How To Utilise Monday.com As A Project Management Tool

Project management is about planning and executing different projects whilst working within agreed timescales and budgets, so every project manager needs a reliable platform to guide the team to success and that is what we have here at G&V in monday.com.

Monday.com is a project management platform that allows the creation of custom workflows to meet all the workflow requirements of any busy digital agency. It is a great way to have everything in one place and ensure that all team members are aware of any upcoming tasks, milestones and due dates in one place.

Creating templates on monday.com saves lots of time by carrying across the same layout and colour coded statuses to each of the boards, this is extremely useful when the agency takes on new retainers and projects. With a click of a button a new board has been created which is split into different groups: scoping, development, design, content, digital marketing and then testing/snags, this is generally the order in which our different teams work on a project.

Now that the teams are clearly differentiated, planning can begin and tasks can be added to the project board. Full details of each task are written in separate job pulses and assigned to the correct team member, an estimate of how long each task will take and a deadline is also included on the job pulse so that team members can see the amount of time that has been scheduled for them in the near future. A timeline is attached so that the team can visually see how long they have left before the task is needed to be completed, alongside this there is a dependencies column, allowing team members to see which tasks are need to be completed prior to them starting on their assigned tasks that prevents time being wasted and tasks being held up.

Status columns on the job boards are colour coded, making everything bright and easily identifiable from a quick glance. When a task has been added to the project board and scheduled in for the team member I will change the status of that task to “scheduled” and once a team member begins working on a task they will change the status depending on their development, this ranges from “In Progress” to “Needs Info” to “Done”.

Monday.com is also great for creating automations and these are triggered when a predetermined condition is met through any required action. One of the best automations I can advise for managing a project is to set deadlines for each and every task, then create an automation so that when a due date arrives and only if the status is not “Done” then to notify the assigned person, this will then prompt team members to complete the task or update the job pulse as to why is isn’t finished and whether something is holding up the task. This way I can communicate the delay with our Brand Partner and ensure no tasks slip through the cracks.

After all the information has been filled in from the project template I then attach a Gantt chart to the board, which pulls through all the same information from the project board and visually showcases the project plan, the dependencies and the proposed end date. The project board has now been planned and is ready for the team to review the tasks to ensure that they understand what is being asked of them and suggest whether or not they think the timeline of tasks are realistic to meet our Brand Partner’s objectives.

Scope creep is one of the main challenges project managers face due to tasks taking longer than expected and/or the client changes their mind on elements throughout the project; however, accurate planning and scheduling should help you mitigate delays and accurately plan each phase without any production and financial setbacks. Throughout every project we regularly schedule calls with our Brand Partner and update them with the development of the project and having a platform where I can check the progress of the project without having to pull several team members into a meeting room for an update, before speaking to the client, is a huge advantage in a busy agency.

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