productive. Lastly, lean’s obsessive focus on cutting waste isn’t always great for team morale. After all, employee happiness should probably rank above the bottom line most of the time.

Agile scrum methodology

First, a clarification.

Agile methodology is a framework based on 12 principles known as the Agile Manifesto. The thinking is to make incremental, continuous improvements.

When you want to apply this framework to your organization, you may do it through Kanban project management (as described above) or with Scrum.

Scrum methodology is a subset of Agile (and some would say the most structured). There’s some Agile pre-work planning, during which you carve up your end goal into mini-goals. Each mini-goal is assigned a one to four-week period, also known as a "Sprint".

Teams are expected to make progress on their sprint goal every day. At the end of every sprint, instead of immediately transitioning into the next one, everyone participates in a reassessment. They might decide to mix up the order of the sprints, or change the end goal entirely.

Benefits: Scrum’s emphasis on constant reassessment makes it optimal for iterative projects. In addition, its focus on relatively short time periods helps keep the project interesting and dynamic.

Drawbacks: Since it’s relatively easy to add or change goals, you might find a project ballooning in scope or veering off in the wrong direction. Plus, some work really needs more than a month to be done well.

Six Sigma with DMAIC

Six Sigma is a highly disciplined, data-driven process that aims for near-perfect business performance and services. DMAIC is an important part of Six Sigma, and stands for: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control.

To understand if Six Sigma is right for your organization, take a second to visualize what a "successful" project looks like to you. Is it virtually error free? Or is it a minimum viable product (MVP)?

If you chose the first option, then Six Sigma may be the best methodology for your team.

Traditionally, Six Sigma practitioners use the DMAIC approach to problem-solving. Six Sigma teams also focus on three main ways to bring down costs without reducing quality: defect prevention, cycle time reduction, and cost savings.

Benefits: When a product has a "Six Sigma" rating, it’s 99.99966% error-free. When you have an extremely low tolerance for defects, therefore, this is a solid choice.

In addition, Six Sigma’s focus on statistics and analysis can work well for quantitative thinkers.

Drawbacks: The majority of teams prefer to follow a "done is better than perfect" philosophy. Six Sigma is also pretty inflexible, which might cause some or all of your team members to feel creatively stifled.

The number of project methodologies out there can be overwhelming.

How on earth are you supposed to pick?

Adding to the confusion, most methodologies can be customized to your team’s specific needs, structure, and objectives, meaning that you’ve got even more options to choose from.

And should you use one framework for all your projects or vary your approach depending on what your team is tackling?

Unfortunately, there isn’t one universal truth. But if you know which factors to consider, you can figure out the optimal solution for your company.

The most important factors

Before you decide which methodology to use, reflect on these crucial points:

• Goals and core values

• Obstacles and limits

• Risks

• Participants

• Complexity

• Project scope and budget

That might feel a bit abstract to you, so let’s look at a couple of sample scenarios.

Scenario #1:

Back in 2012, the Basecamp team decided to create a new "Everything" page for their software.

This page would serve as the gateway for a team’s projects, meaning that when a user logged in, it would be the first place visited before navigating to a sub-page.

The team wasn’t sure what the layout should be, what content would be included, and how this update would impact the navigation.

In other words, there was a lot of uncertainty involved.

They also wanted to move fast. This project wasn’t going to be a long, multi-stage one: it had to come together all at once.

With these inputs in mind, choosing an Agile model with an iterative approach definitely made sense.

As Chuck Cobb, author of The Project Manager's Guide to Mastering Agile, explains, "Projects with a high level of uncertainty where business results are more important than predictability lend themselves to a more adaptive (Agile) approach and projects with a lower level of uncertainty and with a need for predictability lend themselves to a more plan-driven approach."

Scenario #2:

Commercial software provider Vertabase was working on a project for a new client.

They were initially leaning toward their usual approach: Agile.

However, while "this works great for a tightly defined set of deliverables and a client who has done software before," Vertabase principal Mark Phillips said, this project and client didn’t fit the bill.

"More than building features, this client is interested in having us take care of them. They are new to technology. They have a great idea, an understanding of their target users and the enthusiasm to stick with the project," he said. "In their case, we are providing a full service consulting and execution experience."

For that reason, the team pivoted to Waterfall.

