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Top Factors to Consider Before Implementing a Project Management Tool

Top Factors to Consider Before Implementing a Project Management Tool

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The COVID-19 pandemic has changed almost everything overnight, especially the way people work. The biggest change for many has been the concept of working from home. Never has the world seen an exercise of this magnitude. As a result there has been a spike in the use of project management tool. 

Here are some remote working stats:

  • The remote working wave: An estimated 16 million U.S. knowledge workers started working remotely due to COVID-19 as of March 27 2020; that number is likely much higher now. (slack)
  • 88% of businesses have upvoted for remote working trend as the right measure for business stability during these times. 
  • 74% of employees say that a remote work option would make them less likely to leave their company. (Owl Labs)

project management tool - Suitability-of-job-for-remote-work-by-industry

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People who are working from home need to be skillful communicators. When the entire team is working from home, smooth communication is a prerequisite. This is where project management tools come into the picture. Efficient task management is vital especially in managing remote teams. Project management software help in managing team performance, knowing who is working on what, allocating tasks and monitoring how they are performing. 

As the world moves towards the post-pandemic business world, there is an increased dependency on remote project management tools.

What is a project management tool?

Project management tools is a software that helps to plan, collaborate, organize, track and deliver projects of all kinds on time and seamlessly. They bring together teams, managers, clients allowing everyone to be on the same page.

Some top project management tools that can help you stay on top of each project include- 

  • Trello
  • ProofHub
  • Asana
  • JIRA
  • Zoho projects
  • Paymo

Your business may have found the best project management software but are the workforce and the business ready for the implementation? That’s a key question to ask. 

12 Factors to Consider Before Implementing A Project Management Tool

1. Identify the Need for the Software & Check its Compatibility

  • Be clear on the business challenges you are trying to solve by implementing the software.
  • Make sure that the software you choose integrates readily with your system and hardware. If your system needs to be modified are you up for the investment and is your team ready for the change?
  • Decide clearly whether you need a ‘project management software’ a ‘task management software’ or just a ‘time tracking tool’. Your investment will be based on the features you need in your software and therefore you should know your exact requirements.

2. Select The Package That Suits Your Need and Budget

  • One thing you should be wary of while choosing a project management tool is that you shouldn’t let the vendor stir you in a direction that has no relevance to your needs. Stick to your requirements and be clear with your expectations from the PMT. 
  • Look for a PMT that offers future growth, allows training and allows data migration so that no data is lost in the process.
  • There are many project management apps out there in the market, each offered at a different price point regardless of offering the same features. Hence, your budget is one important shortlisting criteria before you decide on a PMT. 

3. Choose The Right Project Management Tool

Before you choose a project management tool you need to check some parameters: 

  • The popularity of the tool
  • Price and estimated return on investment (ROI)
  • Reviews from the users
  • What is the founder’s track record?
  • Is the tool used by your competitors?
  • Pros and cons
  • Best alternatives to the tool

4. Plan for the training program

  • You might need to use the trial version and then make a move forward.
  • Coordinate with the software vendor to set up a training program to educate all the staff members and management, either online or offline. 
  • Training is one of the most important aspects of improving any organization. Hence, one must plan for adequate training to ensure that individuals possess the requisite skills and knowledge to perform their tasks seamlessly. 
  • If your software vendor does not provide a training program, make sure you have the resources to conduct an inhouse organizational training program.

Hire Dedicated Remote Team

5. Plan the implementation timing  

  • This is a key consideration as the implementation timing should not damp the efficiency of your current operations. 
  • Hence you need to plan the best time when your business would be ready to try a change in processes. 
  • With this, give yourself enough time to check the performance of the software and don’t be too early to judge its impact. 

6. Plan for Human Resources

You would need to plan on the resources required for proper implementation and management of the project management software. Some of these resources might include –

  • A software developer – to integrate custom fields 
  • A data analyst – to sort and screen the data generated for future decision-making
  • A strategist  – who could plan the ways to use the software in the most efficient way.
  • An IT support – for no downtime errors and to resolve any issue that your team might encounter while using the software.

