Improving Project Estimates with Time Tracking Software

Project management has always been an essential part of every business, but now it’s more than ever. If you want to do a good job, you need to be prepared for the various changes that can happen, but also have a clearly defined work plan in the beginning. Because of all this, project estimation is very important and therefore we'll talk about it in the next few paragraphs.

Why Is It so Important

Project estimation is part of project planning and it covers the initial planning of cost, time, activity, manpower and so on. It's probably the crucial part of every project as it dictates the starting point of your work. You estimate before even accepting to work on the project and from there, you'll have the cornerstone for what you’re supposed to do. 

Furthermore, project estimating prevents your expectations from getting too high or too low. With it, you can organize your entire team by activities that each team member is assigned to or the amount of work they need to do. At this point of project planning, you should gather all the information you may have on your previous projects and use that as a helping hand for your current one. Tailor the project to your needs over the past experiences. Also, it's important to divide activities into sub activities, as it's more convenient and transparent.

Time Estimation In a Project

As the focus of this text is the time it takes for a particular job, it’s critical to emphasize why time is important to complete the project and how to estimate it properly.

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So, after you’ve gained insight into the scope of the project, you need to assess how long it will take. What this means is to define the duration of all activities in the project itself and sub activities that it may have. Of course this isn’t ideal, and the numbers you get aren’t going to be 100% accurate, but it’s important to get at least an approximate estimate of the duration. 

When you estimate the time, cost, manpower and other estimates  will fall into place easily. Time is the first thing to which you should direct your attention. But, can something aid you in with this estimation? Let’s discuss the time clock system software.

Time Tracking and Your Project

We've talked about estimating time in the previous section, but we need to reiterate its importance. Basically, your project’s future depends on an appropriate duration assessment. And if it's so important, you should use any tools at your disposal to get the most accurate numbers.

Cloud time tracking software is one of many. With the help of it, you can easily track the time you spend on certain activities, while the collective amount of time spent will help you understand the full length of the project. We mentioned before that information about previous project comes in handy and you should use it as much as possible. Sometimes, based on your previous work, you can make an informed guess on how long an activity will last. Maybe you had the same or similar one in the past. 

Project time management software helps you with defining the cost of your project as well. Determining the duration of each activity will also show you the required cost of materials, resources and everything else that’s needed to get the job done. And once again, use the data you’ve collected on previous projects. Defining cost is ideal for this as some of your past work may be similar and by nature, the cost could be within the same budget range. 

Also, employee time management software can help you out when delegating work. Let’s say that you’ve estimated how long the project will last, and you know what you need for each of the activities in terms of resources, material and tools. The next on the list is to determine how many employees will be engaged in each activity. Having too much workers isn’t good for your budget and therefore, this step is crucial. With employee time tracking app, you’ll determine exactly the manpower needed for each task to be finished effectively. 

Conclusion

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Without proper project management there are no successful projects. Estimating certain aspects of the process is even more important. Therefore, you should make  sure that you conduct detailed research and based on your estimations, make a solid ground for every project that comes your way. 

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