They decided to solidify the client’s vision, write an in-depth specifications document, launch an alpha, incorporate the client’s feedback, iterate on the alpha, release a beta, do three stages of bug testing and fixing, and finally, go live.

Pretty intense, but clearly a good fit for the project.

How does your team work?

You should also account for your team’s dominant working style.

Do they love collaborating, innovating, and moving quickly? Or are they most successful when there’s a highly detailed, orderly plan?

If you’re not sure, think about the last couple of projects your team has tackled.

What type of work environment was present for the successful projects versus the unsuccessful ones? The answer should tell you what your team needs to thrive.

Groups that produce the best results in uncertain but exciting setups will like Agile, Lean, Scrum, and Kanban. Groups that like structure and predictability, on the other hand, will appreciate Waterfall and Six Sigma.

What are you working on?

Of course, the product itself should also influence your role. Check out this comprehensive and informative system analysis chart:

Don’t be fooled by the seeming complexity of this chart. The underlying concept is pretty simple.

Basically, the higher your production quality must be, the less Agile your approach should be.

If you’re creating an innovative product that can be changed or updated after you’ve released it (like software), Agile methodology is ideal.

Lastly, factor in how flexible your tools are.

Can they be adapted fairly quickly? If you’re working with digital platforms, probably so; if you’re working with physical products, probably not.

Agile is an optimal approach for the former but not a good choice for the latter.

Once you’ve decided on the project management methodology you’re going to use, there’s still one more step: customizing that methodology.

According to the Project Management Institute, most methodologies are explicitly designed to be customized.

It explains, "Some inexperienced practitioners fail to understand this and apply the methodology verbatim regardless of project size, complexity, duration or organizational context. This very rarely leads to project success."

Taking an off-the-shelf methodology and tailoring it to your project’s size, complexity, duration, and context is also important because this:

• Leads to greater buy-in from your team members

• Boosts efficient resource usage

• Puts an emphasis on the customer’s needs (as the customer is usually an important part of the customization process)

Furthermore, while simply using a methodology improves your project’s probability of success by 8%, using a tailored one increases those same odds by 16%.

We recommend getting your team together to discuss your chosen methodology’s processes, tools, templates, techniques, and practices.

Once you’ve laid everything out, decide as a team which components you want to remove, add, or swap.

Like puzzles, projects come with a huge number of little pieces. And like puzzles, you can’t take a project to completion without every single one of those components.

How do you manage a million deadlines, tasks, responsibilities, objectives, details, files, and changes without letting any slip through the cracks?

With project management software, of course.

A project management software can serve as your team’s digital memory, keeping everything in one place.

They also play an instrumental role in keeping your team on target.

Yet we’re back to the same conundrum: there are so many project management tools out there, how do you choose one?

This list of project management software should help.

Hubstaff Tasks is full-featured project management software that keeps teams in sync with Kanban-style boards and workflows. This Agile platform features focused sprints, checklists, comments, and more, so that all projects and sub-tasks are managed in one place.

Managing projects is much easier when everyone is following a task’s progress and knows when it’s on their plate.

You can even set custom workflows so that a task follows the steps you’ve created. One button moves a task to the next step, alerting the next team member it’s time to pick it up.

The built-in sprints feature allows your team to focus on the most important work, and decide as a group where to spend time over the next few weeks.

Some of its main features include:

• Kanban-style project management with sprints

• Visual workflows so you can see where a project is at any time

• Checklists within tasks for detailed progress tracking

• Ability to assign or mention team members in the comments

• Clear labels that give you an overview of an entire project

In addition to tracking time, many of our clients use Hubstaff along with Hubstaff Tasks to manage their projects.

The platform lets you not only monitor employees work activity, but also the time spent on each specific project task as well as app or URL visited, which is incredibly helpful to project managers.

For example, imagine that your team is working on a conversion optimization project for an ecommerce site.

Instead of asking your Wordpress developer where the search filters are, you can simply open Hubstaff and see the progress for yourself. Screenshots along with hours tracked give you a clear picture of how the project has progressed.

Open Hubstaff Tasks, and you can see a card for each task with checklists, due dates, assigned team members, and comment updates.

This shortcut saves time for everyone on the team — and those minutes add up.

Furthermore, Hubstaff makes your project reporting much simpler and more accurate. You won’t need to make rough estimates of how many hours a project took or what your clients owe you, because you’ll have the results automatically (and they’ll be accurate down to the second).

