Project organization 101: 6 tactics to keep your projects neat and tidy

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Key takeaways

• Organizing your projects requires a holistic approach that involves establishing systems for managing resources, collaboration, and communication across all projects
• Automate as much as you can: project management software and resource management tools centralize and streamline important information
• Organizing projects is an ongoing process that requires consistent review and tweaking

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If you’re managing multiple projects while simultaneously planning new initiatives, you’re probably always on the lookout for a better way to manage resource availability, capacity information, project budgets, and team collaboration for each one. 

But before you start arranging individual projects, creating project plans, and defining scope, it’s worth taking a step back to consider all the foundational work that needs to happen first for effective project organization.

This guide takes a holistic approach, showing you the best way to organize projects on a collective and individual level. Think of it as a to-do list that will help you keep all your projects neat and tidy 📋 ✅

1. Centralize your resources

You likely already track your project work using task or project management tools like Asana, Jira, or Trello. But what about your people? 

An organized project starts with an organized view of the people who will be working on it.

Tracking your resources in one place ensures you know who is available, who has the right skills, and who is over or under capacity when a new project gets dropped in your lap. If you’ve ever tried to find a freelancer at the last minute, you know how important this is 🫠 

Input team members’ skills and job titles in your chosen tool

Enter basic team member information like names, skills, and job titles into your resource management software, Excel spreadsheet, or other preferred tool. Job titles and skills are crucial for quickly identifying the right people for specific tasks.

Remember to include external people, like freelancers or contractors, too.

If you’re setting up your team in Float (that’s us! 👋), it will look like this👇

Add work hours and location 

Note team members’ work hours, whether full-time or part-time, so it’s clear how much of each person’s time can be scheduled on project work for every week. 

This is a must-have if you’re part of a remote or distributed team spread across different locations or time zones. 

Set leave policies

Team members will request time off during projects, so it’s important to know when they will be available and plan for when they’re not. To avoid issues like your QA engineer being away when your app is about to launch (😰!), integrate your company’s time-off process with your centralized tool. This involves:

• Setting the base amount of time off
• Deciding who will approve or reject leave requests
• Communicating the approval process to ensure everyone follows the correct steps

If you’re using a dedicated resource management tool, this process is automatic—you can set leave balances, establish policies, and assign specific public holidays for team members in different regions.

Schedule people to existing and upcoming projects 

Finally, assign your resources to ongoing and tentative projects so you can see who is working on what and when.

If you use a resource management tool like Float, you can add your projects manually or import them from your project management tool.

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Hot take: always choose dedicated resource management software to keep your people and projects organized

While you could use a spreadsheet or project management software for organizing resources, it’s always better to choose a tool specifically designed for resource management. 

Spreadsheets are prone to errors, require manual updates, and can easily break if a formula is altered, while project management tools often lack the specialized functionality needed for future-focused planning and scheduling.

But a resource management tool brings all your people and project data together so you can maintain a clear overview of resource allocations, identify potential bottlenecks, and make informed decisions to keep projects organized and on track.

Try Float for free to see for yourself 👀

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2. Prioritize your projects

Juggling multiple projects demands all your attention, tugging you in different directions. To stay organized, you need to direct your time, effort, and resources to the most impactful work instead of spreading yourself and your team thin. 

Assess projects based on business value

Evaluate your projects based on how they align with business goals. 

Do they have the potential to generate revenue? Can they directly improve brand reputation? Will they increase customer satisfaction? 

Remember: not all high-value projects will have immediate financial returns, but they can contribute to long-term relationships or social proof. 

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Pro tip: use these questions to prioritize projects

Emily Feliciano, the Senior Creative Resource Manager at Atlassian, relies on the following series of questions to prioritize projects:

📈 Business value 

• Are we mending a broken relationship with a client we really want to salvage? 
• Is this a new opportunity to partner with a client we’ve been seeking for a long time? 
  

⌛️ Urgency 

• What is the priority of this work? 
• What is the level of importance of getting this work accomplished? 
• Is there flexibility in the timeline for us to deliver? 
  

💰 Cost 

• Is there a large budget attached?
  

👉 Find out more about how Atlassian uses Float for project prioritization

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3. Clarify project roles and responsibilities

Defining how your team members work together and contribute helps reduce confusion and encourage teamwork, helping them understand how to use their skills for project success. 

Understand the team structure and assign duties

Depending on your organization, your project team structure might include:

• A project sponsor who defines project scope and measurable key performance indicators (KPIs)
• A project manager whose responsibility it is to delegate tasks, streamline processes, and monitor project progress 
• Delivery leads who oversee work and ensure high-quality deliverables
• Team members who produce and deliver the project components

Specify who is responsible for specific tasks, whether moving a deliverable to the next stage, approving a change, or delivering a report to you. This approach makes it easier to delegate and helps team members grow. It also ensures that everyone knows who is accountable for each task.

