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7 Signs You Are Outgrowing Your Project Management Tool

7 Signs You Are Outgrowing Your Project Management Tool

By Patrick Kelly

outgrowing-project-management-tool

Find out if you are experiencing any of the seven warning signs

Here at Workzone we speak with lots of customers who know their project management tool isn’t serving them well as it could, but aren’t sure if they are ready to upgrade their current project management tool. Our conversations with customers have led us to identify seven warning signs that indicate that you have outgrown your project management tool.

Project Management Today

Managing projects today requires more coordination and collaboration than ever before due to:

  • Distributed cross functional teams: Many projects span not only departments but geographic locations and time zones
  • Multiple communication channels: Project requests come from a variety of communication channels – emails, phone calls, impromptu meetings in the hallway etc.
  • Shared resources: Resources are often shared across multiple projects which makes it difficult to prioritize and distribute the work
  • Bloated Inboxes: So many emails – so little time. Most projects require a level of collaboration that can’t be easily managed through everyone’s inbox

The 7 Warning Signs

“Tool: a device that aids in accomplishing a task”

Your tool makes you want to scream

tool-scream

Are you managing projects with a tool such as Excel that wasn’t designed for that purpose? Excel is often the solution for many organizations because:

  • Nearly every company in the world uses Excel
  • With its rows and columns, users are able to easily create a list of tasks with details

If you are using a tool that wasn’t designed for project management, sooner or later, using the tool will lead to frustration as you realize that it requires additional work so that you can effectively:

  • Assign and manage resources
  • Track task dependencies
  • Modify start and end dates
  • Provide visibility to project stakeholders
  • Facilitate accountability amount project team members

You have too many meetings

Do you have frequent meetings with the sole purpose of updating project status? By project status, we mean activities such as marking tasks completed, identifying which tasks are behind schedule, or notifying teams members of deliverables requiring review and approval.

While it’s important for project teams to meet on regular basis, it’s not the best use of your team’s time to spend meetings updating your project plan. A better use of their time would be to use meetings to set priorities and resolve issues. In addition, holding fewer meetings means that your team will have more time available to complete tasks and focus on the quality of the deliverables.

Your inbox is overloaded

inbox-overload

Is your inbox overloaded with email related to project status? Most people will agree that email is not the most efficient way to manage projects. It certainly wasn’t designed for that purpose.

Keep in mind that not everyone on your team will take the time to read through long email chains or craft clear and concise email. Wading through several emails to assess your project’s current status is a very time consuming process.

You waste time on administrative tasks

Do you spend a significant amount of time managing your tools and documents? It’s difficult to be proactive when you are bogged down with activities like:

  • Creating new project plans from scratch
  • Manually calculating end dates or adjusting dependent tasks
  • Searching for the latest version of your project scope document
  • Searching your email for the most recent feedback on a deliverable

You have a tangled set of tools

tangled-tools

Are you using multiple tools to manage your projects? Do you use one tool for task management, another tool for communications and yet another for group calendars?

Managing projects with multiple single-purpose tools is both inefficient and error-prone. More importantly, using a tangled set of tools to manage your projects will require you refer to multiple sources of information to assess the health of a single project let alone multiple projects.

Your project management tool caters to one person

Does your current project management tool offer only one view of your project? That’s great if you are the project manager or a team of one, but what about the rest of your team or other project stakeholders?

Not everyone involved in the project needs to view the entire project plan. Team members responsible for completing tasks are only interested in viewing and updating the tasks assigned to them. Senior management doesn’t need to see the nitty-gritty details. They want to know is the project on track, when will the project be completed etc.

You are overwhelmed when onboarding new projects

Are you overwhelmed when new projects are assigned to you? If the idea of setting up and monitoring yet another project is a source of anxiety, the last thing you need is a tool that adds to your anxiety.

A project management tool should be just that: a tool that enables you to accomplish more in less time.

Next Steps

Are you experiencing one or more of the seven warning signs? If so, it may be time for a change. Don’t let your project management tool stand in the way of your project success.

Ready to make a change? We can help. We can show you how to improve your process with the right tool so that you can save time, reduce frustration, eliminate worry, and have happier teams.

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