Effective project management is barely possible without powerful software. PMs have to process large amounts of data, manage tasks, initiate calls, create schedules, and increase the efficiency of their teams. It’s difficult when you do everything with a simple table in Excel or another Microsoft Word app. That’s why people are taking a step forward and looking for robust software that will help them handle their tasks.
Today, dozens of options will help you optimize the working process and enhance the productivity of your team. Still, picking the first random app is not good. You have to decide what you want from this software, what amount of options it should have, and make the right choice. Keep reading because in this article we will tell you how to pick the most effective tool for project management.
Understand Your Needs
Aspiring to be a more effective manager requires a clear understanding of your specific needs. To achieve this, consider these key questions that will help you outline your requirements:
- What type of projects do you work with, and what steps do you take to handle them?
- What goals are set when you start a project, and how exactly do you set them?
- What are the critical deadlines and milestones your team must achieve?
- Who is involved in the project, and what responsibilities do they have?
- What apps or communication channels do you use to contact your team?
- Are there any tools to handle risk management for your project?
- How do you measure success when working on the project?
With these questions, it is much easier to understand what your management software should look like. Picking up the right tool may be even more difficult than finding a good essay writing service, so take your time and define what you need from the potential software.
Point Limitations and Possible Issues
Nobody will show you the perfect project management software. Still, you can understand its weaknesses and limitations as it will help you improve this tool in the future. Among common issues, we outline:
- Delivery delays
- Long task tracking
- Poor communication between the team members usually leads to breakdowns
- Problems with resource allocation
- Complications with tracking the progress of the project
- Limits in gathering analytics and report creation
As soon as you identify these weak spots, you will understand how to improve your project management tool. Sometimes, when it’s impossible to implement changes into the tool, people combine it with other multi-functional elements to enhance their performance. Still, we recommend staying within a single application to avoid additional issues. Set priorities for all the existing challenges and think of what should be covered first. You may not find the solution for everything, but something could be resolved right now, and the rest will be fixed later. To make sure you note everything, create a separate file and mark first-priority points.
Communicate With Your Team to Find Out What They Need
Effective communication is also essential in project management. To select the most effective tool, you must understand your team’s preferences and working styles and evaluate their overall performance. To ensure you won’t miss anything, notice the following questions:
- What responsibilities does each member have?
- How do team members from different departments share information and work together?
- What communication channels do your team members prefer?
- How experienced and effective is your team? Do you have a hierarchy?
- What does a team do to perform task allocation, set priorities between each other, and manage resources?
The better you understand your team’s needs, the quicker you can find the necessary tools to improve their performance.
What Are Your Must-Have Features?
Again, it’s about priorities. When you look for effective project management software, you should decide what features and options are must-haves for your team. The first priority is related to your needs and challenges because you have to overcome them to be effective. Look for features that directly match your pain points.
Talk to your project management team to know what issues they have when working on their tasks. For example, if a copywriter needs a tool to save files and quickly send them to SEO specialists for a check, consider this and move to the next specialist. Also, rely on the previous experience. If some of your colleagues have used project management software before, ask them to share their experience so that they can understand what exactly you need.
Some departments need to have full compatibility with their specific programs because it makes communication more effective and allows specialists to avoid repeatable actions. Accounting, HR, and other departments share and receive documents all the time. So, to integrate them into your ecosystem and get the job done, you have to consider their suggestions.
Compare the Available Options
When you gather top-5 options for the project management software in your team, it’s time to select one. Create a table and compare the key features of each platform. Since you already have a list of priorities, it will be easier to decide between the candidates with the same settings. For example, if the software has more first-priority options available, it should be your first choice. If you think that there’s not enough information about the software, check reviews, analyze feedback on social media, watch video reviews, etc.
Run Tests
It’s essential to test the software before launching it in an actual project. Gather your team and run several tests. If everything works well, and nobody faces significant problems, you can get back to work with a new software. Still, if something goes wrong, ask your colleagues to report and mention what happened.
Final Thoughts
Selecting good software for project management may be challenging for multiple reasons. We have so many options, but nobody gives proper reviews for each platform. People have to test everything themselves without a plan, which takes a lot of time and resources. Still, if you have steps to take and understand what your team expects from you, it’s much easier to navigate and select options that match your criteria.
