4 Simple Strategies To Find Project Excellence

The pressure to get your projects done on time, with quality, and on budget can feel like a constant, impossible battle. A battle that is then made harder with customers pushing the scope creep line, team miscommunication, resource allocation, and a myriad of other things that can quickly turn into the “fire of the day”. 

Auxo Business Services recognizes these hurdles and meets you where you are to help your team consistently meet sky-high expectations in ways that feel simple and streamlined. 

Here are just a few of the key ways you can fight the battle and optimize your project management processes for excellence. 

You Don’t Have To Go Big

Focusing on small changes isn’t a new, revolutionary idea but it’s a concept that can have a significant impact on your projects. Small adjustments can lead to big impacts with little costs. I remember when I was first talking to one of my clients about what their issues were with their previous efforts to improve their processes. Their response was that they felt like they were always throwing money at the problem. This is common - you see a problem and you want to throw another software at it or another full-time employee to alleviate something or some other costly solution. Taking a step back and finding the minor changes helps you reduce the cost of moving toward excellence while also making the changes more manageable for your team to swallow.

Figure out what are the major challenges causing frustration on a project and what cost-effective solutions that are easy to implement would have a big impact on preventing these challenges. 

Write It The Heck Down

One fundamental principle that our team emphasizes is the power of documentation. At a conference recently, one of the presenter’s favorite line was "If it’s not written, it’s not real." This is so true. From your customer calling to confirm a decision to asking a trade for a schedule confirmation - everything has to be written down. In my experience, so many delays and miscommunications step from assumptions or verbal agreements that are not captured in writing. 

It’s not just decisions that need to be documented, but expectations as well. We can get in our heads about how perfect or formal SOPs need to be. In reality, we need to look at them as the resource for our team that explains our expectations on how to achieve consistent quality outcomes. If it’s not written, then we have to assume that our team doesn’t know what we expect. 

Control The Communication

Broken communication is a notoriously efficient killer. When project details are scattered across emails, texts, and project management tools, the result is often confusion, missed details, and expensive inefficiencies. Centralizing communication is so important - it saves time, saves money, and saves your sanity. It also makes it easy to catch discrepancies in work and provide clear, actionable feedback to your team. 

If you’re struggling on where to control the communication - whether it's group text or emails or your project management tool - choose the technology that will give the most people the right level of visibility with minimal work. You want a tool that will integrate messaging, file/photo sharing, and task management to transform chaotic project communication into a well-organized, accessible system for all involved.

Aligning for Success

It’s easy to get caught up in the busyness of our projects and just move from one thing to another, over and over again. But taking the time to pause and evaluate if everyone is on the same page can help you stay on top of potential problems before they become too costly. Is everyone aware of their responsibilities? What were the challenges on this project? What could we have done better? What are our goals for our next project? 

Regular alignment meetings offer an opportunity to preempt potential issues, realign strategies, and reinforce the team's collective direction.

These sessions are not just about problem-solving but about creating an environment of proactive engagement and open communication where your team can be involved in the effort toward excellence. Over time, you’ll see you don’t just have a team of task doers but solutions-minded, excellence-driven people. 

Embracing Excellence With Auxo

Your drive toward optimizing project management and finding excellence should be thoughtful and deliberate. From focusing on small changes to choosing the right tool for communication, your decisions should be based on what’s best for your team, your customer, and your bottom line. 

If you’re looking for help making these decisions or even figuring out the best place to start, then we are ready to meet you where you are. We’re uniquely positioned to help you stop putting out fires every day and move toward a more streamlined, profitable business with the right process and people support. Learn more about us here.