Optimize your project management with online appointment booking software

Coordinating multiple tasks simultaneously, creating schedules, meeting deadlines, distributing tasks to individual team members, observing resources, calculating budgets, presenting final results - the spectrum of tasks a project manager takes on is broad. Keeping track of all aspects and subtasks of various projects can become a real challenge during the hot phase of completion.

Many managers find it difficult to keep a cool head and not lose sight of the structure. The stress level rises, the own resources are overloaded, the danger of a burnout is getting closer. But it doesn't have to be that way. The key to a good work-life balance is very simple and yet many project managers are still in the dark.

By integrating online appointment booking software into your workflow, team coordination and project planning, a lot of stress is taken away from you even before it arises. We show you how to optimize your project management and actively avoid typical mistakes during a project phase.

Coordination in the blink of an eye through an appointment booking tool

A new project is due, tasks have to be assigned and resources planned. But who is currently still working on the completion of other projects? Who is on vacation and when? Are there enough employees available to complete the project? These questions have to be considered in addition to development, planning, deadlines and communication with the client. While most aspects are your responsibility alone, you can simplify team coordination considerably with the help of an online appointment booking tool.

Appointment booking software is not only useful for making appointments with customers, but also supports you in your project planning. Invite all your employees to use your appointment booking software meetergo and ask them to integrate their calendars. Events from their cal endars are automatically transferred to meetergo - whether they are private plans such as the upcoming vacation or meetings with other teammates. In the future, when you assign tasks to your team, you'll see immediately whether they have enough time to complete them on time or whether you should allocate team resources differently. This allows you to be proactive in the planning stage and avoid time bottlenecks.

Keeping a cool head when problems arise in project management

While your time management runs by itself with your appointment booking software from meetergo, hardly any project phase runs smoothly. Due to the different actors who participate in a project and make decisions, the probability is high that things have to be changed again during completion, which disrupts the process.

Acting with foresight is also an important component that you should never disregard as a project manager. To ensure that you always maintain an overview and meet project deadlines despite any problems that may arise, you should prepare yourself for any eventualities. The following questions will help you to do this:

1. what kind of problem is it?

In project management, a classic distinction is made between a blocker and an obstacle. The definition of a blocker is already in its name: It blocks the completion of the project. This can be the case due to technical disruptions, delivery delays, lack of third-party licenses, budget cuts, or a realignment of the project. In order to continue your project, the blocker must first be cleared out of the way. And exactly this point is out of your control, as blockers in most cases have an external trigger.

Another common problem is obstacles. While obstacles don't have quite as dramatic consequences as blockers, they can become real blockers. For example, if an employee has too many ongoing projects, the tasks pile up further and further behind. If subtasks cannot be completed, the entire process is delayed.

The first thing you should ask yourself when you encounter a problem is whether it is a blocker or an obstacle.

2. can I solve the problem?

Very often the same problems occur in projects, no matter how different they may be. After you have found out what kind of problem it is with the first step, you can analyze and solve it. To do this, take a close look at your workflow and the individual work steps of your team members. Take a look at the task list and timeline in your online team calendar. With the exact record in your online appointment booking software of when who worked on which task, the source can be found quickly and the obstacle can be removed.

If the problem is a blocker, you have little room to maneuver for the time being. You will have to rely on external sources to complete your project. However, this doesn't mean that you'll just twiddle your thumbs from now on. Go into your schedule and see which tasks you can push forward. Set up a meeting with your teammates using the appointment booking tool and see what you can work on together in the meantime.

3. is the problem a top priority?

Solving a problem takes time. And since time is often scarce in the hot phase of a project, you should take a close look at whether the problem needs to be solved immediately or can wait. The following questions will help you to prioritize:

• How far is the project progress delayed?
• Can the project continue even with the problem?
• How simple is the solution?
• How costly is the solution?

If you decide that the problem is acute and needs to be solved quickly, you can set a deadline for solving the problem in your online appointment booking tool. If several problems occur at the same time, you can also color-code them to highlight their urgency if they fall on the same deadline.

4. why does the problem occur?

To prevent problems from reoccurring in the future and causing delays in the project flow, be sure to ask yourself why the problem occurred in the first place once it has been fixed. As mentioned earlier, blockers are beyond your reach, but you should still ask yourself why it happened. Reasons for problems can be:

• Your teammates are working on too many projects at once
• The client has chosen a new project orientation
• Previous deadlines were not met
• Lack of communication between your team and the customer
• No backup of the project status in team meetings

While the obstacle or blocker may be out of your control, you may be able to eliminate them in advance so they don't occur in the first place. In this way, some of the problem sources listed above can already be avoided by integrating online appointment booking software into your workflow.

Your problem solution through the integration of an online appointment booking software

During a project phase, there are many different types of problems that can have external or internal sources. While your hands are tied in case of a new project alignment by the client, you can already prevent other problems by restructuring the workflow in your team. This probably sounds like a lot of work to you right now. But it is not. With just a few clicks, you can integrate meetergo's online appointment booking software into your project planning and avoid both blockers and obstacles.

All projects and tasks at a glance

Your online schedule planner for teams from meetergo gives you an overview of who among your colleagues is currently working on which projects and what the time distribution is. When you set up the schedule for a new project and distribute tasks, you can see whether there are enough time resources available to complete the project on time or whether you should consider setting new goals.

With meetergo's appointment booking software, you always have deadlines and time resources in front of you.

Self-control and personal time management for successful subgoals

Furthermore, the online deadline booking tool gives you an overview of whether deadlines for sub-goals have been met or whether delays have already occurred in the ongoing process. In time, you have the possibility to counteract a total delay in the project completion and thus to deliver a timely completion to your customers. For your teammates, this also provides good self-control and personal goal setting. Each team member can schedule fixed working hours and thus work in a structured manner towards partial goals from their own project area.

Easy communication with customers

One of the most common sources of problems is a lack of or failed communication between the customer and the service providers. The project then quickly runs in the opposite direction to what the customer envisions. You can avoid this by holding a short meeting with your customer halfway through the project. To do this, email your client the link to your appointment booking page so they can choose a time that works for them. In a 15-minute meeting about the GDPR-compliant Zoom alternative meetergo connect, you report on the current status. This way, you can rule out the possibility that your objective does not meet the customer's expectations.

Team internal safeguarding of the project status

Not only communication with customers is important for a successful project and the avoidance of problems, but also internal team arrangements. Using the survey tool in your online appointment booking software, you can quickly find an appointment on which all team members have time. In a team meeting, you communicate via peer-to-peer networking in the highest quality and with end-to-end encryption. You report to each other on the status of each project area, which ensures that schedules are adhered to and that the objectives are not lost sight of.

Integration of your most important applications

The online appointment booking tool meetergo offers you many functions with which you can optimize the processes of your projects and avoid typical problems in project management. Meetergo offers helpful applications not only for your projects, but also for your own time planning. Thanks to the integration of Zapier, you have all your applications in one place and don't have to transfer anything manually or switch between apps.

Tools can also be instrumental in increasing your customer lifetime value.

For scheduling with customers, team members, internal team communication and agreements, time schedules and problem analysis, meetergo is your online appointment booking software that takes your project management to a new level.