When the summer sun beats down, there’s always someone in the family who reminds you to put on your sunscreen. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to easily avoid getting burned at work? There is. It’s called project management.

Grab a bottle of water, put on your baseball cap, and think about project management as SPF 45 for business.

Following are seven ways that project management can help you avoid getting burned at work:

1.  Set expectations with a project agreement. Don’t skip the project agreement because you're pressed for time, or you think the project is too inconsequential. It’s often the small projects that can unexpectedly erupt and catch us off guard because we were thinking, “This is going to be an easy one.” Project agreements help to eliminate unnecessary conflict as objectives, expectations, timelines, and roles and responsibilities get clearly defined. If some team members are working virtually, it’s important to update the project agreement regularly, and post it to the collaborative work environment or e-mail it to the team.

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