Big corporations typically have a PMO (Project Management Office), which is a department or team whose main job is to create a standard for leadership and progress tracking for company projects.
Unfortunately, unless you’re a large organization that has the resources to invest in a PMO, these project management and leadership tasks fall to managers or team leaders. This may not seem like a big deal, but projects can have a lot of moving parts and various collaborators, which can lead to disorganized tracking and planning with disparate spreadsheets and lists.
To avoid this less-than-optimal project planning environment, you can invest in project planning tools!
How Disorganization Negatively Impacts Projects
Many companies believe that spending money on project management tools is a waste of resources, and they may simply opt for free options online. Free project management tools often promise a lot but deliver very little for organizations that are looking for a comprehensive solution to their project planning problems.
These lackluster attempts at organization only contribute to the problem in many cases. Managers and team leaders might keep their notes and progress updates in various locations, such as spreadsheets, digital notepads, in their own task management system, etc. Ultimately, this negatively affects the project’s progress and can be a detriment to team members’ productivity and motivation. According to Gallup, only around half of all employees feel they know what is expected of them, and this problem only gets worse with disorganization.
How Can Project Planning Tools Help?
Put simply, when a project’s documentation is spread across multiple sources, leading that project becomes a difficult and time-consuming task. Investing in proper project planning software can help you avoid this, as it enables the project lead to compile all the information in one place. This helps both managers and employees get a more complete understanding of the objectives, action items, timeline, etc.
When you combine project planning tools and techniques for project management, you’ll notice the difference in your team’s ability to work efficiently. Investing in a good project planning tool helps you easily reprioritize tasks, add steps, and manage cross-functional progress.
What Are the Downsides of Project Management Tools?
For some companies, the project management cost is too high even to be considered. Typically, integrating such a tool requires time, effort, and investment, with each person that uses the tool costing additional money for the company.
This discourages smaller businesses from even looking into the possibility of using online project management tools for their company. Additionally, some of these tools are too complex for beginners, not flexible, and/or have an interface that is not user-friendly.
Getting Started With Project Planning
Even though project planning tools can be costly, they’re still worth it for businesses that are very project-focused and have multiple projects going simultaneously. By combining project planning software with a tool like Docket, your work can become even more efficient.
Docket allows users to directly input meeting decisions into project management tools like Asana and Jira with the help of integrations. Never search through your Notes app to remind yourself of a specific project update again!
