Project Time Tracking is Important – Here’s How to Do It Right
Published on October 26, 2023
5 min read

Project Time Tracking is Important - Here’s How to Do It Right
In this article, you’ll find:
- Relationship of Time Tracking with Project Management
- 5 Steps on How to Implement Project Time Tracking
Introduction
Efficient project management is an essential element of any successful enterprise. It is the most fundamental aspect that dictates the successful completion of a task or project.
Effective project management is a key influencer in your team’s productivity, client retention, and potential revenues. When implemented with the right tools and methods, it will enable you and your team to hit company targets and accelerate business growth.
Enterprises without competent project management suffer from higher risks, missed opportunities, and lower chances of success. In fact, a study by the Project Management Institute (PMI) states that $122 million is wasted for every $1 billion investment worldwide– all due to poor project management.
The same study concludes that a well-implemented project management process directly influences the organization’s capability to deliver valuable and profitable results. However, project management is composed of several integral elements, which includes time tracking.
In this article, we’ll talk about the role of time tracking in project management, the benefits of project time tracking, and the most recommended project time tracking strategies that you can implement in your own organization.
Time Tracking in Project Management
The most critical part of project management is to determine how much time it takes to complete tasks and using that information to create an accurate schedule. By tracking time employees spend on each project, you will be able to generate realistic timeframes and allocate adequate resources. This makes tracking time a critical component in every stage of a project. From planning, development, execution, down to the sales and marketing of any product or service.
According to Forbes, practicing time management strategies to identify which approach works best for your organization can help boost productivity and reduce stress in the workplace. This is because project time tracking enables your team to measure their individual and collective performances through accurate visibility on their work efficiency. For upper management and stakeholders, it means gaining more detailed insights and developing strategic foresight to make smarter decisions in manpower operations, workflow processes, budgets, and cost estimates.
To put it into perspective, project management can never be effective without time tracking. In order to lead successful undertakings, you will need to determine the best project time tracking approach for your organization.
Strategies for Successful Project Time Tracking
Develop a clear project plan
As reported by Northeastern University, having a clear-cut project plan is the top most effective strategy for project time management as it is essentially the blueprint for how your team will proceed with each task.
Have you noticed how chaotic it gets when you start a project without a well-defined plan? This is because endless discussions turn into disagreements as your teams struggle with how to do things, what to do first, and what the results should be. As a result, the project becomes stagnant in its initial stage without any concrete, actionable steps to move forward with.
A cohesive plan will give shape to the project and streamline all goals, activities, and deliverables. It will serve as your guide towards leading a more productive and deliberate strategy that you can seamlessly communicate with your employees and stakeholders. Additionally, when teams are onboard with the project plan, it eliminates the probability of indulging in time-draining activities and distractions that will derail the completion of their work.
Now the next question is: what are the ingredients of an effective project plan?
- Basic Project Details – This includes the general goals of the project, the strategies that will be applied, the breakdown of tasks, the people in charge of each activity, and the timeline.
- Scope Breakdown – Identify the roles and tasks of each member of the team, both in your organization and the client’s. This ensures a clear division of responsibilities, eliminating unclear expectations and misunderstandings on who’s supposed to do what.
- Expectations – This section should define the presumed results in each phase of the project, as well as the expected final outcome.
Having these standards in your project plan will alleviate the risk of mishandling tasks, underestimating resources, overworking employees, and misinterpretation with your clients.
Set realistic time frames
Time is the most fundamental yet often poorly managed aspect of project management. This is mainly due to the lack of visibility into how much time your employees actually spend on each activity or project. As such, whenever clients discuss timelines, your team ends up providing wrong estimates which in turn, leads to failed expectations and losses in potential billable hours.
To avoid such instances, you need an efficient time tracking solution that will help you monitor the time spent on each task. You may opt for online software or spreadsheets that can be configured to generate data relevant to your objectives. This way, you can easily determine which types of projects take most of your organization’s time, which ones drive higher revenues, and which areas your team needs to improve on. Through this data, you can set more realistic deadlines and schedules together with your employees and stakeholders.
Create a work breakdown structure
The Project Management Institute defines a work breakdown structure as “a guide for defining work as it relates to a specific project’s objectives”. Project professionals use a WBS to define project deliverables and establish the structure to manage work to completion.”
