Task Management

Introduction
 Task Management can help
◦ either individuals achieve goals,
◦ or groups of individuals collaborate and share knowledge for the
accomplishment of collective goals
 Task management involves various processes such as:
Planning, Testing, Documentation and reporting.
 Entire process can vary in complexity, from easy to difficult,
but its foundation remains the same, keeping focus on time,
priorities, people and cost.
 Advantages of Task Management
 Increased Productivity in the Organization
- When everyone is being productive, unnecessary expenses will be
avoided, hence company will be able to save on costs
 Multitasking is made possible without compromising
quality
- Task management allows any team to do several things at the same
time

 Everyone will be aligned in terms of knowing what

needs to be done to achieve a common goal in every
task ,as well as the overall goals of company.
 Skills required for a Task Manager
• Good Communication Skills: Task manager should be able to
communicate well with all team members and relay information and
instructions to all
• Execution Skills: Task manager should have the ability to get the job
done. It should also have skills to get things done even in tough times
• Time Management: Task manager should have the ability to
prioritize the tasks well and within proper time frame.
• People Skills: Task manager should have skills to motivate their team
members, so that they can give their best. For having this skill, task
manager should be a good listener and empathetic manager.
 Tips to manage Tasks Efficiently
• Keep a clean working environment: It includes
arranging your workstation and organizing your
files.
• Take a break: After taking a break person can
feel more refreshed and eager to continue its
work
• Stay away from distractions: Unnecessary
interruptions should be avoided, and set aside
separate time for dealing with them
• Keep the lights on: Well lighted room will make
you more focused and alert and ultimately your
productivity will be increased.
 Phases(or Task Management Life Cycle)
Four Steps that can help get you through any project are:
 Initiation
 Planning
 Execution
 Closure
Phases(or Task Management Life Cycle)...Continued
 Phases Description
• Initiation:
 Initiation Continued.....
 Develop a business case:
‣ A detailed description of the problem or opportunity
‣ A list of the alternative solutions available
‣ An analysis of the business benefits, costs, risks and issues
‣ A description of the preferred solution
‣ A summarized plan for implementation

 Undertake a feasibility study:

‣ Purpose of Feasibility study is to assess the likelihood of each alternative solution
option achieving the benefits outlined in the business case.
‣ It investigates, whether the forecast costs are reasonable, solution is achievable, the
risks are acceptable and the identified issues are avoidable.
 Initiation Continued.....
Establish the terms of reference:

 Terms of reference define the vision, objectives, scope and

deliverables for the new project, organization structure and
activities, resources and funding required, risks, issues, planning
assumptions and constraints are also identified.

Appoint the project team:

 Project Manager may be appointed at any stage during the life of

project. Project Manager creates a detailed job description for each
role in project team and recruits people based upon relevant skills
and experience.
 Initiation Continued.....
Set up a project office: Physical Environment within which the
team is based. It should include:
 Equipment such as office furniture, computer equipment, stationary and
materials.
 Communication infrastructure, such as telephones, computer network,
Internet access, files storage, database storage and backup facilities.
 Documentation such as a project methodology, standards, forms and
registers.
 Tools, such as accounting, project planning and risk modelling software.

Perform a phase review: This is basically a checkpoint to ensure

that the project has achieved its objectives as planned.
 Planning Phase
Planning phase includes the following:
A. Project Plan outlining the activities, tasks, dependencies and
timeframes
B. Resource Plan listing the labor, equipment and materials
required
C. Financial Plan identifying the labor, equipment and material
costs
D. Quality Plan providing quality targets, assurance and control
measures
E. Risk Plan highlighting potential risks and actions to be taken
to mitigate those risks
 Planning Phase Continued ..
F. Acceptance plan listing the criteria to be met to gain
customer acceptance.
G. Communication plan describing the information needed
to inform stakeholders.
H. Procurement Plan identifying products to be sourced
from external suppliers.
I. Contract the suppliers
J. Perform a phase review
Project Planning Activities
 Description of Planning Activities Continued..
• Create a Project Plan: A WBS(work breakdown structure) is
identified which includes the hierarchical set of phases,
activities and tasks to be undertaken to complete the project

• Create a Resource Plan: It is required to identify the following:

 Type of resource required, such as labor, equipment and materials
 Quantity of each type of resource required
 Roles, responsibilities and skill sets of all human resource required
 Specifications of all equipment resource required
 Items and quantities of material resource required
 Description of Planning Activities Continued..
• Create a Financial Plan: It is created to identify the total quantity of
money required to undertake each phase in the project(budget).The
total cost of labor, equipment and materials is calculated.