And as a bonus, next time you plan a similar project, you can develop a data-backed estimate.

If you fantasize about email — more specifically, never sending, reading, or forwarding one again — then Asana may be the solution you’ve been waiting for.

When you use it as planned, it negates the need for email.

Well, internal emails at least.

Interactions with your team members are broken up into two simple and intuitive categories: task conversations, and project conversations.

When you’re clarifying the details on a specific assignment, you’ll default to that assignment’s comments box. On the other hand, when you’re talking about the high-level plan for the entire project, you can hold your discussion in the project’s comment box.

The powerful search options make finding previous conversations even easier.

Search also comes in handy when you’re looking for files. Asana integrates with Box, Dropbox, and Google Drive to make adding attachments seamless, although you can always upload files from your computer.

Asana’s workflow templates differentiate it from other apps in the space.

To give you an idea, maybe your Technical Director always creates a preliminary brief estimating specs and resources. The brief goes to the PM for approval, who edits it, and sends it to the client.

You could set up this three-part workflow as a template in Asana, so it’s automatically added to each new project you create. As you can imagine, this small change can provide serious gains over time.

Asana integrates with Hubstaff, so your team members can track their time on specific tasks and projects.

Want even more? Check out our guide to using Asana for project management.

It’s a sign of Trello’s universal popularity that many people think it’s the only app for Kanban.

That’s far from reality — there’s a ton of similar tools, including Hubstaff Tasks, Kanbanchi, Kanbanflow, and Kanbanery.

However, Trello’s simple yet aesthetically pleasing interface is definitely unique.

Being productive is usually more satisfying than fun. Nonetheless, there’s something inordinately pleasing about grabbing a task (referred to as a "card") and dropping it into the next list to mark your progress.

The app also makes it easy to find everything you need.

Each card can include file attachments, checklists, labels, a due date, and an owner (or multiple).

In addition, you can communicate with your team members in the Comments section of each card. However, it’s worth noting Trello isn’t set up for quick, informal, IM-style discussions.

Read more about Trello project management.

Wrike's online software is well-suited to marketing, creative, product development, and project management teams.

(Although if your team doesn’t fit into any of those categories, that doesn’t mean Wrike isn’t a good option.)

Like most project management apps, Wrike lets you create a hierarchy from folders, projects, and tasks down to sub-tasks.

Its "live editor" is a little more unusual; this feature lets you see everyone’s individual changes to a task in real-time.

Wrike will also create Gantt Charts based on your project schedule and dependencies, which is handy if you need to visualize what’s in the pipeline.

The app’s workload view shows you who’s overwhelmed, who doesn’t have enough to do, and who’s got the optimal amount.

To help you meet deadlines and stay within budget, use Hubstaff’s time and budget tracking integration for Wrike. This shows you how long a project or team member is taking.

At some point in their career, most people have worked on a project that ultimately failed.

In fact, most people have probably worked on several projects that ultimately failed, because they didn't pay attention to the project management KPIs.

According to PMI, up to 21% of projects are deemed failures.

And even if a project does fulfill the original goal, that doesn’t mean it’s finished within its budget. Research from the Standish Group shows only 30% of projects are delivered both on time and on budget.

Ready for one last scary statistic? Three in four executives believe their projects are doomed from the start.

Your company’s success hinges on delivering projects in that successful one-third, so you should be prepared for common risks.

There are a million different reasons a project could flop, and thinking about and planning for every single one isn’t at all feasible.

But you can — and should — be equipped to handle the three most common.

Knowing the common challenges of project management usually is the first step. Establishing safety nets and workarounds is the second to avoid project management failure. Here are some of the solutions to most common project management challenges.

Work on project communication

Project communication is how you ensure that everyone is on the same page and projects are moving forward as planned. It involves as many channels as needed to get the work done, including project management software, communication apps, email, presentations, calls, and more.

For effective project communication, start making your communication predictable. Everyone should know exactly when the next update is coming, whether it’s in the form of a conference call, an all-hands meeting, a status email, or a post on Slack.

The same principle holds for clients, as well. Even if you’re constantly talking to them via email, phone, and video, you should still have a scheduled update.

This guarantees information won’t slip through the cracks.

You should also strive for transparency. The members of your team should be as informed as possible, which is easiest if you use a tool like Hubstaff Tasks, Asana, Slack, or Trello.

