Want to Save a Day a Week at Work? Start by Killing Bad Meetings
How to Run Effective Meetings

Meetings are one of the largest unmanaged cost areas in large organizations. Today, meetings typically consume 40% of the working time of managers and professionals, and with the global COVID-19 pandemic confining people into their homes driving them to work remotely, even more so. 

While research shows that managerial and professional people on average spend two days a week in meetings, which in most cases are boring, irrelevant, or badly run, it has taken a huge toll on businesses. 

Yet meetings are essential to organizations. Without them, organizational democracy, collaboration, communication, inclusion, buy-in, and cohesion can be compromised. Meetings in and of themselves aren’t problematic, but how we plan and conduct them can lead to them being unproductive and frustrating. 

Lack of a clear purpose and ground rules, failing to communicate expectations and failing to make concluding decisions are some of the biggest causes of bad meetings. In this infographic, we look at the consequences of these causes and go over some of the quick solutions you can apply to make your meetings more productive.  

All Highly Successful Projects Have These 8 Things in Common

Reasons why projects succeed

Project success can be defined as reaching project objectives within budget and on time, and to the satisfaction of the stakeholders.  

How hard can it really be?

According to research, only 2.5% of companies are able to successfully complete 100% of their projects. This means, nearly 98% of companies fail to produce planned deliverable within budget and on time and satisfy their stakeholders.

While a project is made up of several elements, such as a well-defined goal, resources, budget etc., effective implementation of them through a proper project management strategy is the key to project success. Project management is not only critical to organizational success but it is also a decisive factor in business performance.

Hire an Experienced Project Manager

A role of a project manager is to successfully plan, organize, execute, monitor and complete a project. While a project manager must have the necessary technical and soft skills to perform these responsibilities, she should also interact well with the team or teams she is managing.

If she is not engaged, committed, agile and trusted by her team, she will have a hard time leading her team towards project success.

Maintain Effective Communication

Effective communication, which is essential to increase workplace productivity,  is vital throughout any project. The absence of proper communication would lead to chaos – some would fail to complete their tasks on time while some others would frequently make errors with no proper guidance.

To avoid this, effective communication should be established through communication and collaboration software or through more conventional methods such as project review meetings.

Set Attainable and Measurable Goals

Project goals set the path of a project. Every decision made and every action taken during a project should be to accomplish this goal that should be defined during the initial stage of the project. While a project goal should always align with the strategic objectives of the company and the expectations of the stakeholders, it needs to be one that can be measured and achieved in reality.       

Create A Realistic Budget

A project budget must cover all necessary expenses of a project. While it should be realistic, it should also be able to cover the extra expenses the organization may have to bear due to threats that may occur unexpectedly.  

Allocate Resources to Meet Project Requirements

A project is dependent on its resources. Resources include both human resources and non-human resources like tools, conference rooms, laptops etc. These resources should be allocated properly in order to ensure that each objective can be reached in an efficient manner.   

Carry Out Frequent Risk Management Practices

During the lifetime of a project, risks can occur at any time. Being prepared to face these obstacles – both financially and with manpower – is essential for the success of a project. Make sure to carry out frequent risk management practices before every new step.

Implement Successful Talent Management

Talent management is necessary for a company to attract and retain skilled employees in the industry and is a key reason why projects succeed. While the skills of the project team largely decide the fate of a project, it is necessary to have an army of skilled and experienced human resources to deploy during any new project.

Take Stakeholder Satisfaction into Serious Consideration

20% of project success is decided by the satisfaction of the stakeholders, who could be your clients, government, consultants, subcontractors etc. This is why it is important to identify the stakeholders and their expectations during the initial stage of the project. By working their expectations into the project goals, you can ensure complete project success.

Any More Reasons Why Projects Succeed?

With the successful integration of the above project management tips to your project management strategy, you can make sure that you improve your chances at 100% project success. If you have additional reasons why you think projects succeed, do mention them in the comments below. 

Business Process Modeling Just Got Easier With Creately
A business process modeling template available at Creately

Are business analysts tired of doing business process modeling using traditional software? Well, we are here to change that. We came up with a set of tools that will make business process modeling faster, easier and fun. So how are we going to make it fast and easy? Below is a summary. Click on them to learn more on how they will speed up the process.

Usability Features to Draw Diagrams Faster

We are proud to call ourselves a productivity tool, which is why we have added some cool features to speed up your diagrams and save you time.  Features like 1-click create alone speed up the drawing 4 times compared to traditional diagram software. Whats more, check out our sticky containers which ‘understand’ how grouping in BPMN works like in Pools, Swimlanes and Processes.

BPMN notation can get complex. Off the 12 core shapes, there are so many various modifiers that you can apply making finding and drawing the diagram a headache.

We’ve simplified it with our awesome properties panel. So take a process and change the properties to make it have a different task type, make it loop etc.

Our text based Objects makes modifying complex objects like choreography a walk in the park. Just double click on the object and follow the instructions to create detailed choreography objects with ease.

Separate Library to Reduce Clutter

Problem with most drawing software is that they have too much options and less drawing space. With our contextual tool bars you will only see the objects that are most relevant for you. After that it’s just a matter of dragging and dropping objects and drawing your diagram. The BPMN notation library has all the objects found in BPMN 2.0 approved by Object Management Group.

Some business process modeling objects available to users

Some BPMN notation objects available in the library. There are plenty more like pool, lane and choreography objects

Business Process Modeling Templates

Don’t have time to create one from scratch? We got you covered with professionally templates drawn using BPMN technique. From the very basic to advanced templates. Change the text, drag a few processes and within minutes you have your own business model. Below are some business process model templates available to you. Click on any of them to instantly modify using Creately.

A business process modeling template available at Creately

Get started instantly using our business process model templates

Below is a more advanced example using most notation and swim lanes.

Advanced business process model available at Creately

Advanced business process which you can use instantly

Real-Time collaboration to Work with Teams and Clients

With our real-time collaboration features you can share your business process with your peers and clients and get instant feedback on your diagram. Just share the diagram with anyone and both of you can work on the diagram together while seeing the changes made by each other in real-time. You can use this feature to explain the process to a client, present your model in a meeting and for many more things. An excellent productivity feature to compliment your diagrams.

Any Reason to Not Try?

An easy to use drawing interface, professionally designed business process templates, usability features to draw diagrams faster and real-time collaboration to work with teams make Creately an excellent tool for business process modeling. It’s very affordable compared to other diagramming tools like Microsoft Visio and offers many other benefits like anywhere access, platform independence, automatic updates etc.

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