Google project management is a system that gives you the opportunity to consistently use Google Docs, Sheets and Calendar. This will allow you to collaborate and share information with your team members and customers anytime and anywhere.
Google offers a lot of tools to make your life easier and your work more organized. This includes the Google Calendar, which is not only an excellent way for individuals to organize their meetings and appointments, but can also be used as a corporate project management tool.
Is Google Calendar for You?
As a way of introduction to this article, let me tell you what my project management needs are.
I am a part-time office worker and part-time freelancer. I have a limited amount of time to work on commissioned projects during the week so I need my project management process to be easy & efficient when I sit down to do it.
I often answer client e-mails on the go, therefore, I need a tool that I can easily update on my phone with new meetings or rescheduling appointments, and immediately sync with my computer.
I don’t need to see complex charts or the percentage of completed work because I track that in a Google Spreadsheet report I send to my customers.
I need reminders because I am busy and sometimes I forget about my tasks.
I am working remotely and want to be able to share project progress and important milestones with my customers.
Oh, and I would rather not pay for a project management tool because I prefer to invest in specialised content marketing software.
Does any of this sound familiar to you? If the answer is yes, you need to give Google Calendar a try.
But let’s also do a simple reality check here before I soldier on with this article…
Google Calendar is a super simple calendar-based project management tool and expecting it to jump through hoops is a waste of time. GC is not meant to go into extreme details such as task assignment or quantifying progress, and it will not show you a Gantt chart-style timeline. Treat Google Calendar as your project calendar with note-taking, lists-making, notifications functions, which gets more advanced once you start exploring different integrations.
So you have decided to give Google Calendar a go? To me, Google Calendar outranks Trello and Asana because it’s like a foolproof command centre of a list-maker on steroids. Think about GC as your ultimate project control panel. Let’s take a look at the dashboard:
The browser Google Calendar view offers a spacious calendar section, which can be adjusted from day view to a week or month view, as well as a full year calendar (without event details), custom timeframe (by default, this option is set to 3 days) or a schedule (just a list of dates and to do’s).
The same goes for the Google Calendar mobile app. By the way, all Android phones have Google integration built-in but I suggest downloading GC app anyway and disabling the default calendar.
On the bottom left in the in-browser view, you will see the list of your calendars, as well as calendars you are subscribed to (for example, national holidays in Austria).
The panel on the right side under your profile picture (synced with your Google Account because you can only view Google Calendar when logged into a Google Account) is a recent addition. By default, you will see two icons: Google Keep, which syncs your notes, and in-app task manager.
As a project manager in the media industry, you know that the best pieces of project management software need to tick off a range of boxes. The follow list looks at these:
- Project Planning
In today’s digital age, you require a tool which can assist you with harmonising a remote as well as multidisciplinary team. In other words, in order to make sure that the project remains on track, it is necessary for you to maintain a transparent project overview, assign tasks in addition to keeping everyone up to date.
This device needs to operate in a manner that everyone can comprehend at a glance. In order to guarantee an effective as well as logical workflow that gets rid of missed steps, each team member needs to receive the correct tasks at the right instances. Remember that one forgotten task can result in the whole project stalling.
- Document management
Version control which is accurate, in addition to document management, is vital in the digital age. When your project files are opened by various people at different times, all parties need to have the correct permissions and understanding of where they should work.
Poor document management can result in huge headaches. Work may get lost or some team members may work on the incorrect version of a document. This means that you need a tool which keeps everybody on the same page.
- Team collaboration and communication
Without a tool which offers communication that is effective, your creative team will grow to be a collection of unrelated individuals who find it difficult to work in tandem. This tool can have a substantial impact on the quality of your project, the contentment of your team as well as your ability to adhere to deadlines.
In order to keep conversations on-topic, you need to provide simple, well-organised tools for collaboration as well as communication. Without these tools in place, teams could waste countless hours trawling through old email threads and conversations in order to find specific directions or files.
- Productivity tracking
As a project manager, you walk a fine line between talented creative as well as rigorous manager. You are responsible for billing which is accurate. If you don’t have the ability to track your team’s time, you will not be able to confidently say if a project is profitable or unprofitable. Without the data to back up the work of your team, you’ll also find that billing becomes nightmarish. And when you are required to provide a detailed analysis to your internal and external stakeholders, you’ll be left empty-handed.
How I structure my Google Calendars for projects
- Name of the calendar: Project Name / Year
- Project phases: A blocked “All Day” event, which covers the entirety of each phase, for example, 1/03/2020 to 1/10/2020. This is the master project event so make sure it has the most important info such as link to the project folder, important dates and so on added to the event info.
- Individual tasks to be performed on specific days, marked as events with specific time range: coded according to my project management system – searchable #Name + Task description
Conclusion:
Project management googles sheets to help you get organized can be your greatest allies in your business endeavors. When it comes to managing large projects, project management google sheets are the key to success. Using them correctly will allow you to have access to all of your important material in one central location, so you won’t have to worry about misplacing anything.