worksection
Blog
Team Task Management Guide
  •     •   9 min read
Task Management Teams

Team Task Management Guide

As soon as the head of the com­pa­ny real­izes that the num­ber of projects is quite large and con­tin­ues to grow, it comes to the effec­tive­ness of task man­age­ment for teams.

One of the effec­tive ways to increase team pro­duc­tiv­i­ty is team task man­age­ment. It helps to do more in the allot­ted time and pre­vent employ­ee burnout. We will tell you how to estab­lish a real­ly high-qual­i­ty task management. 

Team Task Management

A project task is a spe­cif­ic action, the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of which is a step towards achiev­ing the goal.
When it comes to team task man­age­ment, it means the man­ag­er must find a bal­ance between the work­load of the team and its effec­tive­ness. That is, to dis­trib­ute the tasks in such a way that all of them are com­plet­ed on time and in accor­dance with the tech­ni­cal require­ments, with the employ­ees work­ing with­out over­time and too tight deadlines.

The Impor­tance of Team Task Management 

The impor­tance of effec­tive task man­age­ment can­not be over­es­ti­mat­ed. The suc­cess of indi­vid­ual projects and busi­ness in gen­er­al depends on it.

If the com­pa­ny does not have task man­age­ment for teams, the fol­low­ing prob­lems will have to be faced in the future.
  • Tasks that no one knows about. This hap­pens when they were sim­ply talked about or writ­ten in the mes­sen­ger, but there is no record of who should do what and when.
  • Lost tasks. If there are sev­er­al execu­tors of a task, it hap­pens that they pass it on to each oth­er sequen­tial­ly. Some­thing might hap­pen that the task does not reach the next execu­tor and remains some­where in a ​“sus­pend­ed” state.
  • Lack of impor­tant com­po­nents to com­plete the task. Decom­po­si­tion is a use­ful thing in solv­ing large-scale prob­lems. Some­times it hap­pens though that at the final stage it is not pos­si­ble to get every­thing nec­es­sary to com­plete the task, e.g. a team mem­ber is not in touch, and no one knows where his work mate­ri­als are.
  • Over­due tasks. Some­times the inter­me­di­ate stages are delayed so much that the dead­lines of the tasks and the entire project are sig­nif­i­cant­ly shift­ed. It hap­pens that the obtained result is no longer rel­e­vant, needs changes and, accord­ing­ly, addi­tion­al resources for them.
If the above phe­nom­e­na are present in the com­pa­ny, the loss of cus­tomer loy­al­ty and part of the prof­its is inevitable. Team task man­age­ment is need­ed to avoid this.


What Is Effec­tive Task Management?

Task man­age­ment can be con­sid­ered effec­tive, if it allows you the following:
  1. lack of iden­ti­cal task pri­or­i­ties for one performer;
  2. a sin­gle source of infor­ma­tion for all employees;
  3. the abil­i­ty to track progress on tasks;
  4. sta­bil­i­ty of deadlines;
  5. ade­quate work­load of each team member;
  6. high qual­i­ty of work performed.

What Are 5 Key Com­po­nents of Task Management?

Depend­ing on the specifics of the project, the nuances of task man­age­ment for teams may change. But usu­al­ly team task man­age­ment can­not do with­out the com­po­nents list­ed below.

Strate­gic plan­ning The first step in this process is to assess the team’s goals and plan the action tasks that will lead to success.

Orga­ni­za­tion of resources After the strate­gic goals are set and the progress plan is drawn up, it is nec­es­sary to assess the avail­able resources. If there are enough of them to com­plete the tasks, you can coor­di­nate peo­ple’s activ­i­ties, appoint peo­ple respon­si­ble for cer­tain process­es and move on.

Sys­tem­at­ic work with tal­ents When a per­son does what he likes the most, he is much more effec­tive. There­fore, it is nec­es­sary to sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly pay atten­tion to com­mu­ni­ca­tion with each team mem­ber to under­stand their aspi­ra­tions and skills. This infor­ma­tion will help you del­e­gate tasks to those who can han­dle them best.

