How Entrepreneurial Management Can Help Small Businesses with Task Management Apps
Its Definition and Significance
Entrepreneurial management may be referred to as the planning, organizing, directing, and controlling the resources and operations of a company with a view of creating a new business or transforming the existing one. It is bent towards innovation, modification, and expansion. This kind of management is important in business because it strives to maintain relevancy in a world of rapid change. The localization of the management to new markets enhances the creation of new products, services and processes.
Key Characteristics
Some of the key attributes of this type of managerial management are:
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Innovation: No matter what it is the team is always searching for a better way of delivering a product or service.
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Risk-taking: The acceptance of calculated risk in order to have a successful or favorable turning point.
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Proactiveness: Focusing on future circumstances or change and taking action to meet them.
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Flexibility: The willingness and ability to change actions or strategies according to the situation.
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Vision: A sense of purpose that is clear and definite in the operations of the business.
Comparison with the Traditional Management
From the viewpoint of traditional management, the approach is characterized by structure, hierarchy and stability and performance. By way of contrast, the entrepreneurial manager employs a more fluid and responsive style of management, one that is highly and positively innovative and growth oriented. Where traditional management may seek to only reduce losses and apply known practices, entrepreneurial management is willing to destabilize the status quo and explore new vistas even if it entails risks. Such a strategy can be useful for young firms and new ventures that are more willing to meet the changing environment.
Task Management in Small Businesses
Importance and Benefits
The importance of task management for small-business operations cannot be overstated as it is vital to the successful completion and timely organization of every activity within an organization. This is what effective task management helps in:
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Enhancing productivity: With clear descriptions of what needs to be done and when, workers do not waste time doing less important things.
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Improving organization: Knowing what needs to be done reduces errors and accomplishing the same objective several times.
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Fostering cohesive teamwork: Knowing what to do and when promotes relief to all members of the team, increasing team collaborations.
Common Challenges
Some of the challenges that small organizations face in task management include:
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Communication issues: Problems relating to communication may result in delays or misunderstandings.
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Lack of clear processes: Tasks may not get completed if set processes are absent and this can result in loss of productivity and anger.
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Difficulty in tracking progress: Without the necessary tracking systems, it is almost impossible to establish the level of achievement of these tasks and or projects.
Effective Implementation Strategies
As for this, to ensure that there is effective task management system in small businesses, the following strategies can be used:
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Use of task management tools: To control and manage tasks more effectively, it is possible to use specific software such as Scrumbuiss.
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Set clear goals and deadlines: Make sure that there are task and project goals that are time bound and can be accomplished within the time frame.
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Prioritize tasks: Evaluate the importance and urgency of tasks and decide on which ones ought to be completed soonest.
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Establish clear communication channels: Make sure all the members of the team have a modality of working together or contacting other team members.
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Regularly review progress: Timely status meetings should also be conducted related to individual tasks including the discussions of existing issues.
Task Management Tools Overview
Types and Features
There are many kinds of task management tools. All heads of the tools have some intrinsic features though some features are highly common more than others. Some of the common ones include:
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To-do lists: Conventional task scoring targets that capture the objectives remaining to be met in a systematically ordered way, sometimes enabling a user to indicate completion status.
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Kanban boards: It is a superior type of visual aids that depicts how the tasks are completed in various stages usually represented by columns.
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Project management software: All inclusive tools which contains software that can be used to assign tasks, monitor deadlines and workload as well as getting progress reports.
Some of the important aspects that one should consider seeking in the task management tools are:
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Task assignment: The ability to allot specific tasks to particular team members.
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Deadline tracking: A Task scheduling, which gives the to-do’s with a completion date.
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Progress tracking: Devices that are used to keep record of task and projects’ completion stages.
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Collaboration: Communicating and doing assignments in coordination with other members of the team.
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Notifications: Warnings and reminders connected with the deadlines and performed alterations in tasks.
Popular task management tools for small businesses
Some of the popular task management tools which can be used by small businesses are:
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Scrumbuiss: A cloud-based project management software with many tools including Kanban boards, tasks, projects, or time tracking with analytics and reports. Check it out here.
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Trello: A very useful and easy to understand management application that organizes work with the use of boards, cards, and lists.
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Asana: A robust amateur-friendly task and project management solution with options for task assignments, deadlines monitoring and progress review.
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Monday.com: A very useful tool for online project management that combines visual project tracking with the ability of work group members to collaborate on the project.