Also Read: Exclusive Research on Why Remote Working is the Future of IT Industry

7. Plan the Onboarding 

  • You need to create an optimized and smooth onboarding process for the project management tool.
  • Initially, consider implementing it in some specific teams at a nascent stage and then roll it out in other departments, gradually making it a successful implementation across the organization. 
  • Plan the data migration, customization and key integration requirements early so that the team does not face a lag or hindrance in adapting to the software. 

8. Be Open to Accommodating Changes 

  • Plan on how you need to train your team for the project management tool and how readily the vendor trains you.
  • Plan if you require add-on IT support for the software in your company or is the vendor providing reliable and 360-degree support from his end. Does the support services cost you extra, is it worth the investment?

9. Ensure That it Follows Industry Standards

  • Confirm that the software that you implement follows industry best practices and that the software is the most widely used in your industry. This will ensure new recruits do not have a hard time adjusting to the project management tool.
  • Make sure the software allows you to practice the industry-accepted way to manage a project without facing any issues or glitches.

10. Take the Leaders on Board

  • Everyone from an intern to the top-level management will be using this tool in some way or another. Hence ensure that you seek the leadership’s approval and take the management on board before you consider implementing a project management app.
  • You should resolve any doubts/ queries that they may have.

11. Involve and Address your Staff 

  • As your staff will be the primary users of the project management software, it makes sense to communicate about the same with them, answer their questions, address their apprehensions and give them a demo if necessary.
  • Be supportive of your staff as they make this transition of adjusting to a new project management system. Create a dashboard or document to help your staff with :
  • Reporting of bugs and errors
  • Providing training resources
  • Where to contact in case of software-related concerns

12. Communicate With Your Clients

  • It makes sense to inform your clients before you make the big move.
  • You should inform your direct clients about the software if the software/tool brings along some changes in the reporting or task management algorithm with them.
  • It will not only give your clients reassurance but also make your company seem transparent. 

Summing Up

Project management tools are a staple in today’s business environment. They allow you to maximize the performance of your remote teams by allowing efficient task management, seamless workflow, easy planning, project tracking, and clear communication. A dedicated team is a great option for well-managed projects as it allows for 100% controlled execution while helping your business bridge performance gaps.

10 Best Remote Team Communication Tips for Efficient Management

Best Remote Team Communication Tips for Effective Team Management

A recent study informs that employee productivity improves by 25% when employees feel connected with their coworkers and the company. Such a connection can happen when a company has a strong and effective remote team communication mechanism in place. 

“Like a human being, a company has to have an internal communication mechanism, a ‘nervous system’ to coordinate its actions.” Bill Gates. 

Effective Communication is Key

Effective communication is a soft skill that has a tangible and measurable impact on business success. 

A study involving 195 leaders from 30 organizations across 15 countries rated communication skills as the most important element of business success. That’s from a report published in the Harvard Business Review. 

Remote team communication and management

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The scenario doesn’t change when you work with distributed offshore teams. You just need to be innovative in the way you handle communication. 

Top 10 Remote Team Communication Tips to Help You with Effective Team Management

Tip 1. Organize Regular Online Meetings For All The Teams

It is critical to ensure that communication breakdown does not become a staller when you work with offshore distributed teams. Regular and sustained remote team communication is the solution.

Creating a schedule of weekly online meetings with your offshore remote teams is a good practice. 

Prima facie, it seems to be a challenge when teams are in different timezones. However, it is not an insurmountable problem. All it needs is some adjustments on all sides. 

All the parties involved need to be ready to attend meetings beyond so-called regular office hours. It is possible to fix mutually agreeable timings then. 

Suppose you are in the U.S. in an EST zone and one of your remote teams is in India. That’s 10.5 hours of difference in summer and 11.5 in winter. In summer, 9 am EST is 6.30 pm IST. That’s workable, right?

There’s no dearth of tools for online conferencing. Skype continues to be the most popular with 1.33 million users globally in 2017. Utilizing Unified Communication Solutions can significantly bridge the gap, enabling seamless collaboration regardless of geographical differences.

Tip 2. Adopt A Project Management Tool

There are several online remote team management tools to choose from. Jira, Proofhub, Slack, and Trello are some of the popular ones. 

When you work across time zones, the use of these technologies improves remote team communication and team functioning. The important thing, however, is to stick to the platform once you’ve chosen it. 

The proliferating remote working culture is coordinated with some popular remote team communication tools like Skype and Zoom.