Default to public conversations

In other words, if you need to give a team member information, do so in a chat room everyone can access rather than a private message (unless, of course, the information is sensitive or confidential).

Your clients should know as much as possible, too.

PMs love to pass along news they know will make the client happy ("We’re ahead of schedule!" or "We already increased your conversion rate by 40%!") but they stay quiet when it comes to negative updates ("We discovered you need a complete overhaul of your back-end." or "The project is going to run at least one week over.").

Although being the bearer of bad news is never pleasant, share it with clients as soon as possible.

They may be upset, but it’s better than losing their trust because you sat on it.

Since project failure rates are so high, every team leader should know the signs of poor project management to avoid an impending crisis.

1. Your team members are working overtime

It’s normal to have someone burn the midnight oil every once in a while.

However, if you notice several team members all working far more hours than planned, there’s probably an issue: either your original estimates were off, or something is wrong with this phase of the project.

Your next step? Investigating.

Take a look at what your employees are tackling (if you use Hubstaff, you can simply browse through their latest time entries and screenshots if you use them.)

Pay attention to the quality of the work and how it compares to their norm. When quality slips, that’s a strong signal the task is too difficult, complex, or foreign for the team member.

Alternatively, you might discover there’s a different obstacle slowing people down.

For example, they may not have the proper equipment or enough help. Once you’ve discovered the issue, you can start to fix it.

2. You’re constantly dealing with short-term issues

As the leader, you should be spending 20% of your time on reactive tasks and 80% of your time on proactive tasks.

In other words, most of your day should be devoted to figuring out where the team should end up, how far away you are, and what everyone needs to do to get there.

But you can’t accomplish that level of strategic thinking if you’re frittering away your time on short-term crises.

And without your vision to guide them, your team members won’t be able to combine their work into a meaningful product.

It’s hard to stop putting out fires.

After all, it feels like the project will fall apart if you do.

Your secret weapon is delegation. If a problem crops up that’s timely but not tactical, figure out who’s capable of tackling it. They might not be as effective as you, but in the long run, your attention and energy will be better served on other things.

3. Your end goal has completely changed

Successful project managers frequently compare the current project objectives with the original ones.

Those objectives will inevitably change over time as business needs, schedules, customer priorities, and/or funding shifts.

However, your project scope definitely shouldn’t change too dramatically. If your end goals are constantly mutating, you’re not just putting your deadlines and budget at risk — you’re also de-motivating your team members.

Writing a clear, fully fleshed-out scope statement before the project gets underway is the best way to avoid major changes.

It should include the project’s reason for existence, requirements, milestones, deliverables, and cost estimates. The statement should also lay out what the project won’t include (e.g., non-goals).

4. Your stakeholders are acting distant

Whether your stakeholders are your clients or some of your company’s senior executives, it’s never a good sign if their participation suddenly drops off.

To give you an idea, maybe your client now takes a week instead of two days to respond to emails. Or maybe the executives who used to show up to every status meeting haven’t attended the last four.

Why are trends like these troubling? They mean you’ve lost your stakeholders’ support.

It’s going to be an uphill battle getting final approval for your project if your main advocates have checked out.

To re-engage stakeholders, try switching up your communication style.

For instance, if your client has checked out, try inviting them to a team Skype collaboration session.

Giving them a peek into the creative side will probably spark their interest and enthusiasm far more than yet another email.

5. You’re not meeting milestones

“Strategic deadlines are designed to help you move closer to your goals every day, week and month in a way that keeps you experiencing small wins along the way, rather than simply painting a huge target months away that just adds to your stress levels,” according to an article on The Balance.

If your team members are consistently out of step with your project’s schedule, it doesn’t matter how great their work is: your project is in danger.

There are several potential explanations for the problem.

First, the person assigned to the task might not have the appropriate or complete skill-set.

Second, the milestones might not be realistic.

Third, your employee isn’t prioritizing this task.

Or fourth, they don’t have the right resources.

To figure out the root of the issue, ask the team members in question something like, “How can I help you meet your future milestones?”

Because you’re trying to assist them, rather than blame them, this question usually gets pretty honest replies.

Putting together all of the pieces for a successful project may seem difficult.

However, if you approach each piece in isolation, it’s much less overwhelming. Start by choosing a methodology, and then figure out how to customize it.

Next, choose your software. And finally, make sure you understand how to keep a project from failing mid-way.