How to Choose & Optimize Your Project Management Method: Part 4 of 4 - Elevate with Accelo

You did it! You've waded through your project management methodology options, discovered what some of the most popular methods have to offer and deciphered which one best complements your unique style. You've read a first-hand account from a fellow service business professional who transformed his agency's method and learned of the obstacles and advantages that come with it. Now it's your turn!

It's time to make your project management choice a reality. Which tools do you utilize, what resources do you need, and how do you get started? 

With Accelo's comprehensive platform, whether you love Agile's flexibility, embrace the visual prioritization of Kanban, compelled by the ability to eliminate waste with Lean's framework, or prefer the traditional style of Waterfall, Accelo is equipped with a wide range of tools and resources you can utilize to make your project management method come to life and help you and your team excel.

Find your project management method below and see exactly how you can utilize Accelo to optimize your style of choice:

Empower your Workload with Agile Project Management 

By harnessing the power of Agile, there's this natural understanding between team members that plans will probably change, so maintain flexibility while continuing to work collaboratively to provide high-quality service to your clients. 

Accelo's My Schedule dashboard encourages each team member to maintain their work. Create all your work within Accelo and with the power of bi-directional sync, sync your calendars, and see your work as milestones against projects, or tasks against tickets, sales, and companies. With the Work Schedule Graph, as work is assigned to you, with hours, start dates and due dates, then your schedule will automatically shape itself. At a glance, see the tasks assigned, and easily differentiate if the task has been auto-scheduled, scheduled, committed or is an external appointment, reflected by the various colors. Prioritize your tasks as you see fit, manage your schedule, and empower your workload with ease to reflect external changes as necessary. 

Prioritize Visibility with Kanban Methodology 

The key to Kanban is the visual aspect of getting to look at your project from end-to-end, and gain an understanding of how work moves through it. It helps you figure out the best approach to your work, and take the initiative to pull in tasks when you have the capacity to lend a hand. 

With Accelo's Task Board, users are able to easily keep track of the workflow and move tasks throughout the process within the board. It's an optimal way to maintain everything assigned to you, as well as monitor the change of status of your Tasks, keep track of due dates to ensure your work is completed by the deadline, and easily view all Tasks assigned to you in one location. 

Accelo has multiple Tasks Board styles, equipped with drag and drop capabilities to take advantage of to ensure you don't let any tasks fall through the cracks:

• Deadlines Task Board: Prioritize the work you need to do and assign yourself a daily to-do list. View Tasks assigned to you, sorted into columns by the due date: Overdue, Today, Tomorrow, Future and No Deadline. 

• Status Task Board: View all the Tasks that you have created or have been assigned to, sorted into columns by their status: Pending, Accepted, Started, and Completed. 

• Assignment Task Board: A handy board for managers, ideal for seeling all of the Tasks you have created or managed, so you can assign those Tasks to users. 

Work Efficiently with Lean Framework

Lean focuses on providing value to clients, cutting waste, working efficiently, and generating ways your company can continuously improve. In addition to mapping the value stream to see the whole picture to help you conduct a plan, such as utilizing the Task Board, you can also use Accelo's Utilization Dashboard to get insight into what each team member is working on, what type of work they're handling, and how much of it is billable. With this knowledge, shift work to balance your team's utilization, and ensure each team member is being utilized effectively, and have the resources needed to accomplish their goals. 

The dashboard allows you to look forward and in reverse to recall how much time you used in the past and how you utilized it, giving you the power to analyze peak times to strategize and replicate successful times. Look toward future availability and map it to match past moments, optimizing your company, while increasing efficiency. By tapping into the past, you can strategically plan ahead, and improve your team's utilization as you go. 

Combine the Best Parts of Agile & Waterfall with Accelo's Adaptive Project Management Methodology 

For those who like the flexible nature of Agile, as well as the structure in budget and milestones that Waterfall offers, Accelo designed a project management method that pulls in the benefits of both the traditional and newer style. Adaptive Project Management gives your team members the control to create and manage their own schedule (the Agile method), and embraces concrete requirements as well as has firm plans in place with distinct stages (the Waterfall method). 

Accelo's Adaptive Project Management gives your team the ability to stay Agile with My Schedule, while also equipping you with Waterfall resources such as Gantt Charts, Milestones, and Tasks. With Accelo's Gantt Charts, get a dynamic view of your projects and progress, but take advantage of the simple click and drag ability to link milestones and tasks to create dependencies for smooth workflows. 

By pulling from both methods, you can enjoy a much more streamlined and systematized way to handle your project planning, giving your team the work autonomy they want while maintaining your service business' financial health. 

Start making strides! Enhance the way your service business operates by optimizing your project management method with Accelo. Give it a try today and sign up for a free trial!