Basically, it contains the nitty gritty of each activity that you need to accomplish in order to achieve the project’s objectives. The goal is to chop your general project plans and strategies into smaller, actionable tasks.
Some of the information that should be indicated in your WBS are:
- Specific task or activity
- Planned duration which should reflect the target start date/time and end date/time
- The assigned person for the job
- Rows to log the actual start date/time and end date/time *for ongoing tasks
For example, you’re a construction firm and the project is a full home renovation. One of your major tasks would be to have a team install the kitchen tiles. Your on-site project manager will have a WBS entry as follows:
- Task: Install kitchen tiles
- Person In Charge: Mike, ABC Contractors
- Target Duration: 3 weeks
- Intended Start Date/Time: August 30, 7:00 AM
- Estimated End Date/Time: September 20, 5:00 PM
- Actual Start Date/Time:
- Actual End Date/Time:
Through these details, the project manager can easily evaluate if the project is on time, delayed, or ahead of schedule. Likewise, this system encourages higher productivity and a stress-free work environment as all relevant information is properly recorded through a shared spreadsheet or an online project management software.
Keep stakeholders informed and engaged
While project managers are accountable for the execution of tasks, stakeholders have ownership over the project. They are the key decision makers whose approval is crucial across all major aspects of the job.
Following our example above, the scenario is that your project manager raised the need for additional tiles to complete the kitchen flooring task. Now, your team has provided the primary stakeholder with a cost estimate. It takes 5 days before your client responds. This already backs the project up by almost a week.
More often than not, such delays in communication transpire as the project goes along because stakeholders also have other responsibilities that need their attention. However, there are ways to maintain good communication in order to keep the timeliness of their responses and approvals.
Some of the strategies you can try are:
- Determine the stakeholders’ preferred mode of communication. Whether it be email, instant messaging apps, via phone calls, or SMS. Find out which of these platforms elicit their response.
- Sending weekly or monthly updates and highlights of what your team has accomplished over that period, together with items that you need approval on.
- Prioritize meetings or calls by discussing the most important and critical issues of the project that need their utmost attention and urgent approval.
Overall, the key to having a consistently productive relationship with your stakeholders is by keeping them informed and engaged. This reduces the chances of unnecessary delays and mishandled timelines.
Devise a change management strategy
Every project– whether big or small– comes with changes along the way. It’s inevitable. Whether it’s an additional new requirement or a major shift in the direction of an ongoing project, your team will need to adapt to changes.
This is where it becomes essential to map out the relationship among the 4 project management pillars:
This diagram illustrates that the scope affects all 3 other components of project management– cost, quality, and time. It means that any changes in the scope will result in corresponding modifications to the rest of the pillars. Any additional tasks, for example, will have an effect on the cost, schedule or quality of the project.
As such, it’s important for every organization to have a concrete change management strategy in place. This should include the steps you’re going to take if a new task comes in– who will it be delegated to and how you can accomplish it without compromising the quality, within an acceptable timeline. Review your WBS and project plan to re-strategize the workflow. Likewise, don’t forget to loop in your stakeholders and every member of the project team to avoid miscommunication.
Conclusion
Successful project management takes a lot of practice, and the right tools to help your organization execute project time tracking with ease and accuracy.
Start with the 5 key elements of a successful project time tracking plan:
- Develop a cohesive and clear project plan. Relay it to your teams and stakeholders in the simplest way possible.
- Identify and set realistic time frames for each task.
- Create a work breakdown structure that includes the “how’s”, “who’s”, and “when’s” of each project.
- Keep stakeholders informed and engaged through regular updates and high-impact meetings.
- Come up with a change management plan and ensure that your team is onboard with it.
Through these fundamental elements, you will be able to successfully implement project time tracking within your organization and eventually reap the benefits of having well-organized, seamless work processes.
Productively is a time tracker app that lets you elevate work efficiency with advanced time tracking, real-time reports, and powerful analytics. By managing your hours, you can seamlessly handle everything else.
With a streamlined dashboard that lets you access time tracked by days, weeks, months, or even by client and project, you will be able to make more informed decisions based on accurate data. Its seamless invoicing feature allows you to automatically generate account statements for a more organized billing and receivables system. Altogether, it provides a comprehensive view of your teams’ efficiency, hours worked, billables, and profit.
Bolster productivity, reduce unnecessary costs, and improve the way you do business with the app that empowers you to visualize your untapped capacity.
Learn more about us at https://productively.io/schedule/
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