For many companies, ineffective task management strategies and tools create a persistent drain on productivity.
It’s hardly a new problem, but it seems particularly difficult to solve. On one level, improving task management requires personal discipline from employees. But at the same time, the organization is responsible for providing employees with effective task management strategies and tools.
Here are four task management tips for companies that want to improve productivity and collaboration.
- Start small and build trust: In general, an organization-wide push to use a new task management technology is unlikely to reach the critical mass of user adoption to take hold. Breaking habits is difficult, and employees tend to abandon new task management tools and fall back to the safety zone of email, the default platform for communication and task management. Part of why people revert to email is that they trust it as a record of the work they’re doing. If you need to submit a proposal by a certain deadline, you might send it via email and select “notify me upon receipt.” Even if email isn’t the optimal tool for this task, you simply trust it to provide a paper trail.That’s why it’s important to start small when trying to improve task management and introduce new technology. People haven’t had time to develop the same level of trust they have with email with other collaboration and productivity applications. Start small and develop a particular use case before trying to roll out an organization-wide initiative.
- Focus on team productivity: If your goal is to improve task management practices throughout your organization, it makes sense to develop your strategy and collaboration solutions on a group level. It’s a good idea to start developing your strategy with teams that collaborate on specific types of projects. If you start with an understanding of the existing team dynamics and communication, you’re better able to identify ways to improve task management within your organization’s teams, making them more effective and productive.
- Establish a common methodology: At many organizations, there’s no clear task management methodology used by everyone. Trying to select and apply technology solutions without a clearly defined process to support is a clear case of putting the cart before the horse. Most organizations have defined many of their core processes, but haven’t addressed processes around task management. Invest the time and resources up front to identify a common methodology that fits your organization’s working style, and make sure everyone agrees to follow that method.
- Implement a consistent set of tools: A final obstacle to effective task management is the proliferation of tools available. If you were to look around your organization, you’d probably see that each person has a preferred tool for task management. One person uses Notepad while another tracks the same task in an Excel spreadsheet. A third person person relies primarily on their email in Outlook, while a fourth actually uses an enterprise collaboration solution. All of these methods may work well independently. But when those four people need to work together, the inconsistencies in tools has a negative impact on productivity and workflow.
If a person doesn’t recognize task management problems in their own work, they often have a hard time seeing that their disorganization affects their workflow, their colleagues and the organization as a whole. That’s why your organization needs to take responsibility for providing employees with effective task management strategies and tools.
Learn more about finding the best task management and collaboration solutions for your organization by contacting Portal Solutions.