Com­mu­ni­cat­ing the tasks and moti­va­tion for their imple­men­ta­tion A for­mal order to com­plete a task is, of course, nec­es­sary. But the man­ag­er must explain in detail how this task affects the project. It is also very impor­tant to moti­vate peo­ple so that they feel that the work they do is impor­tant and appreciated.

Con­stant progress mon­i­tor­ing In the inspirable suc­cess sto­ries it is not often writ­ten about how impor­tant it is to con­stant­ly mon­i­tor the sta­tus of work on tasks, track progress, watch for bot­tle­necks, etc. When the man­ag­er sees that some­thing is not going wrong, it is pos­si­ble to adjust actions in time and learn from this expe­ri­ence for the future to avoid mak­ing sim­i­lar mistakes.


How Can You Orga­nize Work on Team Tasks?

The expe­ri­ence of lead­ing com­pa­nies shows that the opti­mal way for orga­niz­ing work with team­work task man­age­ment. It deals with a num­ber of issues:
  1. A sin­gle work­ing space. All lev­els of the com­pa­ny, from top man­agers to junior spe­cial­ists, will col­lab­o­rate in a com­mon envi­ron­ment. This will allow man­age­ment to clear­ly see the project sta­tus and orga­nize an effec­tive task man­age­ment planning.
  2. Estab­lish­ing coop­er­a­tion. When team mem­bers across the com­pa­ny are work­ing on tasks to an agreed stan­dard, the align­ment increas­es, pos­i­tive­ly affect­ing productivity.
  3. Clear pri­or­i­ties. The task man­ag­er clear­ly indi­cates which tasks are the most impor­tant right now and require a pri­or­i­ty solu­tion. There­fore, there will def­i­nite­ly be less con­fu­sion at work.
  4. A time-sav­ing automa­tion. The soft­ware allows you to quick­ly plan team tasks, using, for exam­ple, tem­plates for typ­i­cal and/​or repet­i­tive tasks.
  5. Opti­miz­ing remote team­work. Wher­ev­er employ­ees are, they have access to tasks and can work on them. This is espe­cial­ly con­ve­nient for teams that have a time difference.

Best Task Man­age­ment Tools

To effec­tive­ly man­age team­work tasks, you can choose one of the pop­u­lar and proven tools. 

Work­sec­tion

Plat­forms: Web, Win­dows, iOS and Android.

Fea­tures: A flex­i­ble tool for group task man­age­ment. It allows you to work effi­cient­ly even when man­ag­ing mul­ti­ple projects. Built-in inte­gra­tions with Google­Docs, Slack, Telegram, Viber, CRM sys­tems attract users. The plat­form also offers Kan­ban boards, a time track­er, and Gantt charts. Visu­al Dash­board allows you to get an overview of the most impor­tant indi­ca­tors of the project on one screen.



Draw­backs: Not all users are sat­is­fied with the per­for­mance of the mobile app, as well as the lack of the offline-solution.

Pric­ing: For $29 per month you can man­age 10 projects, with a team of up to 10 mem­bers. $49 per month allows you to work with 20 projects, with up to 20 users. Unlim­it­ed project num­bers with up to 50 users will cost you $199 per month.

Rat­ing at Capter­ra: 4.9 of 5.

Asana 

Plat­forms: Web, iOS, Android, Windows.

Fea­tures: Sim­plic­i­ty, visu­al­ly attrac­tive inter­face, task assign­ment, dead­lines set­ting, pri­or­i­ty lev­els, files attach­ments, etc.



Draw­backs: User expec­ta­tions regard­ing the cost/​functionality ratio are not always met. Email noti­fi­ca­tions are not always correct.

Pric­ing: A free ver­sion is avail­able for up to 15 users. Paid tar­iff plans will cost between $13.49 and $30.49 per user/​month. A 30-day tri­al ver­sion is available. 

Rat­ing at Capter­ra: 4.5 of 5.

Wrike

Plat­forms: Web, iOS, Android, Win­dows, Mac.

Fea­tures: Main­ly, users like the visu­al­iza­tion fea­tures that this tool pro­vides. There are Kan­ban boards, Gantt charts, graphs. Work­flows, real-time ana­lyt­i­cal reports are also available.



Draw­backs: Users often have to con­tact tech­ni­cal sup­port, because it is not easy to han­dle the set­tings with­out spe­cial training.

