Any brand or business understands just how important teamwork can be in achieving vital goals and meeting inflexible deadlines. As such, entrepreneurs and leaders alike must carefully consider each new hire and team member – not just in terms of their own skills, but also with respect to how they complement the team as a whole.

Team-based projects can be frustrating, difficult and easily derailed if the entire team isn’t on board. Even in situations where everybody works well together, a variety of mishaps and inefficiencies can threaten overall progress.

To ensure team projects stay on track and on time, incorporating a variety of methods into the process is recommended. Let’s look at three specifically that can help team projects excel.

Take Advantage of Project Management Software

Teams throughout the world – regardless of niche or focus – encounter many of the same fundamental challenges when working on projects. Fortunately, many have overcame these challenges thanks to the development of project management software. What do these tools offer?

Most notably, they provide a suite of efficiency functions to assist project managers in monitoring and streamlining project tasks. From task list management and scheduling to analytics and reporting, every project team can benefit from the use of this software.

The Digital Project Manager and other industry-focused brands recommend that leaders should learn more about project management software options as soon as possible.

Communicate, Celebrate & Communicate

Many of the most common reasons why teams fail to complete projects on-time (or at all) relate to breakdowns in communication. Your team may be spread across different departments or even different continents, but the need for communication remains just as necessary. While project management software can assist in mitigating some miscommunication, stand-alone team communication utilities can still be beneficial investments.

It’s also vital that project managers convey a sense of appreciation and recognition throughout each successful phase of a project. Providing incentives to team members in the form of celebrations and rewards helps show that their work is valued and appreciated. You can also take time during each of these celebrations to communicate directly on upcoming goals, deadlines and tasks; team members will often be more receptive to your input and advice in such settings.

Designate Each Task’s Priority

Larger projects in particular will consist of dozens of individual tasks, many of which are prerequisites for proceeding toward completion. Other tasks may be desired or useful, but aren’t necessarily required for the project to be completed. Project managers and team members alike must know which tasks fall into each category from the onset.

This broader method of managing projects is often known as the Pareto principle: that generally speaking, 20% of the project tasks will require 80% of the work. The last thing a project manager wants is for his or her team to become bogged down on a minor task rather than completing a vital one. As projects proceed, goals may need to be changed and features may have to be dropped. Fewer surprises and setbacks will occur if the team is aware of each task’s inherent priority from the beginning.

Never will a project be as simple as it might seem, but this doesn’t mean that projects invariably must get off-track or delayed. Using these three simple recommendations on future projects will minimize the likelihood of bottlenecks, miscommunication and inefficiency in the workplace.