thin line flat design of power of business essential items and office desk things, organization process for success project development. modern vector illustration concept, isolated on white background.The word productivity has never been as fashionable as it is today and it becomes extremely important when it comes to fierce competition in a market with so many competitors.

But, contrary to what many people think, productivity is not only related to producing larger quantities of products or serving more customers. Productivity today involves efficiency and, in order to achieve it, it is necessary to invest in technological innovations to guarantee the quality of the service and products, optimizing the processes. It is the well-known of doing more, with less and without losing quality. An arduous task, but perfectly achievable if the correct resources were used.

Workflow

Even before you set goals to increase productivity, you need to know the real working conditions of the company, your workflow, to identify the most overburdened, time-lagging, and employee sectors, and to find bottlenecks in the production process.

Workflow is the sequence of the work process, the process by which each recent activity must go through to get to a conclusion. This process may involve several people and sectors of the same company and, therefore, it is extremely important to establish rules and to create automation mechanisms for tasks that allow time saving and avoid reworking. The leaner the workflow, the better its efficiency.

There are a few ways to assess whether your company's workflow is efficient or not. In order to do so, you can use some simple indicators that will alert you if they start to roll back.

  • Compare what was planned with what was carried out - If the company can accomplish more than 75% of what was planned, the workflow can be considered efficient;
  • Measure the number of hours dedicated to each activity - It is possible to find out the ideal time to perform each task and to identify possibilities to reduce the time without losing quality;
  • Measure rework - can be caused by several factors, but the consequences will always have an impact on productivity. You must identify the reason for the mistakes and adjust the processes to reduce the company’s rework.

There are many tips and techniques that help increase your company's productivity so let's talk about some of them.

Pomodoro Technique

This technique is based on the idea of ​​dividing workflow into small blocks (of 25 minutes, called “pomodoros”) that allow to increase concentration and to give more agility to the brain. The first step in applying this technique is to create a list with pending tasks. You need to use a timer, or alarm clock, set on 25 minutes. Choose one of the tasks from the list and work during the 25 minutes marked on the timer without any interruption (no social networks or messages on the phone). When the alarm rings, stop and take a 5-minute break in which you are told to stand up, walk a little, and have a glass of water, for example. After the 5-minute break, take up work for another pomodoro (25 minutes). And every four pomodoros take a longer break, about 30 minutes, before returning to work. After you finish a task from your list, mark it as “done”.

This technique is interesting to ensure focus on work or study, but mainly can be used as a planning tool, because over time you will be able to identify how many pomodoros you spend to perform a certain task and so you can better plan your use of time.

It is also possible to make adaptations to the method, but it is necessary to maintain the main idea that is the total focus on a single activity during a period and to make intervals between the pomodoros.

Project Management System

Project management is essential for the expansion of the productive capacity of the company and with its use there will be more focus and control in the services offered to clients. Good project management software allows the creation of task lists in an effortless way and the possibility of managing them demonstrates the progress of projects so that all those involved on them can follow and verify their commitment and that of their work team. In addition, it performs task-time measurements, compares planned and performed activities, and provides an up-to-date schedule for managing the company's human resources. The project manager will monitor the project stages and monitor their progress, managing costs, deadlines and difficulties presented by the team. The project management system greatly helps companies keep up-to-date schedules and deliver quality services with more organization and productivity.

ERP Management System

It is a tool that helps companies a lot in business management, being a great differential for small and medium enterprises in overcoming the challenges and obstacles of everyday life. The ERP system allows the complete integration of company activities essential for its proper functioning as stock control, sales system, invoice issuance, tax payments and cash flow control. The business management system still gathers all the information about the company and generates reports on its current and future situation helping the managers in the important decisions.

By following these tips your company will be able to increase productivity and profitability while maintaining the quality of services and products offered. Do not waste time and put these ideas into practice.

Receive the latest blogs directly into your inbox

 

The management and planning of resources is an essential process in business, since it allows the monitoring of projects and their results, as well as anticipating the emergence of risks. a hipster caucasian businessman with beard standing angry pointing his wristwatch inside his office. angry concept . a contemporary style with pastel palette soft blue tinted background. vector flat design illustration. square layout.

The best way to handle the management of resources is to use some kind of assistant that helps to know, plan and manage the economic and human resources that are available, with the goal of achieving maximum efficiency. For this reason, many companies consider resource management as a priority.

Here are some practices that resource management can bring to your company.

Understand the difference between occupied time and utilized time  

If you realize that the employees are working all the time but are not reaching the goals set, there is something that is not working well: there is a mismatch between the time spent and the use of time efficiently. They may not be using the right procedures; they do not have the necessary technology or they need to update their training.

Are you ready to own your time? Start tracking your estimates live with ITM Platform for free.

Of course, it is also possible that project managers are not taking into account precautionary measures when estimating. Here are the 3 keys to estimating realistic times for your projects:

  1. Two out of ten working hours are not productive

In most countries, you have 8 working hours. However, keep in mind that if you have resources in France, for example, then there are 7 working hours.

However many hours there are in a working day, not all of those hours are productive. Employees will have to participate in meetings, interact with clients or engage in unplanned tasks.

Therefore, it is advisable to calculate that around 80% of actual hours worked will be productive. This is not a guarantee, on the contrary: although the efficiency of your equipment will exceed this threshold, a lot can happen that may reduce the amount of hours dedicated to a project.

  1. Find out how many resources are assigned to each project

Although it would be most efficient to have your analysts dedicated exclusively to a project from start to finish, there are plenty of reasons why this is neither usual nor practical: from small projects where only specific participation of certain experts is required or highly specialized tasks concentrated in certain phases of the project, to very complex projects that displace some resources from their usual projects.

It is logical that effectiveness decreases as the number of projects to which a resource is allocated increases.

via GIPHY

For example, if you only assign one hour a day for a critical task, it is very possible that your project will be delayed: the employee assigned to the task is likely to perceive that there are more important things to do, unless you properly communicate that this task is your top priority.

  1. Calculate how much time will be spent on learning

Estimates are usually based on the time spent on a similar project. But, as it is said, the devil’s in the detail.

It is possible that some of the differences in the new project will hide challenges that team members will have to learn before overcoming, either in a planned or on-the-job process. Detecting these critical points will allow us to better identify if there are more suitable team members for the project than others or if it is worth outsourcing some parts of the process.

Support estimations with applications

Adequate project management begins by identifying these problems before undertaking new projects. Whether it be short-term or business operations, which can become problems to estimate and correctly allocate the times.

That is why it is so important to use applications that monitor the exact state of all projects of the company in real time.

For example, with ITM Platform Teambot, you can make it easier for your team members to:

  • Consult active projects, reducing the transit from one project to another
  • Report time spent on a task in real time, improving your future estimates
  • Send feedback from a contrasting chat environment, such as Slack

Once the results of the analysis are known, the reasons for deviations can be detected and decisions can be taken to make production processes more efficient.

If you want to discover how to better control the time management of your team with ITM Platform, we invite you to request a personalized demo, where you can speak to one of our experts.

 

Juan Delgado
Blogger
ITM Platform

Receive the latest blogs directly into your inbox