Pric­ing: A free ver­sion offers a lim­it­ed num­ber of tasks. Paid tar­iffs cost between $9.80 and $24.80 per user/​month. A 14-day tri­al peri­od is available.

Rat­ing at Capter­ra: 4.2 of 5.

Mon​day​.com

Plat­forms: Web, iOS, Android, Win­dows, Mac, Linux.

Fea­tures: There are boards that you can copy, assign sta­tus­es to, as well as many set­tings for work­ing with tasks, such as dead­lines, sta­tus­es, pri­or­i­ties, per­form­ers. Pos­si­bil­i­ties for automa­tion are available.



Draw­backs: Quite expen­sive, not the eas­i­est process of cus­tomized setup.

Pric­ing: For up to 2 team mem­bers a free ver­sion is avail­able. Paid tar­iffs cost between $8 and $16 per user/​month. You can use a 14-day tri­al ver­sion to see that the cho­sen tar­iff is good for you.

Rat­ing at Capter­ra: 4.6 of 5.

Click­Up

Plat­forms: Web, iOS, Android, Win­dows, Mac, Linux.

Fea­tures: Users like the flex­i­bil­i­ty of the tool and the avail­abil­i­ty of var­i­ous fil­ters, for exam­ple, by time­lines or cal­en­dar. Inte­gra­tions with Google Work­space, Drop­box, Zapi­er are pos­si­ble. Wiki doc­u­ments and chats facil­i­tate teamwork.



Draw­backs: Mobile app needs improvement.

Pric­ing: Using up to 3 boards is free. Start­ing from $5 per user/​month you get a more advanced ver­sion. You can also choose a 14-day tri­al ver­sion of a par­tic­u­lar tar­iff plan first.

Rat­ing at Capter­ra: 4.7 of 5.

Step-by-step: start­ing to man­age team tasks efficiently

First of all, note to your­self that what­ev­er team task man­age­ment strat­e­gy you choose, at the ini­tial stage of imple­men­ta­tion, things will def­i­nite­ly not hap­pen as eas­i­ly as you imagine.

So, the main thing is to under­stand the mean­ing of col­lab­o­ra­tive task man­age­ment and the ben­e­fits it will bring to the busi­ness in the long run. But approach­es and meth­ods can change. Exper­i­ments are a per­fect­ly nor­mal tool on your way to success.

These may be the first steps to effec­tive team task management.

Describe busi­ness process­es and dig­i­tize every­thing you can

Even if it seems to you that every­thing is already clear, and the com­pa­ny is not large, it should be done as ear­ly as pos­si­ble. The main things to fix are
  • orga­ni­za­tion­al struc­ture;
  • work goals;
  • roles, respon­si­bil­i­ties and tasks of employees.
When every­thing is described, you may have to look at the com­pa­ny in gen­er­al and cer­tain teams in a new way.

After you have a com­plete overview of your busi­ness, start mov­ing towards the dig­i­ti­za­tion of process­es. For exam­ple, get rid of paper note­books and reports in favor of doc­u­ments on Google dri­ve, that is, imple­ment a kind of dig­i­tal transformation.

Choose the task man­age­ment tool which suits you most 

Above we have giv­en exam­ples of tools that are effec­tive for teams. Each of them needs to be test­ed by the man­ag­er who will be respon­si­ble for inte­grat­ing the sys­tem into the teams’ work. This is impor­tant because:
  1. a per­son must under­stand the advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages of track­ers and choose the tool consciously;
  2. after the choice deci­sion is made, it is nec­es­sary to con­vince the employ­ees, i.e., explain what advan­tages the soft­ware offers.
If the com­pa­ny has sev­er­al teams, it is pos­si­ble to involve their lead­ers in the test­ing and final selec­tion of the tool, this will great­ly sim­pli­fy the fur­ther imple­men­ta­tion of the task manager.

