This is the most debatable question in the minds of people who are managing the
project or who are associated with it like Team leaders, skilled team members (Team
Players), unskilled workforce, senior managers, sales and marketing, delivery managers
and other company people.
Here I will try to explain few of the points from each individual what he thinks
about the project manager and the use of project management software.
So let’s start with the core team which Includes
a. Team Leaders
b. Team Players
c. Unskilled Workforce
d. And ofcourse Project manager himself.
Team Leaders: Why doesn’t our project manager use software
to manage the activities which can help us executing the project efficiently and
intelligently? Which can improve communication among team, proper reporting, load
balancing among the team members, knowledge sharing and ofcourse we will manage
our time efficiently and can meet up with small milestones and can then lead to
meeting the deadlines?
Oho! Sounds very interesting and promising but in real scenario software gives a
little help and a support to project manager keeping in mind that his knowledge
of executing the project is important like task distribution, time management, decision
making and flexibility to adopt things and changes quickly.
Team Players: Our project manager can use some software for better
approaches but I am not sure which fulfills our requirement or do we really need
it?
Yes this is the approach of Team players they have little concerned about the effectiveness
of the project but majorly concerned about their day to day task, and mostly communicating
with Team Leader so not much concerned for Project Manager and how does he manages
project.
Unskilled Workforce: What project management software?
Hardly have any concerned about the project and most of them don’t even know
that software can help us managing the project well enough.
Project Manager Himself: Should I use a project Management Software?
Which project management software should I use? Does using it will really help me
or it will even increase my problems? Should I be maintaining all the activities
the traditional way which I am using since long time and had given me success? Is
it too expensive? Will it be easy to learn?
Enough questions which are important.
So we try to solve each question in Project Manager Mind one by one. Yes you can
use a project management software but you need to identify few things before going
for it which are, Is it a large project which really requires a software to manage
it, Is your team size is big enough to manage without a tool or software, are you
facing difficulty in managing the project or you just want to try the software.
You should surely go with this approach before making a decision because if it’s
not bringing any value for you or your company there is no need to start something
which you are not sure of.
But ofcourse after analyzing these points if you feel that I really need software
for project management you can surely go for it, in which you have the choice of
having standalone software for your PC like windows, MAC or you can chose SAAS (Software
as a service) cloud based applications providing these services.
Usually it is easy to learn and understand the software whether cloud or standalone because Project Manger is aware about its conceptuality
and can easily make out the related and helpful features in the software, the complexity
arises if the features are not displayed properly or are not in a particular sequence.
Then it also depends for what exact purpose you are looking for the software and
does it solves it perfectly because many times it can happen that you chose a wrong
one, which is not exactly focusing on your needs. The good news is now a day you
don’t have to worry much as both Standalone and Cloud versions are giving
trials, so you can explore before actually buying it.
The prices can vary from $49 up till $1000 for a standalone license and incase of
cloud solution from $9 up till $50 per user license for a month.
How associated members with a project think?
a. Marketing & Sales People
b. Finance People
c. Top Officials
Marketing & Sales People: We don’t care if they
use any software or tools but we need to satisfy our customer, it took lot of our
efforts to get this project and we have promised to deliver the same. We are also
looking for referral business through this customer. All we want a satisfied customer.
These are the concerned of marketing people as its difficult to convert a prospect
to a customer from fresh lead but its little easy to get a referral business and
more business from the existing customer, so it’s their major concerned to
satisfy their customer, and how project management teams do it, they don’t
care.
Finance People: They are just concerned about the importance of
the purchase and its priority which should complement their existing or approved
budget. As far their concerned for the software or anything else does not matter,
what matter is how much you are going to spend.
Top Officials: Buy a software, tool or whatever they need to deliver
they project on time and with high satisfaction keeping in mind the profitability
of the project should be intact.
After all these are just few view points from Individuals and can be completely
different from other people prospective, I will be happy to have your comments and
views on the same.
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