Indeed, there are many ways to manage a project, to find the best one for you, you need to know exactly what you want to achieve. And later on, we will hopefully transform your objectives into real improvements for your company.
<pclass="text-muted">The Flectra Project app can be used to manage many activities, from the development of a new product to the daily operations of a customer support. With some creativity, it can even be used to manage your marketing communications or personal projects. But just because it can be done doesn't mean it's always a good idea: let's start by helping you understand what can be a good project.</p>
<pclass="text-muted">Depending on what you need and how you want to operate, there are several ways to work with Flectra. First, decide if you want to think in terms of tasks. Then, activate the Timesheets app if you need it.</p>
For that, the most important part is defining the stages of your projects. Stages are the different steps a task can go through, from its creation to its ending. They will appear in what we call the 'Kanban' view of your projects.
<p><strong>Define a Naming Convention</strong><br/>
Add keywords in the 'Task title' field, for example [Customer name] or [Website]. This will help you navigate and search through the dozens of tasks in your project.
Tags are complementary to your project stages: they can work as a second level categorization which is very useful if you have a lot of Tasks to manage. Also, it becomes very easy to find Tasks by typing the Tag into the main Search bar.
The Status indicator helps you manage Tasks by giving them one of 3 different colour: Grey, Green or Red. The meaning of these Statuses can be freely configured, for example:
<li>Grey: the Task is in progress (someone is working on it)</li>
<li>Green: the Task is ready for next stage (the job for this stage is complete)</li>
<li>Red: the Task is blocked (there's a problem)</li></p>
<p>To configure these Kanban Statuses, go to the 'Project Stages' tab of a Project.</p>
The <iclass="fa fa-star"/> is used to indicate priority: in Kanban views, high priority Tasks will be displayed on top. This is particulary useful if you use a Scrum methodology to indicate the tasks for the week. Similarly to Status, you can change the meaning of the Star indicator from the Project Stages tab.
The person assigned to a task is responsible for its progress and their avatar is displayed in Kanban view for quick reference. Of course, the responsibility for a task can change depending on its stage.
It replaces the standard Description area in Tasks and is extremely useful for several cases.</p><br/>
<p><li><strong>You have different users writing Tasks descriptions</strong><br/>
It can quickly become messy if everyone uses his own layout. Etherpad will allow you to create a basic template with a few titles and bullet points, making it much easier for everyone.</li></p><br/>
<p><li><strong>You organize distant meetings</strong><br/>
Etherpad allows users to simultaneously edit a text document, see all of the edits in real-time and with the ability to display each author's text in their own color.</li></p><br/>
<p><li><strong>You have to manage versions and track changes</strong><br/>
Etherpad auto-saves the document at regular short intervals and users can permanently save specific versions at any time. Plus, a "time slider" feature also allows anyone to explore the history of the pad.</li></p><br/>
<p><strong>To use Collaborative Notepads</strong>, simply activate the corresponding option in your <at-att-href="prepare_backend_url('project.action_config_settings')">Project Settings.</a></p>
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<strong>Recommended actions:</strong>
<li>
<at-att-href="prepare_backend_url(
'project.action_view_task', 'kanban')">
Create at least 3 tasks</a> using the above recommendations
</li>
<li>
Create a task by sending an email to a project alias with one of your colleagues in copy
</li>
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<pclass="text-muted">Timesheets are often essential for running a company.<br/>
They are also prone to human error, repetitive, annoying, and sometimes stressful to employees.<br/>
view of the HR module is the main tool to check, modify and confirm Timesheets.</li><br/>
<li>Alternatively, Timesheets can be added directly from Tasks by activating <strong>'Log work activities on tasks'</strong> in the <at-att-href="prepare_backend_url('project.action_config_settings')">Project Settings</a>.</li><br/>
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<strong> Via Chrome extension</strong>
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We've developed a super simple and efficient Chrome extension to enter your timesheets:<br/><br/>
<imgalt="Available on the Apple Store"src="/project/static/src/img/app_store.png"/>
</a>
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<h3><strong>Invoice your customers</strong> (every month)</h3>
<p>
If you work on a Time & Material project, you'll probably want to extract a Timesheet of the tasks to invoice directly to the customer. To do that:
</p>
<ul>
<li> Activate 'Allow invoicing based on timesheets' from the <i>Human Resources Settings</i>.
</li>
<li> This will add an Invoice Tasks menu in the Project module, that can be used to select the Timesheet to invoice.</li>
</ul>
<h3><strong>Analyze reports</strong> (every a year)</h3>
<p>It's usually a good idea to take time to analyze your tasks once a year. Here are some KPIs you should take a look at. Ask yourself 'How can they be improved?'</p>
<p><strong>For tasks:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>What is the number of missed deadlines?</li>
<li>What is the difference between initial time estimation and final time spent?</li>
<li>What is the average time before a task is assigned / closed?</li>
<li>What is the average number of working hours necessary to close a task?</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>About Employees:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>What is their average number of working hours over the year?</li>
<li>What is their average number of tasks worked on / closed?</li>
</ul>
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<strong>Need help with Timesheets management? Contact us now:</strong><br/>
A project usually involves many stakeholders, be it the project's sponsor, resources, customers or external contractors. But the most important person in a project is usually the Project Manager.<br/>
In Flectra, the Project Managers have the responsibility of managing the Kanban view: they ensure smooth progression of the projects, minimal downtime between stages and optimal work distribution between resources.</p>
<h4><strong>There are two ways of managing your Kanban stages:</strong></h4>
<li><strong>In 'Push' mode</strong>, tasks are pushed into the next stage (once they satisfy all requirements) by the person responsible for the current stage. This is a simple way to work but only functions well if you work alone.</li>
<li><strong>In 'Pull' mode</strong>, tasks ready to progress to the next stage are just marked as 'Ready for next stage (using the status icon) by the person responsible for the current stage. Then, the person responsible for the next stage takes the task and moves it to the next stage. This is the best way to work if you have diluted responsibilities for your Kanban stages.</li>
<pclass="text-muted">Managing notifications is essential: too few and you risk missing critical information, too many and you will be overloaded with unnecessary information. The trick is to find the right balance between the projects, stages and tasks you want to be informed about. Fortunately, Flectra Project has many levels of notifications and messages you can choose from.</p>
The simplest way to use notifications is to follow a whole project: you will receive notifications for all the new and existing tasks of a project.
