Notion is among the most popular project management tools and there is a reason for that. The ease-of-use, flexibility, and collaboration features that Notion offers, set it a league apart from its competitors.
However, using Notion for Project Management requires a bit of training and practice because there is so much you can do! Right from streamlining your content efforts to organizing your workforce effectively, you can manage any project on Notion.
Here are five ways to using Notion for Project Management:
1. Setting up a Project in Notion
The first step of project management is identifying the scope of your project and the goals you want to achieve in each sprint. You want to have a clear idea of where you want to be after a certain time-period and what are the lead and lag indicators.
You can create a new Notion page just for this purpose. You can also invite your team over to comment on the project outline and make edits easily. This page can be your guideline to monitor the output relevant to the project and measure the outcome at different stages.
One of the easiest ways to manage thematically related content is by using Notion folders. You can create a master page that also acts as the parent folder, and store in it the project planning page we created earlier. In the same folder, you can add a Notion subpage where you manage your project. This page will also act as the centralized workspace where you'll perform and track all project-related tasks.
In addition to these two pages, your folder can include pages for other assets like project images, videos, Gifs, the Notion dashboard that gives a birds eye view of the project, and other limited-access content relevant to individual teams associated with the project.
Here’s an example of what a content project might look like:
It shows a Kanban view that allows moving cards from one status to another whenever there is progress. You can design and present your project the way it suits the best — As we will see later, there are many ways to visualize a project database in Notion.
2. Tracking Project Progress
Even though the Kanban view gives a birds eye view into the progress of your project, you might want to set up progress bars in Notion. They give an accurate visual representation of the project and help you identify bottlenecks.
Here’s what the progress bar looks like:
Notion also allows sorting of tasks based on the individuals who own it. In fact, you can create a new Notion dashboard that helps you visualize the project from the owner’s perspective. You can do that by adding the “person” property to your Notion tasks. Doing that will show you the list of tasks owner by each team member.
Notion also gives you the liberty to analyze your team’s task completion rates and other performance metrics. It allows you to track your projects at the task and ownership levels.
3. Managing Tasks and Schedules
We already talked a bit about managing your project at the task level. In this section, we will explore how to add tasks and set properties, and also how to use Notion’s calendar view for scheduling tasks.
After you have created a database in Notion — similar to what you see in the below screenshot of the gallery view database, click on the blue “New” button.
This will pull up an empty task view where you can see all the properties associated with the task. For example, the below image shows a task with these employee properties: Compensation, Date of Joining, and Reporting Manager.
You can treat each task as a new Notion page and add anything in the text body. You can also edit properties but that would have an impact at the project level — all tasks show the same properties, any change in one will result in changes in all.
While creating tasks, consider adding a “Date” field for deadlines. This property will help you track items that have exceeded the deadlines. Another advantage of setting deadlines is that this field allows you to see the tasks in a calendar view.
For example, the content calendar view shown below displays the cards based on the date when a topic is supposed to go live.
Now, as a content manager, if the article titled “How to SEO?” is not published by 16 Feb, you can reach out to the owner for updates and push for a faster completion, so that other associated tasks are not affected.
4. Using Notion for Team Collaboration
As a project manager, you need to ensure that your team can access key assets and task entries, and collaborate seamlessly. At the same time, however, you may not want external audience to access your content.
Notion can help with all use-cases. You can share your project page with a select audience. But if you want to share content with people outside your teamspace or even publicly, you can do that easily by clicking on the “Share” button at the top-right corner of your screen, and then accessing all sharing options.
Another cool Notion feature that enables team collaboration is the ability of the users to comment. You team can open any task or page and easily add comments that can visible to anyone in the teamspace. They can also tag other team members by using the “@” operator. This feature allows the team to have a relevant real-time conversation in a space that is dedicated to the topic of discussion.
Given that all discussions happen in real-time, your team can work on the same task together which include making edits. This feature ensures that any edits from one team member are not overwritten by others.
5. Use of templates in Notion for Project Management
The fastest way to get started with managing projects in Notion is using templates. This saves time and effort you would otherwise spend in creating and designing a structure everytime you start a project.
Notion provides a ready-to-use templates for project management that you can import and customize. These templates come with integrated task lists, project timelines, and meeting notes. Alternatively, you can create your own Notion template for projects, craft a template button, and use it everytime you start a new project.
Use-cases of Notion for project management
Managing Content Creation and Publication
If you own a website, you need to create quality content consistently to continue attracting a larger audience base. A great way to do that is by treating content marketing as an ongoing project. Notion provides all the features you need to manage your content projects — be it for your Notion blog or a website.
You can create calendars to monitor content creation and promotion across channels. You can also get your team to coordinate on a project dashboard and track the content velocity.
If you have a website or plan to create a portfolio on Notion, consider trying Super. Super is the perfect tool for converting your content in Notion into a fully functional website in no time. Even if you don’t know how to code, you can create an aesthetic website that is optimizable for search and loads fast.
Tracking Software Development Processes
Tracking and managing software development processes is a cumbersome task. But Notion offers a high-degree of flexibility to make it easier. It allows teams to create custom boards, disparate databases, and simple tables to track tasks, milestones, and bugs.
Coordinating Event Planning Tasks
Event planning requires great attention to detail as changes unfold fast and in real-time. But if you plan the event well and account for plan-Bs, you can be better prepared to face uncertainties.
The ability to set dates and reminders makes Notion a neat tool for event project managers.
Right from selecting a venue to managing guest lists and creating detailed timelines, Notion can function as a centralized platform for coordinating your team and streamlining all event-related activities.
It offers an intuitive interface and collaborative features, that allow teams to seamlessly collaborate, assign tasks, and monitor progress, ensuring successful event execution.
Overseeing Remote Team Activities
Notion can not just help you manage an employee database but also streamline efforts of a remote team. Notion can store information about your employees — their personal details, designation, reporting structure, salary details, leave balance, etc.
It can also help you get an overview of tasks under each employee’s bucket to track their efficiency and off-load work if they are overwhelmed.
FAQs
Is Notion project management free?
Notion’s in-built project management features and templates are free for all users. Right from different types of databases to it’s collaboration features, everything is accessible at no cost.
Is Notion good for project management?
Notion is a powerful project management tool packed with all features you need to monitor the minutiae of a project, right from the progress of tasks to efficiency of team members. Compared to most other project management software, Notion offers a more flexible and intuitive interface, and more capabilities at an affordable price.
Can you use Notion for agile?
Notion's flexibility makes it ideal for managing Agile workflows. You can easily create Kanban boards and sprints to fit your Agile process. You can move tasks from one status to another or even from one team member’s queue to another.
Does Notion have a Gantt chart?
Even though Notion does not have an in-built Gantt chart feature, it does have a “Timeline” database that doubles up as a Gantt chart. It shows task timelines from the start to end in a calendar view.
