Are your projects derailing? You should be troubleshooting – ahead of time.

Photo credit: Gratisography.

Being a project leader isn’t rocket science, but it isn’t easy either. Your project development is totally dependent on you, as you have to organize your human resources as well as other important software and tools.

Things can go wrong even with all the planning in the world. There are a bunch of reasons: someone didn’t do X action, the software Y didn’t help at the task in hand, or you may have missed a workday. No matter what the reason is, it’s a good idea to prepare from the beginning and stay sharp during the entire process.

Project troubleshooting – addressing potential problems – is a good approach to keep your project on track. It helps you discover and fix problems that could crop up. Here are five useful strategies that will help with your project troubleshooting:

1. Keeping track of your schedule

Every time you conduct a project, you must have a pre-established schedule. It is usually advised to use project management software such as Primavera Reader or Trello. Such programs allow you to stay focused on your tasks and track your progress.

You should be looking at the deadlines to be met, whether the tasks were completed in the right way and whether your employees did their jobs or not.

You should also stick with the “big picture” and flex around your priorities and schedule accordingly. Specifically, keep an eye on:

• Planning & resource allocation for each task
• The overall dependencies between tasks
• Milestones and deadlines
• Team’s progress & performance

2. Dealing with a potential project’s risks

Every project has its own risks – commonly, money and time. Troubleshooting your project to detect potential risks is the only way to make sure you’ll be prepared for challenges.

Start by carefully analyzing and guessing future problems that might arise. Try to create a list of potential errors and risks that you’ll be facing on the way; this is the first step. Next, commit to consistently analyze (say, weekly) any upcoming potential risks.

As your project starts taking shape, don’t get into your comfort zone and stop predicting risks. It doesn’t matter who does it – it could be you or your employees.

3. Dealing with repeating problems

Every project comes with issues. In the initial phases, your project starts with an idea; rarely can you predict all upcoming problems. No worries. When a problem arises, check your management plans and schedule: the problem may have arisen from there. Then, check whether you did something wrong, or if one of your employees made mistakes.

If problems keep popping up repeatedly, you must be very careful and solve them as quickly as possible. A small problem neglected now could soon transform into something bigger.

4. Having a clearly defined requirements list

Think of requirements as mini-goals. Every project starts with an end goal in mind. If your goal is to start an online business, your mini-goals look like this:

5. Managing your human resources