Being a project manager is a fairly new profession and its job description has yet to be clearly defined. When a difficult project that consists out of many small tasks, or even several such projects, needs to be completed, it’s very important for absolutely every piece of the business machinery to function properly.
Otherwise, you won’t meet your deadlines, projects will get delayed and you can bet your clients won’t be satisfied.
Another important role of a project manager is that they need to function between departments on a daily basis and make sure everything is going according to plan.
A great amount of responsibility falls on their back and they do need every bit of help they can get. The obvious answer here are project management tools so here’s what you need to know about their efficiency.
Tracking Progress is Easy
Real time tracking
The biggest problem when it comes to managing projects comes down to tracking their progress. For projects managers to communicate with different departments properly, they need to know exactly where each of them is headed and how much time they will need to get there.
Thanks to online project manager tools, this can be done in real time and without a need to pace through the building non-stop.
Online project management software allows you to be in touch with every employee and solve problems within seconds.
Task distribution
Every business functions on the very same principle – a business leader hands out tasks necessary for a job to be completed successfully to all employees. It should be as simple as that, but there is always a chance that someone misunderstands the instructions.
With delicate projects, even the smallest misunderstanding can be fatal to their accomplishment, so this is a gap that needs to be narrowed down as much as possible, the ultimate goal being to have it completely neutralized.
Simple project management software offer a fine solution to this problem because everyone involved in a certain project can transparently see what their responsibility is. It’s all clearly written down and if employees check their tasks regularly, there shouldn’t be any problems.
Live updates
While we’re on the subject of regular visits to your tasks page, we also need to mention another feature of online management systems – they can be updated in real time with everyone being notified about the changes immediately.
So, instead of going from one department to another and calling up meetings so that all employees get informed about a detail you just changed, you can simply edit a task and that’s it.
Sharing Based on Relevance
Decisions based on actual thinking
Brainstorming is healthy – it enables a team to build one big idea that consists out of many small ones and that’s the recipe for fresh approaches and smart campaigns.
However, anyone who has attended a brainstorming meeting is well aware of how it can get out of hands – in a stroke of inspiration, people are easily lead off the subject.
When communicating via a project management software, people joined together for a project give a lot more thought to what they are going to write.
Documents do carry more weight than a conversation does – it’s like you’re contributing to some sort of contract, which makes the whole situation more official.
Live communication with clients
No matter if it’s brainstorming or tracking progress of a certain project, you can and should invite your clients to join in and contribute to the whole project, and do so live.
This will lower the chances of having a project returned significantly because your clients have a direct approach to every detail and they can correct you in time so there’s no room left for wrong turns.
Notes and instruction boxes
It’s not at all uncommon for a relevant bit of information to be misheard or even forgotten. When two departments inside a company communicate, both of them are focused on their part of the job – being a professional deformation, no one is to be blamed here.
However, it’s incredibly bad not to do anything about this, because there’s a simple way to skip this prolonged process of communication; project management systems provide you with visible boxes where you, as a project manager, can leave clear instructions.
New Way of Training
Online educational material
Every company takes training new employees very seriously – the future of their business depends on the level of expertise of novices.
This can be a time-consuming process that doesn’t always have a satisfying outcome. With online management systems, you can create educational material in the form of multimedia files, have them published and allow access only to people who need to be trained.
Live editing
One of the greatest features of these tools is the option to edit documents live and thus enable trainees who may be on the other side of the planet to learn directly from your team and you.
Being one of the most efficient learning methods, watching seasoned professionals correcting their mistakes with strong claims and arguments of why that is will be highly beneficial to potential employees, and the whole company for that matter.
Approach to genuine resources
Doing your homework properly and researching a subject in depth is one of the foundations which good work is built on – resourcefulness is an important feature.
Like everything else, this is a skill that needs to be developed, but the great thing is you can speed up this process by having an online knowledge base within your online project management software.
This way, you’ll provide new employees with solid resources and teach them how to recognize the good resources, which shortens the learning process significantly.
A business with a promising future grows thanks to effective tools that they are able to recognize and use to improve efficiency. Being another great growth hacking method, online tools are the future of business, regardless of your area of expertise or the way you do business – using these tools is simply a smart move.