Task management software has become essential for professionally managing multiple tasks of an individual or team. It is necessary to manage any task throughout its life cycle. Task management starts from planning stage and rolls out seamlessly in setting goals, assigning responsibility, deciding timeline, reporting and tracking of the task. Task management Software can be either used by an individual for achieving certain goals or by a group of individuals to collaborate and share knowledge for attaining collective goals.
Productivity of a company is defined as value of the output divided by time. With variation of time component it can be further subdivided into hourly, daily, etc, output. In business higher productivity means higher profit. One of the significant ways to increase productivity is to manage tasks efficiently.
In order to manage a task effectively you should encompass several aspects of that task like evaluating status, assigning priority, framing timeline, estimating financial resources and so on. All these activities are collectively summed up as task management.
Managing a task involves several key activities. There are different conceptual breakdowns at various levels that are deemed necessary for managing the task. Let us have a quick look at the activities involved in managing a task.
Task management activities
Tasks are fundamental unit of plans and projects. Successful completion of tasks within a specified time allows you to work on other aspects of project, increasing overall productivity of the company.
Relation between task management and productivity is like cause and effect. Effective task management (cause) can work wonder and complete several tasks within a given time (effect). As such, a company can incorporate task management for increasing productivity.
Let us have a quick look on how to increase productivity through task management.
- Creative activities related to task include brainstorming, organizing, elaborating, targeting and task planning. Functional activities involve managing personnel from quality, sales and service and other sections. In context of these functional activities there may be need for planning, prioritizing, configuring and delegating duties for smooth task completion.
- Activities related to service pertain to provisions regarding customer relationship and internal company services. This may include managing orders and call, keeping track of inventory, document management and interpretation of tasks. Tracking of performance include evaluating status of task or fulfillment of assigned job. In this context it may be necessary to track time, control cost, evaluate priority and adjust dateline.
- Keeping a to-do list ready is easy to remind you about the tasks that warrants immediate attention and should be completed on a priority basis. Using software for maintaining to-do list can be very useful, especially if you are using a smartphone or tablets like iPad.
- Prioritizing tasks is crucial for timely completion. There may be unforeseen challenges experienced while completing a task. In such cases you may either seek help of specialized software or experts in that field for solving the crisis within stipulated time.
- Proper reporting and monitoring is necessary to timely identification and solution of crisis and this is possible when you are managing your tasks with specialized task management software.
Software for task management
Advent of specialized software has simplified task management. There are different types of such software depending on the complexity of the task. Several companies are offering software for task management. Some of them are free and primarily meant for managing simple tasks. Others are comprehensive and meant for managing bigger and complicated tasks at enterprise level.
Software devised for task management has become vital part of project management. Project managers preferring to plan a schedule and adhere to it depend on software for task management to schedule their assignments at personal and team level.
Look for feature rich software for managing tasks. Such features may offer facilities for creation and visualization of task, reporting, assigning resources and automatic notifications. It is desirable to have software that is scalable, compatible and configurable easily.
- With task creation feature you can turn you ideas into action. The visualization feature allows presentation of tasks, usually in time and list form. While classification can encompass category like time, budget and resources, mechanism to assign priority may include using color code and text.
- Notifications are usually used for deriving information about deadlines assigned to tasks at different stages. Compatibility of the software with existing with existing system environment is essential for smooth synchronization of tasks and assignments.
- Configurable feature of software allows addition, removal and managing of functionality under various task environments. Scalable task management software can carry on performing task management smoothly even when volume of task or number of participants accessing it increases.
Finally
Task management of a company can be most effective when the concerned employees are updated and skilled in respective areas. Regular training for up gradation of skill is necessary. Proper planning and adherence to planned schedule helps in smooth task management and increase productivity.