Adopt A Project Management Tool

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Insist on the use of the platform for all project-related communications. Discourage your remote team project managers from picking up the intercom to instruct their colleagues next door.

Tip 3. Introduce Agile

The Agile approach originally emerged for software development teams to collaborate. However, it has since been adapted for use across diverse businesses.

Lonely Planet, for example, is a renowned publisher of travel books. The company’s legal team has adopted an Agile approach. In 2019, they reported a 25% productivity hike.

The Agile approach is particularly suitable for managing remote teams as the focus is on distributing project deliverables across the project timeline. That facilitates the immediate identification of bottlenecks and time-lags. 

Adopt the part of Agile that suits your project. Do not worry about the processes. 

Tip 4. Share the Vision

“Few, if any, forces in human affairs are as powerful as a shared vision.” That is what celebrated Systems Scientist Professor Peter Senge says. 

When working on managing remote teams effectively, getting the team on board about the project deliverables is critical. Sharing the larger vision is what works best, experts say.

Share the Vision

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Tip 5. Connect Each Team Leader With One In-house Team Person

Depending on the number of remote teams you have, make one in-house person connect with the team leaders/ project managers of one, two, or three teams. 

Let your offshore team leader know that X is the person to approach with all the questions, and for all clarifications. Inform your in-house team members that they are responsible for the overall performance of the team/s they are in charge of. 

Foster a buddy culture between the two team leads – offshore and in-house. 

The typical application of the buddy system is for the onboarding of new employees. However, it is a structured approach flexible enough to be adapted for longer-term use. 

Read more about the buddy system here. 

 

Managed Offshore Teams

Tip 6. Be Culture-sensitive

To be culture-sensitive is to recognize, acknowledge, and respect the diversity of cultures. When you work with offshore remote teams, it is of paramount importance to be aware of cultural differences. 

The key is to ask polite questions, inform experts, when you don’t understand something. That minimizes the chances of misunderstandings resulting from cultural variations and makes remote team communication effective.

Tip 7. Clarify That Asking Questions Is Fine

This is a cultural issue particularly applicable to the Asia-Pacific region. Asking questions, especially to people considered senior or superior, is considered a mark of immodesty. 

In case you have offshore distributed teams in countries in this region, it is critical to clearly state that asking questions for clarification is alright. 

It is also a good practice to state it clearly to all your remote teams, wherever they are. 

This is an area where the buddy program works especially well. That helps reduce the inhibitions people might have about raising questions. They feel easier to pose those questions to the buddy they have in your company.  

Tip 8. Be Inclusive In Your Approach

“You have to be run by ideas, not hierarchy.” That’s what Steve Jobs said in his last interview in 2010 during All Things Digital’s D8 Conference. He died next year. 

Be inclusive in dealing with your offshore distributed teams. Discourage hierarchy in your teams and do not practice it yourself. You will get greater productivity.  

Not to be hierarchical is not to lose authority. It has more to do with working together with a team on the basis of a shared vision. 

If you are openly trusting and inclusive in your approach, you won’t have to watch over your teams. They will deliver.

Tip 9. Treat Offshore Teams Like Partners

If you actually practise everything we have been saying so far, this will happen naturally. 

Working together is a partnership that extends beyond the client-vendor relationship. Remember the costs that your distributed teams save you and the value additions they bring. 

That will help you treat them as long-term business partners, rather than as short-term suppliers of some services. Moreover, the partnership approach adds for effective and transparent remote team communication. 

Tip 10. Do Not Micromanage

Provide oversight and guidance by all means. Set up monitoring systems to ensure that things are on track. Utilize your remote team management tool optimally for that. 

But resist the temptation to micromanage when effectively managing remote employees. If you allow your teams to function in their own styles, the chances of project success are considerably higher. 

Do Not Micromanage

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Remember that micromanaging remote teams is also a waste of time for you.

Fine Print

What we have presented here doesn’t contain euphemisms from management textbooks or blogs. We have based our research on interviews by business icons like Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs. On publications by eminent scientists and academics like Peter Senge.

And on employee reviews of Google, ranked the best employer in the world for the second consecutive year by Reputation Institute’s 2019 Global Workplace 100 study. 

These are all real-life doable tips. Follow them to manage your offshore distributed teams effectively.