Regardless of your team’s or your organization’s size, you need a project management tool. In addition to having an acute awareness of a team’s skillset, we believe the key to an organization’s success is having a structured project management protocol in place. Below we outline 5 reasons your team or organization needs a project management tool.
Create a Single Source of Truth
To meet goals and deadlines, organizations and teams need visibility into how, when, who, and what needs to get done. Your project management tool becomes the single source of truth for who, does what, by when.
Free up Calendars
From our client work we’ve learned that 66% of staff report they attend meetings that don’t help them move the meter. The culprit? Status meetings. Instead of leaning on meetings for updates, lean on a project management tool. Providing work updates in your tool allows teams to communicate asynchronously, freeing up precious time to do the work. You can still get the information when you “need” it because the information is contained in the tool, rather than a personal spreadsheet or hidden in a long email or text chain. Keep your communication in one place. Leave your meetings to strategize and troubleshoot potential roadblocks.
Make the Invisible, Visible
Understand dependencies within the organization (e.g., does marketing need to write the copy before the events team can use it?) because you can visualize the work and its distribution–making the invisible, visible. It will help you be proactive ahead of deadlines, to make sure you can meet them.
In addition to seeing dependencies, you have a clear view of resources and responsibilities. Are you depending on one person to carry the load? Have a last-minute project? Know who should ask by looking at your project management tool.
Easily re-distribute work and maintain momentum when someone in your organization is out on vacation, goes on maternity leave, or unexpectedly steps away. Look to the tool to see what is completed and what remains, then reallocate the work to those with bandwidth. We ask clients how they would know the status of work to be completed if someone won the lottery and left at a moment’s notice. Some shrug, some point to a spreadsheet or a post-it note. A project management tool provides a reliable solution in case someone hits that Powerball.
Bonus—a project management tool can help new staff learn the organization. It allows them to visualize how the organization works and how they can contribute—which fosters belonging. Again, making the invisible, visible.
Repeat Wins, Learn from Mistakes
You’ll be able to recognize patterns to determine what worked and what didn’t. That way your organization can repeat and adapt accordingly. Keep projects on track.
Develop Ownership
Provide accountability by giving team members ownership over their work. A project management tool lays out upcoming work, eliminates lulls, and allows your teams to organize tasks into consistent workflows. If someone becomes overburdened, it makes it easier to provide help.
Whether you’re part of a large or small team, you need a project management tool. Teams need to create the value that daily collaboration and idea-sharing brings to an organization. Without it, staff grow stagnant, and innovation is replaced by inflexible processes that fail to transform and grow over time. Good project management processes and tools help team members get their job done. They also encourage team synergy, collaboration, accountability, and innovation.
If you would like to learn more about our services and how Achurch Consulting can assist you in finding or implementing the right tool, schedule a call with Molly today.