Selection Criteria
The following criteria should be seriously considered in the course of choosing a task management tool:
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User-friendliness: Select a tool which is user friendly and less complex therefore reducing the amount of training necessary.
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Compatibility: Such a tool should also have the capability of being used along with other tools such as email and calendar.
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Growth: Make sure the tool is capable of catering for the growing needs of your business and its expanding list of tasks and projects.
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Price: Keep in mind your financial resources and look for fit for purpose tools.
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Customer service: Tools that assist with customers support reliability are also better.
Implementing Task Management Tools
Assessing Needs
After choosing and before deploying a task management tool, you should call for the evaluation of the organization’s needs in the following ways:
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Identifying pain points: What are the activities that turn out most difficult during task management?
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Assessing team workflows: Find out how your team organizes activities at the present and what can be improved.
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Setting goals: Setting targets on what the aim of acquiring the new tool will be, either helping you organize, boost productivity, or collaborate better.
Selecting and Integrating the Tools
After evaluating your requirements, you may move towards choosing an appropriate task management tool. For instance, in case of a need for a complete package with advanced features, you may go for Scrumbuiss. Make sure that the tool you select is compatible with your current system in order to avoid chaos.
Employee Education
In order to ensure perfect deployment of a new task management tool, it is important to train your employees. Training should be structured in the following manner:
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Demonstration of features: Explain to team members all other staff that will use the tool including its functionalities.
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Supplementary information: Identify any available user guides or help files or web based help in the context of the training.
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Exercise Undertaking: Allocate time to the employees who will use the tool to carry out the use of it and ask questions.
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Advisory: Constantly provide assistance in order to sort out problems and in turn usage.
Maximizing Tool Benefits
Encouraging Innovation
The task management tools can serve as a catalyst for facilitating innovation as there is a systematic way of capturing and monitoring new concepts. Motivate team members to adopt the tool to:
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Offer new solutions: Invite team members to create a new traditional or modern idea or offer further improvement to an existing one.
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Work together: Discuss and use advantageous collocation features within the tool to advance the concepts.
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Check the development of new ideas: Supervise the development as well as implementation of the new concepts.
Business-Specific Modification
Everyone and other task management tools can be effective with the users in integration for appropriate satisfaction of the task performed within the organization. For instance, you can do so by:
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Develop unique sequences of tasks: Develop sequences of tasks and operations that correspond to the requirements.
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Create tailor made views: Edit views so that each one shows most useful content of the team at hand.
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Include targeted fields: Add elaborated fields that help in monitoring relevant details of the tasks and projects.
Making Decisions Based on Facts
Task management solutions offer a lot of information that is helpful when making management decisions. Make use of embedded analytics for such purposes as:
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Check how things are going: Monitor things like the number of tasks done and the duration taken in given projects.
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Establish correlations: Such management aspects can include correlating various data in relation to done tasks.
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Rationalize actions: It is crucial to analyze the findings and come up with the rational reasons of activities done.
Evaluation Of Achievements And Advancement
Key Performance Indicators
To understand how effective task management by a unit works, specific performance indicators should be assessed. These include:
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Task completion rate: The proportion of tasks that have been finished on schedule.
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Project success rate: The degree to which project objectives have been met in respect to time, scope and budget.
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Team productivity: The output of the team in terms of work done within a given time frame.
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Employee satisfaction: The level of satisfaction of the team with the task management system and processes.
Assessment and Improvement
Be sure to periodically assess how well your task management tool and its processes work by doing the following: Regularly evaluate the effectiveness of your task management tool and processes by:
Feedback & input collection: Ask team members their thoughts on how they used the tool.
Performance analysis: Look at the KPIs and see what can be improved.
Committing to changes: Change what is needed at tasked management as a result of feedback and performance metrics collected.
Learning Trends
The field of task management is always advancing. In order to stay in this position, one should be updated on the latest trends and changes by:
Reading the industry blogs: The articles and the blogs pertaining to task management and project management should be read.
Participating in webinars/conferences: Attend events to obtain new ideas on how to improve.
Participating in the forums: Take part in forums and communities and exchange one’s experience with other professionals.
Understanding the components of entrepreneurial management through making the right strategies on task management processes and adopting the right tools suitably will be of help to small businesses and teams in enhancing their productivity and achieving their objectives. For such as problems, you could use Scrumbuiss which is a complete task management solution. It has several intuitive functionalities that suit the various operational needs of the business making it easy for your team to be productive.