6 Signs Your Team Needs Project Management Software
Project management software is designed to make your life as a project manager easier—so why not let it? PM software can simplify documentation, communication, logging, resource management, and more. Depending on the price you want to pay, you can easily find PM software online that can ease the administrative burden placed on you as a team lead.
photo/ Gerd Altmann
Here are 6 signs that it’s time to take the plunge as see what PM software has to offer:
- You struggle with sorting through redundant documents.
Example: Five different people started a separate “Digital Marketing Brainstorm” mindmap and you all take redundant meeting notes.
Document redundancy is more than just a nuisance, it’s a waste of time. If every staff member (remote or on-site) has their own set of notes/manual/guidelines/planning/and so on, then there is no way to be sure that everyone is on the same page. Project management software can make shared communication and documentation much easier. Centralize your team’s work with online project collaboration tools so that you can build off one another’s work rather than overwriting it.
- You keep going over project budgets on hours logged and wages paid.
Example: It came as a surprise when everyone submitted their timesheets and you realized that a job that was allotted 20 hours of work ended up taking double that.
It sounds like you need some solid time tracking software for your projects. The need for timesheets and hour tracking is inevitable so don’t wait until the last minute to implement a system. Robust time tracking software will ensure that you stay on course and will alert you if there are any unusual overages. This can also help you better budget time for upcoming tasks and projects because you’ll have an in-depth record of hours needed for similar jobs.
- You have missed important deadlines and know it was preventable.
Example: As multiple competing deadlines came and went, it slipped everyone’s mind that the status report was also supposed to go out by the end of the day.
Pre-set reminders and/or alerts are just one huge benefit of the right project management software. Few people can keep every upcoming deadline—and the requirements involved—straight in their head without a little help. Usually, we use notes, calendars, or set digital reminders on our smartphones. Marking deadlines on a shared platform takes away the stress of each individual team member having to create their own system (or forgetting to do so).
- You are having to micromanage to ensure everyone is making fair progress.
Example: You email your team members all-too-frequently asking for updates and status reports and this administration is eating up your mornings.
It sounds like you need a hub where each member of your team near and far can record their progress, tasks completed, note delays and problems, and recalculate deadlines accordingly. There is project management software that can do this for you. Rather than sending emails, texts or PMs asking for regular reports, just log-in to your shared system and see everyone’s RAG status (or otherwise indicated statuses). Anything that can nix the amount of checking-in you have to do is a good thing.
- Your team gets stuck on their tasks because they don’t understand the various interdependencies.
Example: No one realized that we couldn’t progress to the ad text A/B tests until the graphics had been approved and designed; now we’re behind schedule on both.
Sometimes you don’t realize that other people are waiting on you. And that, in turn, others are waiting on them. And so on and so forth. If your project has a lot of interdependencies that prevent task mobility if even one step is missed, you could benefit from project management software that gives you an overview of the whole process (like Gantt charts, et cetera). Your team will also know whom to alert if a deadline is missed if they have a “big picture” to refer to.
- You have PM software…and no one is using it.
This is a surefire sign that it’s time to try something new. You don’t have to settle for the first PM software option you stumble across. You might even want to consider different options for different projects, clients and teams. If you have PM software established but your team is avoiding it like the plague, try asking what they want in project management tools and catering to their needs from there. Maybe the user interface is bad or the current software is missing some key components your team would find helpful. Switch it up!
Conclusion
If any of the above sounds like you and your team, it may be time to see what project management software can do for you. With so much available nowadays, you’re sure to find something that is the right fit for your team.
Author: Sarah Tolle
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