For today’s enterprise project manager, data is everything. Team members need detailed information on their assigned tasks and the resources available in order to do their work, and senior leaders need accurate reporting in order to determine whether a project is on track to meet its objective. Project managers themselves need to gather and process a wide range of data on a daily basis, as they work to guide and support their teams.
Enterprise time tracking may be the single most important form of data for any project manager to use. Detailed time reporting is the best way to understand what team members are working on, and whether their efforts are aligned with the project plan. While your team members may view time and expense reporting as an unrewarding chore, you can use the data they generate to aid their efforts and your own career. Here’s how.
Identify Potential Trouble Areas Before They Disrupt Your Project
From your organization’s perspective, the main point of using a time tracking software is to evaluate resource allocations and employee performance across the entire enterprise. As a project manager, you can use your time tracker for more short-term purposes, such as monitoring and managing project risks. If you direct your team members to use detailed time reporting—meaning that they tie their time to specific project tasks or subtasks, rather than simply reporting their time against the overall project—you’ll gain the ability to spot potential risks to the project timeline or budget as early as possible.
Support Your Requests for Additional Resources
Once your project team begins working on their tasks, you may discover that you don’t have enough people to complete the required work on schedule. Project managers in many organizations have a difficult time getting additional employees assigned to their projects, or getting a larger share of time from the employees who are already assigned. If your current team members are keeping accurate records of the time they’re spending, you should be able to use your team’s utilization report, together with your task progress reports, to convince your leadership team that your request for extra help is justified.
Demonstrate Your Own Value and Effectiveness
While most of your time tracking focus will be on your team members’ time entry, you can use your own time tracking records to raise your profile in the organization. The trick here is to be as detailed and accurate as possible in recording the time you spend on each aspect of each project. When it’s time for you to ask for a raise, promotion or access to a highly desirable project, you can use your time tracking details to demonstrate how many different skills you’ve mastered and how efficient you’ve been in managing your previous projects.
Looking for a better solution for enterprise time tracking? Planview AdaptiveWork’s cloud-based project management tools deliver unmatched functionality along with remarkable flexibility. Find out what Planview AdaptiveWork can do for your organization today.
