Developing any business requires a sound strategy built around established management principles. While these can take some time to learn and can be complex, there are some advanced strategies you can take advantage of right now that will greatly benefit productivity and maximize efficiency.
Tried and tested long term project planning is a core concept of any business and requires careful planning and identification of clearly defined goals while quick and easy access to resources needs to meet the demands of modern development.
Some tools that can help with these are:
- X-Matrix
- Co-Authoring
- File Sharing/Cloud Access
Developed for long-term planning, the X-Matrix chart outlines a clear strategy while co-authoring allows real-time collaboration of everyone involved in a project. File sharing and cloud access mean that all project collaborators can access or update project files as and when required.
True Vision
The Japanese philosophy of Hoshin Kanri (project management) was developed as a part of the widely used continuous improvement model employed by large organizations.
A Hoshin Kanri chart can look a little intimidating at first but it’s actually quite simple. How the X-Matrix works is by outlining a clearly defined breakthrough to be achieved over a 3 or 4 year period with indicators for annual objectives, improvement priorities, key performance indicators, and targets to improve.
To read an X-Matrix plan, start at the center and move south and clockwise through the stages. The abbreviations are as follows:
- BT: Breakthrough
- AO: Annual Objective
- TLIP: Top Level Improvement Priorities
- KPI: Key Performance Indicators
- TTI: Targets to Improve
There is also a separate container for responsible personnel.
The benefit of an X-Matrix is that objectives are very clearly defined so that they can be focused on over the course of a project from one quarter to another and should be used as such. It is not designed as a performance chart, a management tool, or for tracking business activities.
Collaboration is Key
The inter-office and multidisciplinary nature of modern-day projects require multiple personnel to collaborate in order to bring a goal to fruition. Often, especially with the current pandemic still making its way through the world, it isn’t possible to bring everybody together into one physical location in order to contribute their expertise.
Modern-day office suites such as Microsoft 365, Google Docs, and Open Office facilitate the use of co-authoring tools in order that multiple people can collaborate effectively over the course of a project.
Some suites have better tools than others and finding the right one is a matter of personal preference and/or requirements, but MS Office 365 is the only one that supports real-time typing and contributions for word-processed documents and spreadsheets (Word and Excel).
Constantly Accessible
Being able to access documents from anywhere is a vital tool for most businesses these days as goals are reached, amendments are made or procedures are changed. There are many reasons for needing to access a particular file and this is now easier than ever.
The proliferation of cloud usage has seen file-sharing systems become easy to use and manage by becoming more user-friendly, so it’s not outside of reason to expect everyone involved in a project to be able to access shared files.
Cloud-based solutions such as OneDrive, DropBox, and Google Drive are almost essential tools for modern-day projects and allow access to files, amendments to be made and new files to be created so that anyone with the necessary permissions, credentials, and links can access them.
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