What is Project Tracking?
Ensuring that the project meets the deadline is pivotal to project management. This is crucial also because no customer would come back to you if you fail to meet their expectations. For small and medium-scale organizations using a project management tool can help save resources and deliver projects within the timeframe.
Project tracking is a procedure used to track the progress of jobs or activities or tasks required to complete the project. Tracking the project ensures that tasks are working as per plan and pinpoint any roadblocks that prevent the project from completing on time and within the budget.
Project tracking holds importance in organizations that have a track record of time and cost overruns due to failed projects, particularly within IT organizations, where around 60% of projects stay behind the deadline.
Project tracking helps managers and the key people involved in the project understand what work has been done to date, resources required to perform various tasks, and analyze project variance and milestones.
To summarize, project tracking will help you know:
- Determine tasks done
- Determine resources spent
- Compare Work Done vs. Resources Spent – Earned Value Analysis
- Track Milestones
Successful project tracking begins with employing the right project management software.
Is Project Tracking a Part of Project Management?
Project tracking is a method of project management to track the progress of different tasks within the project. Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to deliver successful projects within the given constraints. Project management requires a unique force drawn by the goals, resources, and completion of each projection.
Tracking projects from the start, proactively taking decisions about the resources, ensuring tasks are carried ahead of time, and measuring milestones is what project managers are supposed to do. Project management can be incredibly challenging.
Effective project management can only be achieved when the progress of the project is mapped out now and then and this is where project tracking comes in.
Tracking projects from the beginning, dealing with problems quickly, and proactively making decisions is what successful project managers do. Managing all tasks and activities involved, handling multiple files involved and most importantly, the people who make up the team; is incredibly challenging.
The only key to constructive project tracking is the use of the right project tracking tools and project management techniques.
7 Key Features to Look for in Project Tracking Tools
So far, we’ve known what project tracking is and how it is an imperative part of project management. Now let’s look at the key features you may need in a project tracking tool before you actually invest a hefty amount.
Gantt timelines: Gantt charts are visual representations of what is happening right now in the project timeline, the key people involved, and the required timeframe of each task. Does the project tracking tool give you clear visual cues about all these? If not, it is time you should look for a better project management tool for your business.
Real-time data: Project management software should consistently provide you with real-time data about your project such as tasks, resources, milestones. You know it is time that you should look for another project tracking tool if you have to generate reports before you can see what is happening.
Alerts and notifications: A fair feature to get you all the alerts or notifications on your email will help in better tracking of the project. Regular and consistent alerts let the team know when crucial information about a task is updated.
Reports: Reports give you or shareholders an insight about the happenings and make important decisions on the improvements. For effective project tracking, the tool should have features like pre-canned reports, graphic representation, insights, cross-module reporting, etc.
There is no point in using project tracking software when you have to make reports manually because your tool is not robust enough.
Dashboards: Dashboards let you see how your project is progressing in real-time. Personalizing a dashboard for each teammate will help them know their major job role in advance followed by a projected timeline of each activity.
Customization: Every project team requires different information to process the project. Project management tools do not work well with the standard and uniform format and fields across all levels because of the different requirements of every team. Customization allows users to modify the information to suit project needs.
Transparency: An effective project management tool ensures effective communication across all levels of management on the project. It should provide efficient resource utilization by avoiding overload and promoting transparency.
Ignatiuz's Project Management Services and Solutions
A project management software with these features is a must-have for every business, because:
- It assures that projects meet deadlines and stick to the overall goals and objectives.
- Helps save on resources by eliminating operational costs and providing real-time transparency into project tracking.
Ignatiuz is an IT and web development company that offers Project Management Services and Solutions to netizens across the globe. We offer versatile project management tools with lots of tracking features and benefits. Our project management software comes with Gantt timelines and customizable dashboards to keep tabs on the projected growth. It comes with a pre-built report function to help you get insight into projects, tasks, and files in a matter of minutes. Finally, our tracking tool allows you to get real-time notifications in one place.
Our project management solutions make the best use of the latest technologies and trends to streamline your entire project workflow, eliminate bottlenecks, and optimize processes.
Check out Ignatiuz and use our project management and consultancy services to benefit your business.
