Things to keep in mind while shortlisting a project management software

When it comes to managing your business, there are many bottlenecks that you need to consider. From planning and scheduling to resource management, automating communication to project cost control, things can become tedious and quite complex. To deal with these such aspects of the business, a project management software can make things easier for a business with efficient and effective planning as well as management of the projects.

But to choose a right project management software can be a daunting task. There are many project management software available in the market and selecting the one that suits your business requirement requires a lot of research and consideration. To help you in this, we present the important things that you should keep in mind while shortlisting a project management software for your business.

Project Planning, Communication and Team Collaboration

It is important to understand the pain areas as well as problems of the business organization while facing project planning, delivery, etc. If project planning, communication as well as tracking of progress is a major concern, then you should look for a project management software that streamlines the process of scheduling of project. It includes managing tasks, milestones, dependency and resource assignment. It also consists of automating the project communication such as status change, project plan changes, etc. to name a few. These are essential aspects of tracking project process as it helps in keeping an eye on cost, billing, resource utilization, schedule of project tracking, etc. to name a few.

A good project management software helps you in the effective management of project resources, and the business can emphasize on resource management. It includes managing resource roles and allocation, resource utilization and estimation, resource billing rate, resource pool, etc.

Basically, it is about knowing the critical requirements related to management of the project as well as streamlining the processes to deliver the projects on a timely basis. The business can then reap the benefits of these software by:

1. Inviting customers to collaborate with the project team which allows them to know and understand the status of the project and also report issues related to delivery which brings transparency with clients.
2. These software allows project managers to save a considerable amount of time which they might have spent on planning resource capacity, assignment, project progress tracking manually via meetings phone calls. These software also avoid additional problems faced by project managers to maintain a spreadsheet to update the project progress along with sharing their status with senior managers on a consistent basis by sending attachment emails.
3. A good project management software allows the team members to be at the top of their things. This allows them to focus on the work rather than struggling to know what work they should do and when to do. It also saves them from the struggle to manage meetings schedule and participation and making phone calls just to share issues as well as updates with project managers.

Project management software like Taskworld allows the team members to collaborate in an efficient fashion. They can share project status and communicate the changes made. They can also get in touch with project managers whenever an issue arises. This software allows them to plan and schedule meetings and update their managers on a real-time basis.

Software like Asana provides the ability to project managers to assign tasks to specific individuals and description, deadlines along with documents required can be attached to the tasks. This helps in better execution of tasks and effective management by the project managers. It also comes with its own app for project management which helps in easier collaboration while on the go.

Ease of Usage and Streamlining Features

Once you have shortlisted the project management software on the basis of features as well as capabilities, the next step to take is to make sure that the tool offers you desired ROI or return on investment. The major pre-requisite is to enable the project managers as well as team members to work efficiently and effortlessly along with the seamless use of the tool which provides real visibility to the progress of the project which is a basic proponent of ensuring ROI of a project management software. The boost in productivity, time and cost saving offered by the software also leads to higher ROI. It also boils down to the fact that the entire project team should be able to adopt and use the software on a regular basis. So, to choose a project management software, check the inherent ROI that you get by selecting it.

Once you have found a project management software which has all the desired capabilities that your organization requires and offer great ROI, there are other factors you should consider. These factors are crucial to the success of a project management software. These factors are:

a. Simplicity

The project management software should be easy to use and it should have essential features that helps in seamless management of tasks. It should make complex task appear simpler in structured format that it seems manageable to the users.

b. Intuitiveness

The software should be simple enough for the team to get started and should be easy to use. It shouldn’t require extensive training to use it. However, ease of usage, as well as intuitiveness, don’t come under capabilities of project management software, but they are still important aspects which project managers should keep in mind when choosing such software.

Management of IT Resources

With the changing landscape of IT management, the businesses don’t have to invest extensively in IT infrastructures such as software and hardware. Unable to reap the maximum benefit of the IT infrastructure, it will be considered as the loss of money and resources and significantly lower ROI. In order to mitigate this problem, it is better to go agile. There are latest sets of many online project management software which also comes with their own mobile apps which offer you the flexibility to start small projects and manage small teams. Once you are sure that the software is suitable for your business, you can easily scale it to the desired level. The scaling up and down is quite seamless and requires a little effort to do so, not to mention a significantly lower cost.

Workfront is also another project management software which also includes workflow management tools which can be quite beneficial if you are looking to scale up your business project management. It also allows handling of small teams and projects.  

Customer Support and Training Module

Another key aspect to keep in mind while choosing project management software is the amount of support it provides. A good software should have extensive support mechanism. A business requires a software which is willing to provide support for the implementation of the project not only during the trial but also during smaller implementation as well as when the business is scaling the operations. A good project management software vendor should provide:

1. Dedicated support platform.
2. Email and Telephonic support.
3. Step-by-step guide and Tutorials
4. Training sessions and Demos

Conclusion

Above mentioned points need to be considered while choosing right project management tool. Considering these points, you can select the right one which suits your business requirement, boosts your business productivity, efficiency as well as provide higher ROI