Time Management Tricks to Help Your IT Team Excel
IT pros must constantly navigate hectic workday schedules, juggling multiple balls every day and hustling to keep projects on pace while dealing with daily pop-up issues. Even talented, focused IT pros can struggle with time management under these conditions. Here are five tricks you can use to help your IT team excel.
Utilize Project Management Software
There are a host of project management platforms at your disposal, and if you aren’t leveraging one, you’re doing your team a disservice. These platforms help everyone keep track of their tasks and allows them to see where a project stands in real-time and they also allow for streamlined communication. Rather than emailing back and forth or searching for the most updated documents, the team can simply post notes in the project.
Set Goals And Deadlines
Project management software also allows you to set goals and deadlines that everyone can see, keeping a project on pace and everyone on the same page. Solid goals and deadlines are critical for productivity and time management, giving employees a roadmap for their days. They know exactly where they need to focus their efforts in order to stay on track.
Discourage Multitasking
Somehow, we’ve become a society that values multitasking. But the truth is, multitasking in IT doesn’t work. People tend to think they are being more productive when they multitask but they aren’t really. People are most effective when they can concentrate on one thing at a time, and it’s always better to finish one job than to start five. So encourage your team to time-block tasks and focus on one thing at a time.
Facilitate Prioritization Skills
You may assume that your team knows how to prioritize tasks, but when jobs begin to pile up, it can be difficult for anyone to know where to begin. When delegating tasks, always set a priority of high, medium or low and a deadline so the employee knows what you expect. Require PMs, supervisors and other people who assign work to do the same thing. If you start to see work piling up, sit down with employees and look at their current tasks to help them prioritize.
Hold Huddles
Morning huddles can be a great way to kick off the day and get everyone thinking about the best uses of their time. Each morning, gather the team. Have everyone share what they are working on for the day, and address any missing information or tasks they may be waiting on from other members of the group. Keep the entire meeting 15 minutes or less, and at the close of the huddle, remind everyone that you are there to help them achieve their daily goals.
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