Project Management Challenges:
My team speaks with project managers, directors of operations, vice presidents of professional services, chief financial offers, and other project team members every day. We hear familiar stories repeatedly and there are some trends, or commonalities. Here I will outline five of the most common project management challenges.
- Geographically dispersed project teams
- Using the wrong tool for the job
- Over booked or mismanaged resources
- Wasting time looking for project documents or assets
- Spending too much time in status meetings
#1-Geographically dispersed project teamsMany project teams are geographically dispersed. Projects are inherently collaborative efforts. The very nature of projects is such that project teams are usually comprised of multiple team members. Often, project teams incorporate multiple organizations. Team members can not only be employees, but also clients, vendors, sub-contractors, and other third parties.
Sometimes the entire project team belongs to the same company or organization, yet they often work from different offices either within the U.S. or globally. Even if the project team is in the same office, in today’s fast paced economy, information needs to pass as rapidly as possible, making a centralized project management software solution imperative.
As the rise in outsourcing work and offshore development continues, project managers and executive management need to synchronize their work across multiple time zones. So, when the U.S. based team goes to sleep, and the team in Asia goes to work, they may login to the web-based project management solution to view their project, resource and task status. Companies that manage this asynchronous process well are excelling compared to their competitors.
Also, clients are demanding more visibility and transparency into their projects’ progress. Client-facing project teams that possess a collaborative software system to interact with their customers are selling this as a competitive advantage and winning business over their competition.
#2-Using the wrong tool for the job
Many companies attempt to manage projects using desktop software applications like Microsoft Project and Microsoft Excel. The main challenge with using desktop software to manage projects is that these applications were not designed for collaboration among several parties. At worst, the file is shared by emailing the file to all parties on the team. At best, the file may be posted on a network or on an extranet and shared from there.
One typical scenario that arises from using desktop software for project management is file ‘version control.’ For example, a project manager may email a Microsoft Project file to share project information to the team. If the file is updated frequently, then it can often be confusing as to which version of the project is the most recent one. Many times, the project manager will be conversing with an executive about a project and twenty minutes into the conversation find that they are both viewing two different versions of the project.
Another issue with using desktop applications is that the minute they are emailed to the project team, the project data is outdated. That is, the information is not available in real-time. Projects are inherently dynamic efforts that change by the hour and sometimes minute.
A project management solution that is 100% web-based solves these issues by allowing project managers and their team members to access project information from any browser in the world, at any time of the day or night. The project information is centralized in one database and posted in real-time, assuring that all project members and executive management can view the most recent information about the project.
#3-Over booked and mismanaged resources
Project teams often complain that they do not have accurate or up to date information about their resources and what they are working on. Many project teams have more demand for projects than they have team members to execute the projects. Many project teams solve this challenge with a combination of meetings and either Excel or Microsoft Project.
For example, some teams meet once a week to determine what each person will work on. This can work, however, it depends on the pace of the work environment. One interactive agency with a very fast pace of work and lots of daily changes to the work schedule lost hours and hours of productivity as team members were only given assignments once a week.