Out­line the short-term goal for task man­age­ment tool integration 

Above we have already talked about the impor­tance of task man­age­ment. But not every employ­ee may be close to these glob­al goals, besides, they are some­times dif­fi­cult to grasp. There­fore, it is bet­ter to describe the results of the imple­men­ta­tion that should be aimed for in the short term, for example,
  • 100% of tasks are record­ed in the task track­er, not in chats, mail, etc.;
  • all com­mu­ni­ca­tions and file shar­ing on the task are done in the task manager;
  • three months after imple­ment­ing the tool, we have clear indi­ca­tors of the time spent on solv­ing typ­i­cal problems.

Imple­ment the func­tion­al­i­ty step-by-step

It will be bet­ter if the team first trans­fers the tasks that were treat­ed ver­bal­ly, in mes­sen­gers or on paper to the task man­ag­er and starts work­ing with them: cre­at­ing accord­ing to the tem­plate, del­e­gat­ing, chang­ing sta­tus­es and closing.

Once every­one under­stands the process, you can move on to addi­tion­al fea­tures such as pri­or­i­ti­za­tion, time track­ing, bud­get­ing etc.

There is anoth­er imple­men­ta­tion option: first some indi­vid­ual employ­ees (or one of the teams, if there are sev­er­al) go all the way. And then the process is scaled to the entire company.

Impor­tant! It may seem imprac­ti­cal to pay for all of a pro­duc­t’s fea­tures and only use some of them. In this case, first­ly, you can use the free tri­al ver­sion, avail­able from many devel­op­ers of task man­agers. Sec­ond­ly, why not pur­chase the basic func­tion­al­i­ty of the ser­vice first? It can be expand­ed over time to suit the needs of the team.

Make inno­va­tions to a con­stant top­ic of discussion

This is the only way to get detailed feed­back from employ­ees. Don’t lim­it your­self to for­mal month­ly ques­tions like ​“Hey, this task track­er is cool, isn’t it?”

At the begin­ning of the task man­age­ment sys­tem inte­gra­tion in the work of the com­pa­ny, it is worth start­ing a con­ver­sa­tion about it reg­u­lar­ly. For exam­ple, in dai­ly and week­ly meet­ings, you can have five min­utes to dis­cuss the impres­sions of work­ing with the task manager.

If some­one wants to make detailed com­ments that require more time, dis­cuss a time that is con­ve­nient for all, but in no way dis­re­gard the judg­ment of the employees.
There­fore, man­ag­ing team tasks has a notice­able impact on work effi­cien­cy and busi­ness suc­cess. In order to imple­ment this tool in your com­pa­ny eas­i­ly you must:
  • under­stand what spe­cif­ic ben­e­fit it will bring you;
  • choose a task manager;
  • step by step inte­grate it into dai­ly activ­i­ties, get­ting con­stant feed­back from the team.
We wish you pro­duc­tive work!
⇆

esc
Share
или
PM school
How to Write SMART Goals Effectively
Quick Overview [SMART goals] are a framework for setting objectives that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Specific tasks are clear and well-defined, measurable are quantifiable...
24 April 2024   •   7 min read
PM school
Management Decision Making: Overview, Process, Techniques, and Tools
Welcome to our comprehensive guide on the intricacies of management decision making. In today's dynamic business landscape, effective decision-making is paramount for organizational success. This article...
12 April 2024   •   16 min read
PM school
Assign tasks automatically: Google Sheets + Worksheet
We continue to introduce you to the possibilities of direct integration with Zapier. Today, we're going to take a closer look at how you can automate the process of setting tasks from Google Sheets in...
9 April 2024   •   3 min read
Get started now
Please enter your real email 🙂
Cancel
Digital UI Gantt chart Comments Kanban Project Management Notifications More 74...
Digital UI Gantt chart Comments Kanban Project Management Notifications Agile Crm Planning Files PM Projects Report Reports Calendar Time tracking Timer Interview Consulting Waterfall Task Management Priorities Reactions IT Emoji Agency Gannt SEO Optimize Sale Marketing People Integrations UI Statuses Tags Search Project Folder Teams Integration SMART Entitling Tasks IOS Android Text editor Code Scrum Lean Bureau Mono Architects Y R Vintage Tebin BIM Egineering Labels Video Subtasks Migration Tasks App Filter Сhecklist Connections Privacy Telegram Advice PM secrets Export API TO-DO Google Documents SSL Security Топ 5 UPD Promo actions Tips&tricks Partnership