In today’s Two-Minute Tip video, we’re talking about 3 things that might be missing from your project schedules. Click below to watch the video, or keep scrolling to read the transcript. 

Alright y’all, today we’re going to talk about project management. 

I want to cover the three things you might be missing in your project schedules, or 3 things you can include in your schedules to make sure you set your projects and your schedules up for success from the start. 

So, let’s dig in … 

1. Realistic Timeframes

The first thing is realistic timeframes. 

When you as a business owner, or a team member, are creating a project schedule, going through to make sure that all the steps in the project and in the process have been accounted for is important, but what is equally as important, if not more important, is making sure that you’re being really realistic about the timeframes for each one of those steps. Take the time to make sure that you’re accounting for your team’s workload and their minimum turnaround time, so you’re not constantly crunching a schedule, but also to make sure that you’re really allowing each person on your team to do their absolute best work. And then make sure you’re sticking to your timeframes too. 

• Consider each person’s workload
• Are there minimum turntimes?
• Avoid burnout
• Is the rush necessary?
• Are you giving your team time to do their best and most complete work?
• Are you doing your part?

2. Time for Revisions

Number 2 is time for revisions. 

At the beginning of building out your project schedule, I always encourage business owners and their teams to think through how many rounds of revisions are realistic for this project. So oftentimes, we think we can just review something once, but many times you need a couple of touch points, and you notice things on the second round of review that you didn’t notice on the first. So, be realistic about additional possible revision times and account for it in your schedule. 

You will also want to make sure you’re accounting for any additional reviews, whether you want to share it with other people to get feedback, etc, make sure that you account for that as well.

• How many rounds of review is realistic?
• Who is the review/approval team?
• How are you routing projects and sharing feedback?
• Are you factoring internal vs. external edits?
• What are you reviewing the project against?

3. Final Proofreading

And last but not least … final proofreading, or the final quality check. 

Whether it’s a print project or a digital project, building the time in your schedule at the very end of a project to do a final proofread/quality check can save you so much heartache (especially for a print project). Oftentimes when the project gets a little crunched, the most common thing to get overlooked or dismissed is the final check through.  But making sure that you reserve time to do that final once over at the end to check forms, links, your print specifications, whatever it might be, and have time in there to make any fixes that you find, is oh so important. 

• Do you have time for a final detailed proofread or quality check?
• Do you have more than 1 person who can do a final check?
• If so, do you have time built out for that?
• Do you have time to make any changes/fixes you catch?

BONUS: 4. Breathing Room

Okay, I lied there’s a bonus number four! 

Remember to overall allow breathing room throughout your project schedule. Accounting for all the things that I mentioned above, but also thinking through the unexpected hiccups and just life that’s going to happen, whether it’s weather or a sick day. If it’s a rush project, and it needs to be done quickly, that’s fine. But wherever you can, allow a little bit of breathing room for the unexpected stuff, so your project can sustain all of that.