Understanding what people are working on helps you work out where your project’s budget is going. Perhaps you’re spending too long on simple tasks or unbillable work. Perhaps you have employees with high hourly rates working on low-value tasks, or the overall cost of the employees on the project outweighs the allotted budget. Understanding where your budgeted time is going makes you better placed to direct it to where it’s needed most.

Breaking down all project tasks also lets you know if you’re actually working to your priorities. Are you taking longer than normal on standard tasks? Is your project suffering from “scope creep”, with people working on new tasks not included during planning? Is the majority of your effort targeted to the most complex, high-priority tasks for the project? Crucially, are all project tasks getting the attention they need? Only project task tracking can tell you!

Understanding the individual effort that goes into project tasks also helps your project team work more effectively. You can see who has too much on their plate, who needs a bit more support and who has capacity to help out. It lets you allocate resources intelligently, getting the most out of every team member and creating balanced, happy teams.

Project task tracking is essential for making project estimations as accurate as possible. It also sets benchmarks for each task that can help guide your team’s efforts, helping them manage their own time more effectively. By identifying the most expensive drains on your project budget, you can address them and improve processes for future projects. Budgets can allow for unbillable overheads, resources can be planned more effectively and workflows themselves can be refined. It all makes for a more robust project plan that delivers on its promises.