Why do You Need to Automate Project Management?

Introduction

There are three standard activities that the company’s management faces when it decides to implement organizational project management:

1. Software implementation

2. Employees training

3. Project management methodology development and implementation

Implementation of project management software (PMS) gives the most visible and tangible result. Therefore, most often, the heads of project management offices begin with PMS implementation. However, such PMS often becomes obsolete within a short timeframe. It happens because it gets out of date or replaced in a few years by other similar software. Often, non-use of PMS happens due to the fact that at the beginning of the implementation process the goals are not clearly defined or not achieved later.

It is worth noting that the PMS works like a “calculator”, it operates with the data that employees enter into it, therefore, if the data is poor, the PMS will not help achieve the business goals.

At the implementation stage, it is important to understand that we have different target audiences for using the PMS:

• customers — whose goals are primarily achieved. In other words, these are the people who directly see the result of using the system. Their requirements are met and they feel the benefits of implementing software in project management.
• users — those who have to work within PMS. Often this usage involves performing various activities, for example, entering and validating data, etc.

These activities themselves may not be self-sustaining for users. For example, entering data about the project status is useless for the person who executes this task, i.e. the project manager. For the customer of the report, this activity brings certain benefits. Therefore, considering the goals, it is important to understand that for different project stakeholders they are achieved in different ways. The main thing is to avoid a situation when there is no or insufficient benefit to balance the effort of the users who enter data into the PMS.

Clear goals help improve the feasibility of implementing a PMS. If the goal wording begins with the word “automate”, then it is worth validating if the goal is formulated in terms of benefits or just what is to be done. Moreover, it is worth considering if the decision to implement PMS is sufficiently justified by the goals of implementation that solve the key problems existing without PMS or lacking in current PMS.

Goal 1: Reducing the effort of information processing

First, projects accumulate a large amount of data: on completed tasks, on deadlines, budget, projects, and risks. In addition, there is a large number of participants in project activities, who work remotely (they cannot meet regularly in one place). In this case, the data is usually poorly structured and there is a possibility of being lost. In order to collect and process this data most effectively for the generation of reports, forecasts, or other artifacts, the use of PMS is essential.

Secondly, there is a number of management routines that are too effort-intensive, if they are not automated. This can be a development of a schedule: setting tasks and milestones dependencies, updating statuses and dates, keeping records, and maintaining project documentation — this all takes a lot of time to complete when filled in manually. PMS can significantly reduce the effort to perform these tasks, for example, can automatically update deadlines and the schedule.

Thirdly, some tasks, like resource planning, are difficult to accomplish without an automated processing. It begins with estimating the effort for certain tasks, stages, and projects with regards to the range and volume of needed qualifications, followed by balancing the need for resources and the availability of resources (employees) that have different qualifications (taking into account vacancies, vacations, availability, sick leaves, etc.). This process is also interconnected with other data within the project, for example, schedule which leads to additional effort if done manually.

Here, indeed, it is important to note that the processes and tasks within the framework of project activities are interconnected quite strongly: changing data in one of the processes will inevitably entail the need to adjust others. If this is done manually, data management requires an excessive amount of resources.

What are the risks of performing such updates manually?

1. Deprioritization of the task, its further skip

2. Execution of a task with errors and omissions

3. Very rare update process => use of outdated data

An indirect negative consequence of the lack of a PMS can also be the fragmentation of information. In this case, any transfers between different formats (paper or electronic media) require additional cross-check and adjustment.

In addition, one of the most time-consuming processes is the collection of data for reporting. Creating a unified template that allows data collection in distributed teams simplifies this process dramatically.

The distribution of information among a large number of participants (for example, considering the decisions made, the current status, and the available project documentation) is much easier using the project portal or task management software (within the PMS), which allows to track the status of current progress on tasks.

How is PMS organized, and what does it include?

- specialized modules (for example, on resource planning and scheduling)

- options for sharing and disseminating information (e.g. portal solutions)

- the ability to synchronize existing information between modules

- management reporting for various project roles

Thus, by removing duplication and adding convenient tools, we reduce the effort consumed. Participants spend less time on certain routine, repetitive tasks and are able to focus their efforts on those tasks that would otherwise be delayed, rarely performed, or of poor quality.

Goal 2: Better availability and access to information for decision?making

PMS is an IT system built for timely decision-making at various levels of management. The earlier a decision is made and the more accurate information is used, the cheaper and more effective the decision is.

There is a cost to accessing data: a frequently used method of collecting data — holding meetings — is one of the most expensive methods. Such multi-hour meetings are attended by employees who usually give their input on a couple of activities and engaged 5–10% of the overall timing. The rest of their time is wasted.

For a manager, this is a serious problem: in order to understand which tasks, problems, or solutions require management attention, he needs to listen to everything, or even spend a lot of time searching for the necessary information. The manager’s schedule eventually begins to consist of large number of project-related meetings.

Traditionally, companies have two ways of obtaining data: informal — discussion and formal — reporting. In such a case, the following often happens: reporting is made from irrelevant or outdated data and is not helpful to make decisions. This is due to both the quality of data and its inconvenient format for decision-makers.

What can we do in this situation using PMS?

