3 Quick Tips to Solve 80% of Your Project Problems

If you follow us, you have most likely been in a situation where you had a project that was getting out of hand, and you felt like you needed to spend a fortune to get it back on track. At some point, you may have wondered if it was even worth it to keep the project going. Does that sound familiar?

If you’re the manager or the owner, we have some bad news for you: you’re likely part of the problem. 

Good leadership is essential to any development team. Developers need to work with a leader they trust, who can inspire them to achieve the project or company vision. In the past 12 years, we’ve seen countless examples of frazzled and overwhelmed managers whose attitude stressed out their team. It’s a recipe for disaster. 

Here are 3 quick tips that could solve 80% of your project problems.

1. CommunicationYou might say: “No shit, Sherlock!” However, you’d be surprised by the number of communication issues we’ve seen. Don’t make your staff scared to talk to you, especially if they’re coming in with bad news. Otherwise, you’ll never know the truth.
2.  Let the pros do their job

If your team is talented, you need to trust them. You can always ask questions and follow up on their work, but don’t micromanage them. If you communicate with them well, they’ll come to you for guidance if they need it. 

When you call an electrician or a plumber, I doubt you look over their shoulder and tell them how they should do their work, right? The same respect should be offered to your developers.

1. Roadblocks, unknowns, and scope creepsAccept the fact you don’t know everything. Like anything in life, every project comes with challenges to address. Even the best-planned projects have unknowns. As long as the team understands the goals of the projects and you’re not consistently changing the requirements (scope creep), your project will go well.

In all transparency, we’d need a long article or a 20-minute video to really delve into the details of why and how projects get off-track. However, we believe that these 3 points illustrate the most common issues in the development of any project.