Top 10 benefits of using project management software

Introduction

In keeping with today's technological advancements, we've become best buds with software and its robust capabilities, thanks to our ever-evolving needs and varied emerging trends pushing us to challenge the status quo time and time again. With the number of ground-breaking projects steeply rising, the need to organize tasks, streamline workflows, collaborate with teams, and bulk manage projects has become paramount for companies striving to broaden their horizons and achieve project excellency. This is no ordinary feat.

Such an extraordinary feat requires excellent project management software laden with unmatched functionalities, ready to take on any challenge, and raise the proverbial bar as high as project success can get. However, that's not enough. The benefits of using project management software cover aspects like user-friendliness, price points, learning curves, adaptability, security considerations, and integrative capabilities, which are also imperative to consider.

Who can use project management software?

High school and college students, project managers affiliated with startups, small businesses, enterprises, and any person or entity with a project and a goal tied to it can use project management software.

• Students: If you're a student enrolled in multiple classes and slumped over an endless string of assignments as a result, you'll most likely come head-to-head with pesky challenges that weigh you down like messy sticky notes, cluttered paperwork, missed deadlines, and fractured communication with peers. Project management software keeps your documents in order, labels assignments, secures digital notes in secure folders, converts to-do lists into task lists, automates reminders, and lets you collaborate on group assignments so you never overlook another deadline.

• Freelancers: Project management software's capabilities are perfect for one-person operations. Freelancers can keep track of incoming projects and organize strewn paperwork, automate redundancies, break tasks down into simpler work items, store documents in a central location, share reports with clients, and integrate with different applications without switching between multiple tabs.

• Small businesses and enterprises: Projects, big or small, will have professionals like engineers, marketers, designers, developers, analysts, and other members of the team putting their heads together to create a well-executed project. This is not possible without various moving parts working synchronously like a well-oiled machine, and this is where project management software takes the reins.

10 powerful benefits of project management software

The advantages of project management software are aplenty, fueling planning, tracking, and collaborative efforts and jointly converging to target one crucial aspect: the supreme delivery of projects. Here's a list of 10 benefits of project management tools.

• Plan to win

  Out of the five phases of project management, the planning phase emerges as the most pivotal, and rightfully so, as the rest of the phases hinge on the masterful groundwork that takes place in this stage, where ideas materialize into projects. The active involvement of stakeholders and different teams calls for more paperwork, floating ideas, unlabeled tasks, convoluted workflows, redundancies, and a swarm of deadlines, and this becomes a breeding ground for orchestrated chaos. Project management software solidifies the skeleton of the project by defining objectives, putting away strewn documents, enhancing team communication, assigning critical tasks to the right people, and visualizing your project with tools like the Gantt chart. When your planning game is strong, your project starts well and is half done.

• Right on track

  When push comes to shove, it is common to run into issues with respect to staying on top of project activities, especially when different teams are concurrently working on various facets of a budding project. Project management software embedded with tracking capabilities like the Gantt chart ensures your teams do what they do best—bring your project to the finish line.

  Team progress is perpetually monitored without interventions, and the project does not derail from its objectives, accommodating for surprise scope changes and staving off potential project-threatening risks. Your team can run like clockwork.

• Together as one

  Complex projects involve teams from multiple departments, interdependently driving efforts towards fulfilling objectives that mix to meet the overarching goal of the project. Without a central project management platform, ideas turn volatile, notes are lost, message threads are knotted, communication is deterred, and before you know it, you're siloed by a pile of paperwork, sitting between your project and its goals.

  A project management tool helps you keep it all together, quite literally. It provides a communication platform to discuss projects and keep good ideas flowing, provides a repository for documents accessible to trusted members, lets teams collaborate on dependent tasks, and ensures every little update is recorded, so everyone's up to date and nothing slips through the cracks.

• Automate!

