There are some must-to-know features which you should look in a project management
system when you are thinking to buy one. Let’s try if we are able to make
a good choice from amongst various features available in the system. As in today’s
dynamic business environment projects and their working have changed drastically
and so is the requirement for the system. Each company is trying to offer new and
advanced features in their software to make their customers happy.
If you are selecting a project management system you need to be sure that these
essential features should be present.
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Splitting of Tasks
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Assignment of Tasks
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Load Balancing
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Scheduling
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Reporting
In most of the software you will find use of heavy words and project management
related words but when you start using those features you will hardly see the values,
integration and process flow at correct level. So by deciding the software you should
make sure that whether the said feature with a lucrative terminology is providing
you with desired results. Let’s talk about the features we mentioned above.
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Splitting of Tasks: This is the most important feature as this
defines the project management system. Without this, project management system does
not exist because if we cannot split tasks and cannot define its parent-child relationship
it is not possible to perform other activities in the project, as most of the functions
and activities of project management will be based on this task. I have seen that
in lot of project management systems ”Technically who claim them to be project
Management system” don’t have the feature to split the tasks and every
time you have to add new task, independent of parent-child relationship, which,
in true case can be termed as task recording system but not project management.
So be sure that this splitting of task feature should be available in the system if you are looking
for a good project management system.
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Assignment of Tasks: A well defined feature can really help project
managers to correspond with their teams and can manage big teams at a time with
the help of this feature. This allows project managers to keep in mind the task
allotted to which team member, its priority, deadlines and complexity, we need to
be sure about the communication among the team members and the project manager;
if he assigns a task to a team member, he should completely know the details of
it, like if project manager is using a standalone license system it should at least
have facility to mail the allocated tasks to corresponding team members (standalone
system is most widely used type of software because of its low price ), secondly
if you are using network integrated software like client and server version software
(not very popular because of technicality of implementation) and Online project
management system, which gives complete control of the project in connection with
entire team. ( Such type of systems are mostly used by large businesses because
they can afford its pricing; you have to pay per user on monthly basis).
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Load Balancing: Very interesting and important feature but seems
to be available in few software. This feature helps project manager to analyze the work-load over team members, which
in turn gives the decision support to project manager. Analyzing the task and their
allocation to team members is very useful as you can track each team member availability
time and can see whom to allocate the task in case of emergencies. This can help
in completing the project on time, hence keeping the team happy and share the work
equally.
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Scheduling: This feature is defined in different manner by different
software, as this is most important among all tasks. Some provide this feature in
a Grid View(Like Excel Sheet) allowing you to enter values in cells of start and
end date as per task, some gives it in a Form View, allowing you to enter values
of each task at a time. With the help of the Form you can keep your concentration
intact. Some software provides the Gantt Chart feature to schedule tasks. Gantt
Chart can be complex for some users as you need to have little knowledge about the
working of Gantt Chart. When selecting this feature make sure which approach suits
you best.
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Reporting: This depends upon individual to individual as for some,
reporting serves the maximum of purpose and helps them in taking decision, while
in some other case, few important reports may be enough to understand about the
project and its progress. Although reporting is something which you need to check
that what type of reports the system is offering and whether you are satisfied with
them or not; if you are not satisfied with the reports then you can try to ask your
vendors if he can build few reports for you exclusively, of course keeping the development
prices to low.
These are my understanding about the major features of project management system.
I will be happy to have your suggestions and your list of more priority features.
Grab some the above mentioned features with our standalone project management software.
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