Streamlining Project Tracking with Smarter Status Updates
Scenario
In the NHS, there are many projects to manage. One project I am co-supporting on is ensuring our service meet essential safety and quality standards. There are different team members involved, each of who have different ways of managing the project.
The Challenge
The main way we are managing the project is tracking the tasks via a spreadsheet. Tasks involve uploading relevant documentation to a shared space. We added a status column to denote when a task was completed. We discussed with a senior team member that some of the documentation may be out of date and we are working on updating these documents via a different project. They asked us to mark an action as completed when we had uploaded the relevant documentation even if the documnt was out of date as this would fall under a different project.
The Turning Point
As the Senior team member still wanted us to mark an action as complete even if a documentation was out of date, I decided to add a new option to the status column. The new option was ‘Completed - out of date’.
Workflow
Task Identification: Record all project tasks in a shared spreadsheet and assign ownership.
Documentation Upload: Upload relevant files to the shared space with clear naming and location.
Status Tracking: Update the status column with one of four options – Not Started, In Progress, Completed, or Completed – Out of Date.
Handling Out-of-Date Documents: Use Completed – Out of Date for uploaded but outdated documents, leaving updates to a separate project.
Review & Monitoring: Regularly review statuses to focus on active tasks and flag outdated documentation for later updates.
Impact
Enables us to know which tasks we still need to focus on.
Avoids duplication of work by focusing on the tasks that are withing one specific project.
Helps us to see at a glance which tasks are completed and which documentation is out of date.