Task Management: A secret from the Project Manager's treasure chest

I've had a handful of friends knock on my door asking how I keep several remote teams moving in the right direction. The answer isn't exactly a secret but it is definitely a skill: task management.

Task management in this context is essentially building a big old list of the things that need to be done and making sure they get done. Easy right? Well... yes it is, but there's a reason why I consider this a skill and that's because it takes practice and persistence.

The biggest pitfall of task management is assuming that once the list is written, the job is done. I wish that was true, just imagine writing a list, coming back a week later and finding everything done perfectly! Unless you're working with an Elon Musk automated human, there is little chance this will happen. Why not? Because things change, details are uncovered, issues arise and generally the landscape changes.

This is the same reason that "waterfall" management techniques have largely been ditched for Agile approaches. For anyone not familiar with these terms; waterfall is essentially listing every single task in order from inception to completion, while agile is based on iterations of work and constantly revising the tasks that will be worked on during a period of time.

So enough with the theory. What does good task management look like? Here are the bullet points:

• Well defined task descriptions and support documentation
• Easy to understand requirements
• Assigned to the right person
• Clearly stated deadline

These can all be achieved in a bunch of ways, but I'll show you the two that I have found to work well. The first is through a list approach with headlines of local areas of work:

I should start by saying that Asana is my favorite tool for task management. I've used a bunch of them, but I've constantly found it to have the greatest user adoption while providing enough versatility to manage different projects.

The things to note on the images above are that I've grouped tasks into logical areas. This can be tricky sometimes because tasks often fall into more than one area, but it's important to categorize them specifically. Next, I've split the tasks to a level of granularity that it isn't a burden to tick them off, yet they're not so big that it takes days to complete. Getting this balance right is critical to your team buying into the system. Finally, I've followed the rules above around well-defined tasks with assignments and due dates.

Using this approach allows me to quickly see what's left to complete before our project is finished. However, it doesn't allow me to see how far through the task my team is. If seeing the progress of a task is important to you, then I would suggest using a Board:

Anyone familiar with Kaban or Agile would instantly recognize this kind of task management system. It's based on an agile methodology where all tasks live in the backlog then for each sprint (limited period of time) tasks are moved out of the backlog and into the sprint column.

Using these different columns allows the person working on the task to drag and drop from the left column into any of the other columns, illustrating progress. It's a really solid and easy way to consume information and not too much of a hassle for the person executing the task.

The critical lesson with any approach to task management is stick with it. It takes buy-in from your team and commitment from the person managing the process to ensure that tasks in your automated system reflect the actual progress of the project. As soon as one person stops using the system, the whole thing can come crashing down so keep them moving in the right direction and stay on top of your team's task management.

Please let me know what kind of task management systems you've found work or your thoughts on my approach! :)