As a small business owner, you have to wear many hats, from public relations agent to collections department. Such a complex role can benefit from the application of some basic project management techniques—they’re free, simple to put into practice, and guaranteed to make work a lot easier.
1. Break Down Your Project Into Tasks
Dividing big projects into smaller tasks is one of the cornerstones of project management. Adopting this mindset can be particularly helpful if you are a big-picture person (and many entrepreneurs are). Whenever you catch yourself making plans in general terms such as “opening a new store” or “launching a new product,” take a step back and ask yourself what you need to get there. You’ll find that thinking this way makes it easier to plan ahead and get things done on time.
2. Gantt Charts
Once you have learned to divide projects into smaller tasks, you can take things a step further by using a Gantt chart.
Gantt charts are a basic project management tool that allows you to easily visualize the progress of a project. This type of graphic displays tasks as horizontal bars; the longer the bar, the more time it takes to complete it. Gantt charts let project managers track the status of every single task as well as that of the overall project.
Making your own Gantt chart has become extremely easy thanks to the internet. Just Google “free Gantt chart maker” to discover websites that allow you to create personalized charts for all kinds of projects.
3. Kanban
If simplicity is your thing, then you are going to love Kanban.
“Kanban” means “visual board” in Japanese and, in fact, this system makes project management as easy as reading a sign.
In this workflow method, every task is a card. Cards are arranged in columns typically named “To do,” “In progress,” “Done,” and “To review.”
Ideally all the people (or at least all leaders) working on a project have access to the Kanban board, allowing them to easily get a visual overview of the state of the project as well as that of the individual tasks.
Trello is the most popular web application based on Kanban. Signing up is free, so it’s ideal for small business owners looking to get their feet wet with project management.
More Tips and Ideas
Read these previous posts for more tips that cover every aspect of the management of your organization, from communication to online security.
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About the Greater Riverside Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
At the Greater Riverside Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (GRHCC), our core mission is supporting small businesses and economic development with advocacy, business referrals, marketing opportunities, training programs, student internships, and scholarships.
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