Identifying Your Software Needs
In today’s society many companies are faced with having to manage new projects on a regular basis. There are companies that have phenomenal employees with brilliant ideas; however, sometimes those ideas may be overlooked due to the inability to streamline and make information accessible. As a project manager, whether you’re working for a large company or a small company it is imperative that you have the right project management software in order to help promote your teams’ collaboration, strengths and weakness, and lastly their progress. As a project manager it is your job to identify why you would need project management software. The best way to determine your companies need is if you start to see signs of projects being delayed due to excessive email correspondence, confusion of complex or busy spreadsheets, and missed projects with individuals or complete projects. Another sign to look for is Lack of transparency in the process, or lack of accountability. Failure of status updates between management and team members, redundant work or overlapping work between members, and unclear or missed timelines.
Identifying What The Software Should Look Like
A free project management software should be simple, easy to use, offers clear and concise instructions, and it should be easily accessible. The purpose of the end-user interface should allow users to quickly identify key features, project goals, and deadlines all within the dashboard. In addition, the software should allow all users to share information across one solid platform. Further, users should be able to identify and differentiate between active projects, completed projects, and archived projects. Lastly, managers should be able to have full control of software which should allow them to quickly make changes as they deem necessary. A manager should also be able to make changes when an employee is not performing at his or her optimal performance within an assigned task or they may be overwhelmed with the workload given. To prevent employee burnout and to meet project deadlines a manager should have the control to reassign task to members of the team that have a lighter load.
Choosing The Right Project Management Software
Depending on the size of your company a project manager should identify the strengths and weakness of his team prior to searching for the right software that compliments the team as a whole. The right software will allow you to bolster your teams’ strengths and strengthen your teams’ weaknesses. In addition, you need to choose software that works for your team. So the testing phase is critical when selecting different software because not all software is alike. Companies should allow their project managers time to demo a variety of software in order to determine which is best. Once you choose which software is best; it is paramount that you are able to implement and teach your staff how to effectively utilize the software. If your team can’t learn how to implement the new project management software, then your team will have absolutely no benefit. As a result, you would have to start the project management software selection process over again until your implementation and staff’s learning curve is successful.