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Pro tip: use a RACI matrix to identify who should take charge of what 🚗

You don’t need to make things complicated. At Float, we define roles using a simple RACI chart. Each project has people who are assigned the following roles:

• Responsible for the work to achieve a task
• Accountable for the outcome but not necessarily the one doing the work
• Consulted on crucial decisions relating to a task
• Informed of the result of a task

This way, everyone is clear on how they’ll work together from the get-go.

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4. Centralize and regularly update project information

Even the simplest projects involve a lot of documentation, from project plans to strategy docs, meeting notes, and reports. Storing this information in designated or central locations is crucial to make it easily accessible to team members.

Move documents to the cloud

Use a cloud-based storage solution like Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive to store all project documentation. This ensures that documents are accessible from anywhere and that multiple team members can collaborate in real time. Make sure it’s accessible so everyone can get the information they need without starting yet another thread in your Slack workspace. 

Pro tip: in cases where you have docs that need to be stored in different tools, consider creating a directory in a tool like Notion or Confluence that shows people where to go to access information.

Use a clear folder system

Set up a folder structure that mirrors the phases of your project (e.g. Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring, and Closing). Ensure the names are self-explanatory so people can find them easily 🗂️

Revise documentation regularly 

Some documentation will need to be reviewed and updated as your projects go on. Set aside time for this activity or delegate it to a team member to ensure consistent version control. You might consider trashing a document—don’t! It’s always a good idea to keep records in case you need to justify a decision to a stakeholder. 

5. Set processes for communication

Effective communication can be the difference between a chaotic mess where everyone’s hair is on fire and a smooth-running project with everything neatly in place. By facilitating communication that’s more helpful than distracting, your projects stay on track, and your team is able to collaborate more effectively.

Determine the channels 

Assess the communication channels you currently use within the organization. Will they be sufficient for your projects? Do you need to add new channels? For example, if your agency uses Slack, you might want to create an external channel to communicate with clients. 

Once your channels are in place, clearly define what types of communication will occur in each one. For instance, determine what information should be shared openly with the whole team and what should be reserved for specific groups to decrease noise.

Set the frequency

Establish how often different types of communication need to happen. Set a schedule for reports, team meetings, and check-ins, ensuring that everyone knows when to expect updates and how often they need to contribute.

Make messages specific to your audience

Tailor your communication to your audience. The way you present information should vary depending on who is receiving it. For example, distinguish between the level of detail required by a project sponsor who is a technical expert versus a stakeholder who is not. 

Set guidelines for different information types

Clarify how urgent messages will be sent compared to routine updates, ensuring that important information gets the attention it needs. For example, high-priority messages that require an immediate response can be routed through a specific Slack channel with an ‘Urgent 🚨 ’ tag attached to it. 

6. Monitor and review your project progress and resource health 

Regular reviews allow you to course-correct as needed and reduce risks in your project. Make this a team effort that involves all stakeholders, so everyone is aware of where a project stands and what the next steps are.

Check project progress

First, consider your budget. Are projects at risk of running out of money or hours? Are you staying within the budget, or will you need to request more funds or time? 

If you’re using a tool like Float, you can see current and historical data on how much time or money has been spent on each project, helping you spot the risks of cost overruns early. 

Next, review your timelines. Are due dates being met, or are you in danger of missing a milestone? Is a team member spending too much time on certain tasks? Addressing these questions helps keep your project on schedule and aligned to the roadmap.

Get a read on resource health

It’s important to regularly monitor capacity levels and manage workloads. This will prevent you from scrambling to find extra resources and ensure your team doesn’t become overwhelmed. 

Run capacity planning meetings with stakeholders at specified times to check in on team members’ availability. In large teams, meet with delivery leads, and in smaller teams, meet directly with team members.

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Maike Jahnens

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Head of Financial Operations and Capacity Management at Scholz & Friends

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Once a week, we have a virtual capacity planning meeting with account managers and creative directors, in which we go through projects in Float to see team workloads and availability. Float enables us to answer important questions like: Is this project properly planned? How much time can we allocate to tentative projects without blocking confirmed projects? Can we predict how much work is coming in?

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Use a resource management tool to review allocations across projects. If team members are over capacity, consider moving work, splitting up tasks, or delegating to others. Just be sure that changes in allocations don’t negatively impact the overall project. 

💡 Learn how resource management techniques can help with more effective time management.

[fs-toc-omit]Put people before projects

An essential part of keeping your projects organized is managing your people effectively. With multiple team members working across various projects and their capacity and availability constantly changing, it’s essential to track where everyone’s attention is focused to keep projects running smoothly.

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Keep your projects—and people—organized

Float gives you the most accurate view of your team capacity across all your projects to plan and schedule project work with confidence.

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