Managing a project correctly can be a challenging task. But, it is vital in achieving success for your business. This is where the project life cycle comes in, which can be beneficial for your project management efforts.

Using the project lifecycle at your firm can take some work. An excellent way of mastering it involves time tracking software, which can enhance the strategy’s effects. 

In this article, we’ll explore how you can use it at your company. We’ll cover the role of a time tracker in the stages of the project life cycle and take a look at what you should prioritize in a tracker for the strategy.

What is the project life cycle: an overview

The project life cycle is a series of steps that a project can follow from start to finish. This breaks down projects into smaller stages, with each having its own goals. As a result, making progress on a project can become easier with this strategy.

The typical project life cycle has five stages: Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring & Controlling, and Closing. Each stage is unique and contributes to streamlining your management efforts in different ways. Just like these stages, time tracking software will play unique roles in each as well, helping boost the effectiveness of the strategy.

The importance of time tracking in the stages of a project life cycle

Let’s now explore what role a time tracker plays in the project life cycle, starting with the first stage: initiation.

Initiation

In the initiation stage, you must define the goals and the scope of your project. This will include key details like budget and time estimations as well, which is where time tracking can come in handy. Specifically, a time tracker like WebWork can be quite useful with its Project Budgeting feature. This helps you ensure your projects stay on track with your targets over their lifetime.

Planning

Planning involves assessing how your team is going to achieve the goals you set out in the initiation stage. A time tracker can enable you to break down the major objectives of your project into lots of small tasks. You should then estimate how long each will take and organize them with a strategy like timeboxing or time blocking. Moreover, you can take this organization to the next level by using subtasks in your projects. You will need to find a time tracker that offers this feature, an example of which is WebWork.

Execution

The project life cycle starts ramping up in the execution stage. Here, you finish planning and start working on the project itself. The role time trackers play here is among the most important ones. They can help you manage your team’s time effectively to complete tasks promptly. A time tracker can also help with task progress by boosting productivity. High-quality apps like WebWork do this in several ways, including tracking several important productivity metrics. This data can enable you to detect distractions and help staff avoid non-productive apps at work.

Monitoring and Controlling

The monitoring and controlling stage goes alongside execution. It involves continually checking your project’s progress and making necessary changes quickly. Time tracking software, especially one with lots of reporting functionality, is perfect for this. It can help you track both how much time your team has spent on the project and how much progress they’ve made. As mentioned previously, a tracker can help you detect distractions and eliminate them. It is also excellent at detecting lots of other productivity bottlenecks, such as in the area of remote collaboration.

Closing

The closing stage brings the project life cycle to an end. It is where you must finalize all tasks and deliver your results. A time tracker is excellent for evaluating the success of your project. It can be useful in seeing if you achieved your targets and how much time and resources it took. Moreover, you should use collected data to improve your processes. This will help your next project achieve better results, boosting the growth of your business.

Choosing the best time tracker for mastering the project life cycle

As you can probably tell, a simple time tracker won’t work well for the project life cycle. Let’s explore what you should look for in time tracking software to master it with ease.

Task and project management features

Our first point is pretty obvious. After all, you can’t master the project life cycle if you can’t manage your projects in the time tracker. But, something more than just simple project management can be beneficial. As mentioned previously, using tracking software with subtasks can enable you to stay more organized. Other key functionalities you should look for are deadlines, support for multiple collaborators on tasks, and customizable task statuses.

Integrations with third-party software

If you’re thinking of boosting the productivity of your team, you’re probably already using several apps for this purpose. Integrating these applications will make it easier to stay organized. This is because you won’t have to keep track of your projects and tasks in multiple pieces of software. Organization is key in the project life cycle, and anything that makes it easier to stay organized can be a worthwhile investment.

Detailed reporting systems

One of the main roles of time trackers in the project lifecycle is tied to data. Productivity data is vital in progressing your projects efficiently. Because of this, a time tracker with lots of reports will give you the best results. You should also pay attention to the accuracy of this collected data and choose a tracker that can allow you to verify various info. A popular example of this is checking activity level data with screenshots and app & website usage monitoring.

Mastering the project life cycle with periodic reviews

Mastering any new strategy requires lots of periodic reviews to assess how effectively you’ve used it. This is no different for the project lifecycle, which is a process that will only benefit from small adjustments. Conveniently, time tracking software will be able to help in this regard as well. You can use it to ensure you don’t experience a drop in productivity after starting to use the project management strategy.

Final thoughts

Mastering the project life cycle takes some effort and the right tools. But, if executed correctly, it can enhance your project management and let your team perform their best. Time tracking software can be instrumental in the strategy, especially a feature-rich one that can collect lots of data. Using a high-quality solution like WebWork, you can take your project lifecycle knowledge to the next level.