Project management tools are an important aspect of running a successful business. Often, without the skills and plan in place to truly make an impact on the business world and gain the customers and profit needed to excel in a particular market, a manager and executive team could fail in their business venture or their particular project, according to an article from Forbes.
In order to smoothly operate a business, it is vital to invest in project management tools that can help you quickly and easily assign projects to the right workers. With the help of a project management tool, you will know which employee has the right skills for the job. You will be able to easily track the amount of hours an assignment takes and see the metrics behind a major project.
In fact, you’ll have data on the amount of revisions a file has undergone and whether the team you’re managing needs extra help. Knowing that project management tools are essential for a company to succeed, you will then need to understand when and how to implement the right technology for your place of business.
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When and How to Adopt Project Management Tools
It is essential to not make any pitfalls when choosing and implementing project management tools at your company. According to the Project Management Institute, when considering the different products on the market, it is vital to think about the following:
- The simplicity of the set up
- The technology offerings
- The general cost of the project management tools
- The scale of use that the controls offer
In addition, you will know that it is time to adopt a project management solution when your current software continues to fail you and assignments fall behind deadline. When employees seem to be unsure of what is expected of them and what assignment is due, you will know that it is the perfect time to begin the adoption of the right project management tool.
There are specific questions you will want to answer. These questions include:
- How would a team derive the most benefit from the system?
- What type of plan would lead to the most successful implementation and use of the new technology?
- Who will use the project management tool?
- How will general work processes change upon adoption of project management tools?
- Is the team ready to embrace a new type of technological platform?
When it comes to choosing the right platform for your office, you will need to follow a set of guidelines. There are specific factors that your new project management platform will need to meet, which includes the following.
- Supporting a seamless integration with your place of business and team.
- Offering vital information to different stakeholders across the department.
- Supporting changing environments and different projects.
- Supporting work processes.
- Providing analysis on the progress across a team.
- Reducing administrative burdens.
- Supporting standards, the company brand, and general consistency between projects.
- Offering high-level dashboards to help team members customize their assignments.
Once you have determined some of these aspects when choosing your project management tool, it is important for your company to evaluate some other, more tangible factors such as dashboards and the interface.
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Vital Factors to Evaluate When Purchasing a Project Management Platform
One of the most important things to consider when it comes to project management tools is the interface of the platform. Finding the simplest interface for your project management technology is best.
The interface needs to be user-friendly and make it easy for your team members to communicate with each other and create easy-to-follow to-do lists. In addition, you, as the manager, need to have a simple interface where you can quickly delegate tasks among team members and access progress reports showing metrics and outcomes regarding individual projects, according to an article from the publication Techradar Pro. A simple place where you can access data on the amount of revisions a document underwent is very useful for a business to succeed.
In addition, your project management solution will need to have a place for relevant data and visual information. Your new technological platform will need to have a dashboard where all types of metrics need to be apparent.
Visual information will be very useful for you, as the manager, to see where employees may be struggling and where workers are succeeding. Therefore, you can provide more support to those who are struggling and provide rewards or bonuses to those who have exceeded expectations.
With the right technology, you will ensure that every user and team member has access to a customizable dashboard where they can track either personal or company-wide metrics. Users could see how much time is spent on particular projects and how many revisions the company is spending time on.
In addition, it would benefit your team and your company if the project management tools were capable of integration. This means that your new tool will be able to quickly and easily integrate with applications and other software that your company is already using. It would be greatly beneficial for your company if the new software product includes integration services.
The next factor that needs to be considered is the ability of the new project management software to help you organize and prioritize tasks. With the right type of platform, all of your projects and tasks should be clearly apparent in your queue. Having a clear “to-do” list can be very helpful on the front screen of the software product. This helps users to work on one task at a time and work their way down the list.
Through this queue, your tasks should be easily prioritized and re-prioritized depending on company needs. In addition, a software system that can automatically change the estimated delivery dates upon re-prioritization is extremely beneficial for your employees. This ensures that the manager can easily create and delegate tasks as well as re-prioritize tasks quickly and effortlessly. Everyone on the team is notified of changes and managers can leave comments on the task to explain any changes.
Communicating between your team is incredibly important. This is why it is vital for your project management tools to include a simple way to leave comments for your team members and make sure everyone is on the same page regarding an assignment.
Having a record of your comments is also important so that you can go back and check over a thread of communication. A list of comments left by collaborators on a project can give you a recorded history of an assignment. This is a simpler way to communicate across a team instead of sending emails to different recipients. It would ensure a user only needs one window open instead of their email and other applications.
In addition, another vital factor to evaluate when choosing a project management solution is the consolidation of reports and other information. The right technology will have the capability to consolidate reports and progress data in a simple and easy-to-access manner.
Most importantly, a tool that can help you track and count the time it takes for your team members to complete a project or assignment is extremely beneficial. This way, you will be more confident in the deadlines you set when assigning and delegating tasks among your team members. Automatic time tracking tools are very useful for any manager.
In fact, only 37 percent of teams in the United Kingdom stated that they completed their assignments on time more often than not, according to the Capterra blog. While delays can sometimes be inevitable, with the right project management tools, you’ll be able to track the time it takes to finish projects and come up with the appropriate deadlines. You’ll also be able to prioritize certain assignments over others.
While 73 percent of workers in the United States think that technology cannot replace the human mind, many tools and artificial intelligence is already changing the way businesses run their day-to-day activities. In addition, today, 85 percent of businesses have a project management office. As such, it is vital to invest in the right tools to support such aspects of a business.
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Why Runrun.it Project Management Software is Right for Your Business
You will find that Runrun.it project management software includes all of the relevant features that would benefit your company. For example, this software has the customizable dashboards that will let you see the progress your team is making.
In addition, Runrun.it software has the ability to easily organize and prioritize tasks in a simple “to-do” list format. Best of all, you can communicate very simply across your team by leaving messages and comments underneath each task.
Furthermore, this project management software program allows you to track the time it takes to finish projects at work. It provides an automatic time tracking tool that will show the progress a team member is making in completing a task. If you’d like to see if Runrun.it software is right for your business needs, click here for a free trial.
