Project Tracking: Importance, Benefits, Tips And FAQs

Updated 27 September 2022

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If you are managing a project, it is important to stay informed about progress so that you can share updates with your team. Monitoring a project is a great way to keep a detailed view of every project stage and record any completed milestones or potential setbacks. Learning more about tracking a project and the best practices for doing so can help you develop the organisational skills required to succeed in a project management role.

In this article, we define project tracking, look at its importance, review the key features of a project monitoring tool, share some tips to track a project effectively and answer some frequently asked questions.

What Is Project Tracking?

Project tracking is a method to follow, monitor and manage the progress of a series of tasks required for a project. Monitoring a project can help you determine whether its progress is per the expected timeline and if it is possible to complete it on time and within your allocated budget. By monitoring your project, you can easily list each task and stage to see which you have finished and which are pending.

You can also utilise the project progress status to get regular updates on its resources to decide whether to supply more resources for the team. Monitoring the development of your project enables you to identify any potential problems that can prevent you from delivering the outcomes on time. Utilising this knowledge may help you to change the strategy to finish the project on time while maintaining the established quality standards. Depending on your preference and organisational requirements, you can use several techniques and tools to monitor a project.

Importance Of Tracking A Project

Regularly evaluating the performance of a project allows you and the team members to be informed about additional activities or resources required to deliver a high-quality outcome. Here are some other advantages that highlight how crucial it is to monitor the development of your projects:

Keeps everyone informed of the project's status: Team members can quickly access the project's schedule and tasks in one place based on the tracking technique you choose. This raises everyone's awareness of their tasks and due dates, ensuring they deliver high-quality work on time.
Resolves challenges more efficiently: You can compare the project's current state to your expected timeline if you have a clear monitoring plan. Using this knowledge, you can create plans to overcome any potential challenges preventing you from finishing the project by the deadline, such as adjusting priorities or allocating additional resources.
Motivates team members: Employees may see their contributions to the project and track their progress at any moment with a monitoring system. They can use tracking tools to note when completing each assignment to feel more accomplished and driven to do their tasks.

Benefits Of Project Tracking

Some of the key benefits of effective project monitoring include the following:

Real-time Information

Effective monitoring can help you get the most up-to-date and accurate information. The state and development of the project can be easily visible to everyone involved. Reporting to senior management can be simple by using a cloud-based project management software. You can also easily align teams with project goals and actions by tracking projects in real-time.

Problem Identifiers

With efficient tracking, difficulties and problems can be easier to identify. This enables leaders to take action and gain control on time. Team members can help and keep each other encouraged to complete tasks. Maintaining the project's structure through problem-solving frees up resources to focus on other tasks. It is important to resolve the problems quickly to ensure the project gets completed on time successfully.

Team motivation

A project outcome relies heavily on collaboration. Everyone can contribute to the group's objectives if they are clear about their roles. The team can become more motivated to continue and finish the project as time progresses and the list of pending tasks gets shorter. Monitoring a project allows everybody to be informed of the progress, which helps in encouraging collaboration and fostering an empowered team.

Easy and precise reporting

Senior management often expects regular overviews of initiatives. Reporting is quick and easy when you do all project management and tracking through one system. Having all the information in one location means you are less likely to make mistakes when you compare data.

Features To Consider When Choosing A Project Monitoring Tool

If you wish to use software to monitor the progress of your project, look for one that provides precise reporting, important data analysis and interesting visualisations. When looking for a reliable tool, a few key characteristics to consider include:

Data-tracking and integration

Many tracking systems integrate with other software and automatically gather data you can use to evaluate the progress of your project. You can better understand the tasks that employees complete and the chance that they may finish particular projects on time. It can also show you how far along the total project is in terms of completion and how long it may take to complete. You may compare these figures with your estimates to help you see if you are on track to achieve your objectives and decide whether you may require creating an action plan to avoid delays.

Dashboard

Most tracking systems provide dashboards and interactive tools so you can monitor your project's development in real-time. These dashboards can help collect data, do various calculations and show it visually in the dashboard. Reviewing a selection of graphs and other interactive visuals may help you better understand how your task is progressing. These can provide key progress metrics and status updates, so you can measure how well your team is doing at various stages in the project's life cycle.

Gantt chart

A Gantt chart makes the project schedule view easy to understand. This chart shows your project's start and end dates and milestones as horizontal bars. It can help you estimate more precisely when you may complete each task. This chart can be especially helpful if you wish to change the priority of a job or are responding to unforeseen tasks.

Related: Types Of Graphs And Charts

Time-tracking

Time-tracking features and time sheets allow you to know how long it takes to perform each task. With these features, you can give yourself and your team members more achievable deadlines. This can also help monitor the performance of independent contractors or contract workers for payroll. You can quickly view and verify their time sheets to ensure you pay the contractor for their work on time.

Tips For Tracking A Project

Consider the following tips to track the project's progress effectively:

Develop an achievable project plan. Create a logical strategy that outlines your objectives, team responsibilities and the target deadline to better understand whether your project is progressing successfully. You can simply compare your progress with this plan to decide whether to implement measures to facilitate the development.
Determine practical deadlines. Your project may experience multiple instances where unforeseen difficulties, such as a lack of resources or time, delay it behind schedule. You can create flexible timeframes that are simple to modify to accommodate these potential challenges and sudden changes.
Interact with your team members. Seek novel approaches to improve team members' interaction and communication. To keep everyone updated at all times, organise regular meetings to review their performance, any help required to complete their responsibilities on schedule and project updates.

FAQ On Project Monitoring

Following are a few frequently asked questions about monitoring a project:

What is a project tracker?

You can easily manage multiple complex projects at once with project tracker software. You can use a tracking system instead of manually keeping track of your projects by listing them together with their subtasks and making updates as required. Project trackers can give you progress updates, monitor data for the projects and offer interactive graphs or charts. Depending on the software or application, you may benefit from specialised features like calendars or notifications, which help simplify monitoring the project.

Which professionals are involved in tracking a project?

Project planning lays the groundwork for efficient project management tracking and status reporting. The programme manager and executives establish definite objectives and milestones for measuring progress. Team leaders oversee project progress and actions of the entire group. Efficient project monitoring can enable informed and precise decision-making.

What are some useful methods for tracking projects effectively?

Here are some important practices for effective monitoring of a project:

Plan your project before you begin
Find solutions to expected problems
Monitor the work schedule
Mark jobs as finished when they are
Be realistic about actuals and projections
Consider the future impact