Apprentice Hoots: The Importance of Planning
When preparing for a project, planning is an incredibly important factor to consider. Charlotte has recognised the positive benefits effective planning can have for developing projects. Read on to discover more in our latest Apprentice Hoots blog:
Planning for perfection
As part of my Salesforce journey, I have been learning how to effectively plan my time between project work and my apprenticeship e-learning. Planning is a great way to structure individual tasks within a project.
Sometimes projects and tasks can be large and entail lots of specifics, therefore I have found it important to develop my skills to become more organised and to break down the information into easily digestible chunks that can be managed successfully.
By planning out a project, this ensures that you don’t miss any small details that could have a significant impact on the project at hand. I’ve also recognised that effective planning can also allow you to have a clear action plan to help colleagues to understand where you are and where they need to be if necessary.
Top tips for planning
Throughout my experience so far, I have gained a variety of new planning skills, Here are some of my favourite ones:
- Start early: This saves you feeling overwhelmed by leaving everything to the last minute and also late planning can drastically reduce the options!
- Take notes: When visiting prospects, it’s important to take notes so you don’t miss out those little details – especially the ones that could prove to be beneficial in later stages.
- Be organised: Create project specific folders so that any notes or relevant information can be stored in one place and can be easily accessed by the whole team.
- Maximise Salesforce: Log all tasks in your Salesforce org so you don’t miss a thing. You can also make sure that your appointments are booked in the calendar feature to prevent any meeting overlaps and the team can understand where you’re at.
- Set goals: By setting realistic goals, this will help to ensure you remain focussed on the project throughout all stages. It is important to remember that you can’t do everything at once, but the planning stages really help to create goals that can be achieved.
Although planning may seem tedious, it is actually an important stage for any successful project and can save you time. It enables you to map out the journey before you’ve begun and provides a clearer path for the project to follow. Planning can actually be fun, so take the time to complete this stage and celebrate as the milestones are reached!
Owl see you later…
Charlotte
