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Digital Project Management: Industry Best Practices

The advancements of the digital technologies have introduced new work practices. Today almost every business has moved online along with the associated job. The project managers have to adopt new methods and approaches to manage online projects.

Digital project management involves using online collaboration software, digital work management strategies, and cloud file storages. The project managers need to know the industry best practices to ensure that the work is performed efficiently ensuring successful completion of the project. In this article, we will share some of the tips that can help in effective handling of the digital projects. 

1. Know about Project Goals

Digital projects have slightly different goals as compared to traditional projects. These projects entail different deliverables that the project manager should identify before scheduling the project. Find out how the clients measure the project success. Take time to find out what are key requirements of the projects or what matters most to the stakeholders, and align them with your project management strategy.

2. Create an Open Communication with the Customers

With a digital project, you should always be in the loop with the end customers. This is important to ensure that the digital project conforms exactly to the requirements of the clients. After all what’s the point of a digital project that the client will not want to use. Through creating an open line of dialogue with the customer, you will be in the same wavelength with the client regarding the kind of features that should be incorporated with the product. The input of the customers is vital to delivering true value of the project. 

3. Implement the Iron Triangle Approach

The Iron Triangle concept addresses the intrinsic connection between resources, time, and scope. Resources are the tangible part of the project, whereas, project schedule is in essence the time expected to produce the deliverables. Lastly, the scope of the project represents the functionality and features that have been agreed with the client. These three factors directly determine the quality of the project deliverables.  While quality is a subjective term, it is nonetheless affected by the way these four factors are organized by the project manager. 

4. Break Vision into Action

The insights and information of the digital project must define the long-term goal of the project.
When managing a digital project, the project manager must act like a strategist. Just like a strategic planner look at long term deliverables, the project manager must develop a long term strategy for the digital project. 

Once the vision or direction of the digital project has been determined, it should be broken down into different iterations. The project manager must develop, execute, and improve the strategy regarding an iteration that should also define the next iterations. This will help in prioritizing the tasks and exacting the project to perfection. 

Managing digital projects is no walk in the park. It requires a project manager to act as analyst, strategist, and business executive. The manager must balance the business objectives and generate innovative ways to accomplish project deliverables. In this respect, using an effective work management software is indispensible.