  Recurring tasks can be done without manual intervention. Unique tasks require undivided attention. Project management software can automate tasks related to scheduling, assigning, and allocation; some tools also trigger automated actions when the defined criteria is met and rules are executed. Most recurring tasks are critical to the smooth sailing of the project, and automating such tasks ensures the project sticks to its objectives and frees up a lot of time for teams to focus on critical tasks.

  Sending timely notifications, triggering status updates, and automating workflows across integrated platforms can be performed with no slip-ups, leaving room for rolling out ideas that can generate more ROI, and more time to convert such ideas into tasks and complete them on time.

• Reporting done right

  A project management tool gathers insights gained into the workings of the project and makes them centrally available as customizable reports that can be downloaded and shared. This allows for quick risk identification and keeps teams up to date on the most recent updates on the project's trajectory. Stakeholders are also actively involved in every stage of the project and can provide inputs or suggest improvements as needed.

  Important details can be held up when there are too many documents making the rounds, and stakeholders can find it hard to keep up with the most-recent information. Good project management software has reporting features that churn out reports that can be shared and made available to those involved in the project.

• Get budgeting

  For a project to stick to its budget, it needs to stay on track, dodging possible bottlenecks along the way. Project management software tracks budgets in real time and spots potential overruns that can cause a dent in your project. You have visibility into whether your allocated budget is distributed proportionately across resources and is put to the right use.

  Tasks can be categorized as billable or non-billable, when resources spend time working on project tasks, as opposed to resources working on administrative tasks that are not directly related to projects; the number of hours spent on each task can be directly translated into currency, giving you visibility into the costs allotted for each resource.

• Distribute work evenly

  It is paramount to distribute work based on your team's skillsets, experience, and current workload to prevent them from slacking or overworking. Project management software that comes with heat maps or burn-down charts provides in-depth visibility into how work is distributed in the team. When you have access to a daily, weekly, and monthly view of your team's workload, you can be mindful of how you allocate further work to them in a way that you don't lose them to burnout.

  A work distribution chart encompassing every member's contributions encourages open dialogue between teams and the project manager, fostering a favorable environment of transparency and openness.

• Your single source of truth

  Making every item vital to the project available in one central location conserves energy that is otherwise wasted in context switching, working across multiple windows, or going into a frenzy tracking down that one missing piece of the puzzle that makes your project whole. Project management software houses everything you need to run your project, and makes it readily accessible.

  For teams spread across the globe, a lot of time is wasted on calls gathering updates on collaborative documents, receiving feedback, and correcting errors while sitting in front of multiple windows. Collaboration spaces let teams work in real time, enabling them to add contextual comments on shared documents and leave feedback as required, notifying collaborators of updates, and keeping information fresh and relevant for stakeholders involved.

• Clearly defined goals

  At the outset, project goals might appear concrete, but as you advance to later stages, it is common to lose sight of the bigger picture when you're focused on making the smaller tasks work. A clear work breakdown structure deconstructing your project into meaningful portions keeps you tethered to your goals so you don't fall behind or allow the notorious scope creep in.

  Critical Path Method and Waterfall are popular frameworks that break down large, complex projects into smaller, simpler slices for easier consumption. When you complete every task, you find that bite-sized objectives converge to materialize into the completion of the project.

• Avoid risks like the plague

  Gauging insights into the health of your project does not only prevent budget overruns, help monitor team progress, distribute work proportionately, or accommodate for scope changes; it also laser-focuses on identifying threats that, if left unattended, can later transform into risks you cannot weed out. The benefits of project management software single out such risks and allow you to take necessary action.

  These risks can be tracked and studied to understand if they'll recur before they turn into an issue that can hamper a project's route to timely delivery. With insights into such risks, you can devise a foolproof risk mitigation plan to bypass them. While escaping the wrath of risks completely is not possible, you can reuse the risk plan to be safe rather than sorry.

How to choose the right project management software for your organization

A "right" project management tool does not exist: but one that rightfully aligns with your business needs surely does. Ask the right questions, and your answers will lead you to the right project management software.