Project management, as a practice, completely revolutionized the output of corporate projects. From improved productivity for teams to boosted transparency in business partnerships, effective project management has many benefits.
Despite this, a project manager has to wear many hats and execute several tasks during a typical workday. Between scheduling and attending meetings, handling the client, and managing resources and budgets, making sure that the project is progressing according to the predetermined timeline can turn out to be an overwhelming undertaking.
This is where a project management software becomes relevant.
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What is a Project Management System?
As mentioned earlier, project management entails a variety of responsibilities. Many of the tasks that a project manager has to assign are repetitive and time-consuming. Project management software is designed to automate such tasks.
At the same time, project managers also have to systematically divide the project into smaller tasks and milestones, then assign the right resources to complete these tasks, analyze reports to ensure maximum productivity, and prepare invoices for the client. All these tasks can be overwhelming and confusing for a single person.
Project management software allows project managers, stakeholders, and team members involved with the project to see and manage all of these tasks in one place.
Now that we know what a project management software is, let’s look at the must-have features you must look for when picking a project management software for your organization:
Resource management
As mentioned earlier, resource management is a crucial part of effective project management. While making sure the right resources are assigned to the right tasks and that no resources are sitting idle sounds like a pretty straightforward task, it can quickly get confusing in situations where several resources are collaborating on a project.
A project management software with resource management capabilities will help you ensure your resources are being used to their best capabilities, without the associated headache. Modern project management software even allows you to associate the cost of each resource and track and control the overall project cost in real-time.
Risk management
One of the abilities of an effective project manager is to be able to foresee and mitigate risks. While doing so is a very human process, a project management software should also be able to calculate and foresee the risks that could hamper the completion of the project on time.
When you can foresee risks, you can work out alternative plans to ensure that even if Murphy’s Law kicks into action, you are prepared to handle everything that can go wrong.
Templates
Every time your team starts a new project, your project management software should allow the ability to use previous projects as templates. The kind of tasks that were assigned to certain resources should automatically be recorded and made available to be used as a template.
This way, your project managers don’t have to spend hours creating a timeline, workflow, and assigning tasks every time you onboard a new client.
This feature is especially advantageous for companies that work on a lot of projects that are similar in nature.
Conclusion
The four features of project management software mentioned in this article are some of our favourites. Did we miss out on mentioning a project management software feature that you love?
Share it with us (and everyone else reading this article) in the comment section below.