</p>
<p>
Don't hesitate to select only the events you are interested in!
</p>
<p>Another good way to limit the number of notifications you receive is to only follow your Project's 'Task Assigned' events. Then you'll be notified when a Task is created, and can manually decide if you want to be notified for its other events too.</p>
Sending a message through Flectra will automatically send an email containing your message to all the followers including internal employees, external users or customers.
In Flectra, every project has an email alias. If you send an email to this alias, it will automatically create a task in the first stage of the project, with all the email recipients as its default followers.</p>
This is particularly useful to manage help and support: all incoming email from customers will be transformed into a task that you'll be able to track easily!
<li>You can reply directly to a message from you email software; the message and its attachments will be added to the Chatter.</li>
<li>If you don't want to receive email notifications, you can uncheck the option in your <at-att-href="prepare_backend_url('base.action_res_users', 'form')">Account Preferences</a>.</li>
Usually, a project's team members are managed through weekly (or monthly) status meetings.<br/>
Sometimes, these meetings can last hours and expose participants to an overly detailed review of the project.<br/>
Your team members will probably try to avoid those kind of meetings, or have to rush afterwards to meet their deadlines...<br/><br/>
So how can you, as project manager, structure a weekly status meeting where team members are engaged, informed and willing to contribute to the project's next steps? Here are some tips.
As project manager, you also need to be fully prepared. There should be no surprises during the meeting. Surprises can undermine your ability to manage the project and cause team members to lose confidence in you.</p>
<p>
Also, lead by example. When your team members see how prepared you are it will reinforce the need for each of them to be prepared for status meetings.
The worst question to ask is, "What did you do this week?" It invariably generates unnecessary, time-consuming dialogue from team members. Plus, you should already know what everyone on the team did during the week.</p>
<p>
For example, risk and task owners should come prepared to share the status of their item and, ideally, a path to resolution.
</p>
<p>It is better to start with a "project answer", such as: "We are two weeks late", "We are at planned budget" or "We are 50% complete with the process model". Also if you can, start the meeting on a positive note, such as milestones that have been met or are ahead of schedule. This will make participants feel motivated to engage in the conversation.</p>
<strong> Prepare an agenda (and keep to it)</strong>
<p>Be aware of the team’s productivity and time: try to keep meetings to one hour or less.</p>
<p>Use separate meetings to solve big tasks or tasks that aren’t important for the entire team.</p>
<p><li><strong> Roll call (5 min)</strong>
Let everyone know who is in attendance before starting. This is important for remote team members who have dialled in and will save you time later.</li>
<li><strong> New business tasks (5 min)</strong>
You may have learned something during the week that affects the project. Share the news early in the meeting to help team members consider the task as you walk through the project status session. Not every task warrants spending time here, so keep discussions to a minimum.</li>
<li><strong> Project plan status review (20 min) </strong>
Walk through your project plan and allow each team member to provide a brief status of assignments due this week and tasks planned for the next two weeks. You want to know whether tasks are on track and if any will miss their projected deadline. You also want to allow the team member to share any special considerations that might affect other tasks or members of the project. Carefully manage this part because some team members will want to pontificate and spend more time than is really needed. Remember, you’re the project manager.</li>
<li><strong> Critical items (10 min)</strong>
Upon completing the project status review session, summarize the critical items. </li>
<li><strong> Q&A and discussion time (10 min)</strong>
Always give your team time to ask questions on tasks that were not discussed. This gives you another opportunity to reinforce key points that you've picked up during the week or discovered during the meeting.</li>
<li><strong> Summary and follow-up items (5 min)</strong>
Always wrap up with a project status summary and a list of action items dentified in the meeting to help move the project along.</li>
<li><strong> Adjourn (5 min)</strong>
Conclude the meeting with upbeat statements and positive input on project accomplishments. Always reinforce teamwork and encourage all member to watch out for each other to ensure the project is successful.</li></p>
<strong>Follow every meeting with a recap email</strong>
As soon as the meeting is over, publish meeting minutes and distribute them along with the updated project schedule, task/action item matrix, and any other appropriate documents. Try to use the same template throughout meetings and improve it continuously.
Avoid Monday mornings as your regular meeting day; choosing to meet later in the week gives participants time to get ready for the meeting and to work toward specific objectives in the days that follow.
</p>
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<h4><strong>Click on 'Reporting' on the main menu</strong> and generate statistics relevent to each profiles:</h4>
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<strong> Exercise 1</strong><br/>
<spanclass="small">Check Workload</span>
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<p>
<strong>Exercise:</strong> Try to get a view of the workload for this week for all your employees (planned hours).
<li>You can save your reports to easily reuse it later</li>
<li>You can even include any report in your dashboard for permanent access!</li>
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<span><strong>We are here to help you:</strong> if you don't succeed in achieving your favorite KPIs, contact us and we can help you create your custom reports.
<h4>Don't hesitate to <ahref="mailto:info@flectrahq.com?subject=Project%20Planner">send us an email</a> to describe<br/> your experience or to suggest improvements !</h4>