• Create a Quality Plan: Quality plan identifies the following

things:
 Defines the term ‘quality’ for the project
 Lists clear and unambiguous quality targets for each deliverable.
 Provides a plan of activities to assure the customer that the quality
targets will be met
 Identifies the techniques used to control the actual quality level of
each deliverable
 Description of Planning Activities Continued..
• Create a Risk Plan:
 Under this step, all foreseeable project risks within a risk plan are
documented.
 This plan also identifies the actions required to prevent each risk from
occurring, as well as to reduce the impact of the risk.

• Create an Acceptance Plan:

 To deliver the project successfully, we need to gain full acceptance
from the customer that the deliverables produced by the project meet
or exceed requirements. Acceptance plan is for this purpose.
 Description of Planning Activities Continued..
• Create a Communication Plan:
 This plan helps to identify how each of the stakeholder will be kept
informed of the progress of the project.
 The communication plan identifies types of information to be
distributed to stakeholders, the methods and frequency of
distributing information.

• Create a Procurement Plan:

 This plan is used to identify the elements of project to be acquired
from external suppliers.
 It also describes the selection of a preferred supplier(tender process),
order and delivery of the products.
 Description of Planning Activities Continued..
• Contract the Suppliers:
In this phase once the supplier is chosen after the tender
process a contract is agreed between the project team and
supplier for the delivery of the requisite products.

• Perform a Phase Review:

This is a checkpoint to ensure that the project has achieved
its objectives as planned.
 Project Execution
• Thisphase involves implementing the plans created during the
project planning phase.
• While each plan is being executed, a series of management
processes are undertake to monitor and control the deliverables
being output by the project(Longest phase in project).
• It
includes identify change risks and issues, reviewing deliverable
quality and measuring each deliverable produced against the
acceptance criteria.
• The execution phase is typically the longest phase of the project
in terms of duration.
Project Management Execution Activities:
 Description of Execution Activities Continued..
• Build the deliverables:
This phase involves physically constructing each
deliverable for acceptance by the customer. Activities may be
undertaken in a ‘waterfall’ fashion where each activity is completed in
sequence until the final deliverable is produced or in an ‘iterative’
fashion, where iterations are constructed until the deliverable meets the
requirement of customer.
• Monitor and Control:
Project Manager implements a series of management
processes to monitor and control the activities.
• Time Management:Process of recording and controlling time spent by staff
on a project. Maintain a time sheet register by having summary of time
spent on project in total.
 Description of Execution Activities Continued..
• Cost Management:Process by which costs/expenses incurred on the
project are formally identified, approved and paid. Expenses forms
are completed for each set of related expense like labor, equipment
and material cost. These forms should be approved by Project
Manager and recorded for auditing purposes.
• Quality Management:Extent to which final deliverable conforms to the
customer requirements. In this , quality is assured and controlled
for the project using quality assurance techniques.
• Change Management:Process by which changes to the project scope,
deliverables, time scale or resources are formally requested,
evaluated and approved prior to implementation. Status of all
active change forms should be recorded within a change register.
 Description of Execution Activities Continued..
• Risk Management: Process by which risks to the project are formally
identified , qualified and managed. Project Risk may be identified at any
stage of project by completing a risk form and recording relevant risk
details within risk register.
• Issue Management:
Method by which issues currently affecting the ability of
the project to produce the required deliverable are formally managed.
After an issue form has been completed, details logged into issue register
and then each issue is evaluated by project manager and set of correction
actions need to be taken.
• Procurement Management:Process of sourcing products from an external
supplier. Purchase orders are used to purchase products from suppliers
and a register maintained to track each purchase request.
 Description of Execution Activities Continued..
• Acceptance Management:Process of gaining customer acceptance
for deliverables produced by the project. Acceptance forms
are used to enable project staff to request acceptance for
deliverable, once complete.
• Communication Management:Process by which formal
communications messages are identified, created , reviewed
and communicated within a project. Each communication
message released is captured in a communication register.
• Perform a phase review: At
the end of the execution phase, phase
review is performed. It acts as checkpoint to ensure that
project has achieved its objectives as planned.
 Project Closure
• Project Closure involves releasing the final deliverables to the customer
, handing over project documentation to business , terminating supplier
contact , releasing project resources and communicating the closure of
project.

• Activities
 Perform Project Closure
 Review Project Completion
 Description of Project Closure Activities..
• Perform Project Closure: (Close out) – winding up the project.
 Determine whether all of the project completion criteria have been met.
 Identifying any outstanding project activities , risks or issues.
 Cancelling supplier contracts and releasing project resources.
 Communicating the closure to all stakeholders.
“A project closure report is documented and submitted to customer for
approval.
• Review Project Completion:
Success is determined by how well it
performed against the defined objectives and conformed to the
outlines in the planning phase determine how well it performed.
 Did it result in the benefits defined?
 Did it achieve the objectives outliner?
 Was it delivered within schedule and budget outliner?