- provide information with the required detail and in a convenient format at a certain management level, with the ability, if necessary, to quickly drill down to the details

- create well-organized reporting on project portfolios and see risks and problems in advance

- focus only on significant problems and variances

- no need to hold meetings to get this information => free up more time for the management

It is also important that by using PMS it is possible to improve the quality of the data. The more stages the information passes from the source (for example, the assignee of the task) to the top management, the more there are different filters in which this information is amended. They distort the data (this is a natural desire to show it in a more positive way in order to avoid excessive management attention or punishment). There is no doubt that such an approach leads to the most favorable information reaching the top management and it does not fully reflect reality.

If the information is generated from the PMS directly, and reporting is just a snapshot of what is happening in the work process (within PMS), this allows to rely on up-to-date authentic data and minimize the possibility of manual adjustments. Information will be more objective. In addition, this approach allows not to spend additional time on entering data for reporting only at the end of the month or quarter.

As noted above, using PMS, the head of the project office has the opportunity to anticipate risks, and identify bottlenecks, but what is even more valuable is to understand their root causes. Access to reliable and complete data helps to identify them without additional requests to the project team members.

The use of PMS allows project members to solve the biggest portion of issues on the project online, without being tied to meetings that are targeted to solve really important issues without losing bigpicture outlook. Undoubtedly, this requires a certain management culture.

Of course, in most cases, the update of project statuses still occurs through meetings: their complete absence still looks like an impossible picture of the functioning of the team; however, the duration and necessary frequency of these meetings is reduced significantly as up-to-date information can be obtained without mandatory verbal communication.

It is also important to note that the PMS allows users to keep fully structured information on projects in front of them permanently: the system dashboard displays data on all areas and stages of the project or project portfolio: there is no need to study a large number of different disorganized documents in order to get a big picture of the project.

Another important problem that is solved using a PMS is: project team members can always get reliable information about the tasks that they are assigned and their deadlines. It’s hard to forget something here: all relevant information is available in the PMS in a custom format for each project role.

Due to the fact that the project dashboard is dynamic and displays the status of the project in real-time, the project manager does not need to constantly contact the members of the project team to clarify information about the progress of the work. Moreover, verbally spoken/promised information is most often a subjective opinion, while the information in the PMS allows the user to operate with more objective data: checking the forecast and planned dates, for example, occurs both by the task initiator and the assignee. Contradictions and inconsistencies within the framework of such a process are immediately visible and do not slow down the progress of work.

Goal 3: Reducing operational risks. Increasing the quality of processes

A fairly common challenge in project management is: information transmitting and containing in various documents is subject to misrepresentation. Many project parameters (goals, risks, requirements), which are most often drawn up in a free format (for example, PowerPoint), are not formalized enough, and therefore there is a risk of misrepresentation of important project data — intentionally or by mistake.

Such incorrect information or parameters, defined at the initial stage of project planning, entail either further refinement, or require constant validation and return to face-to-face communication with the project management office to clarify and adjust it — both reduce the efficiency of project workflow. Placing information on projects in the PMS allows users to adhere to the correct format and content of the required project documents. In fact, PMS allows users to minimize errors in the process of preparing and planning a project and tracking its progress.

In addition, using PMS, users can more easily control the levels of access to different documents compared to regular storage. For example, the use of shared folders requires a much more time-consuming organization of information security and is not always convenient, especially when working remotely.

The system also helps to avoid duplication of information, which in turn can have the effect of reducing the use of outdated data and therefore a reduction in the incidence of errors.

Overall, operating with trusted information, confidence in its correctness, and clearly described and implemented processes — all this reduces the need for control processes, which means that it reduces significantly the total cost of project management and increases the speed and quality of project processes.

How does it work?

1. Reliance on common data — data synchronization and integration, integrity, and consistency checks.

2. Built-in data validation checks, at the form level (the user cannot enter text instead of numbers), and at the data completeness level (presence of key fields).

3. Performing the right actions by employees. No need for control from the manager (less interaction without meaningful purpose), but ensured by the PMS. => fewer motives to avoid the rules and more to follow the methodology

4. Differentiation of access rights — different access rights for different objects and actions make it easier to scale up the necessary management practices for the organization and give access to the necessary information to a wide range of people.

5. Transparency of who is making changes. When working with distributed files, such information is most often not available, but such information is important for the project: using the analysis of the adjustments made allows the user to analyze the effectiveness of the project, sources, and authors of errors.

Conclusion

So the three goals of project management automation are:

Goal 1: Reducing the effort of information processing

Goal 2: Better availability and access to information for decision making

Goal 3: Reducing operational risks. Increasing the quality of processes

Looks simple isn’t it. What’s the point then to describe them? I beleive that in a lot of PMS implementation projects goals are vague or not agreed with the key stakeholders. If the process of PMS implementation is not supported by clear benefits, there is a clear risk that quality of project management and eventually project outcomes will suffer. The competent use of PMS helps to reduce the probability of risk and its impact comprehensively and confidently.

So, it turns out to be pretty important to articulate the goals of the PMS implementation in terms of outcomes rather than actions or requirements.?

The goal, which is clear and agreed with the key stakeholders, is essential to the successful implementation of both the PMS and organizational project management itself.

Summary

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