What Is Project Management Software? - FAQ

Project management software is a term covering many types of software, including scheduling, cost control and budget management, resource allocation, collaboration software, communication, quality management and documentation or administration systems, which are used to deal with the complexity of large projects.

There are project management tools designed for different complexities of project, from small, two or three-person developments to massive company-wide changes. Check the tool you’re considering is sufficient for the size of project you intend to monitor with it. PERT charts, for example, were developed by the US Navy, and they can handle huge complex tasks.

You can buy project management software as a one-off purchase, but there are also Web-based services which offer to handle your project management requirements online, for an ongoing subscription. This approach can prove more cost-effective if you have a limited number of projects to manage.

While selecting your project management software product, make sure to find a tool that is easy to use. In addition, it should be easy to implement the software to a variety of projects. The cost of the project management software too is of concern here. It should be a cost effective tool so that your overhead costs will not shoot up.

Why Use Project Management Software?

There are number of software products available in the market that make life easy and one of the versatile software products that help project managers is project management software.

It is not an easy task to manage a project. The success or the failure of the project depends heavily on the project management abilities of the project manager. Very often, the project managers are expected to handle multiple projects at the same time. While managing a single project is itself a complicated task, managing multiple projects at the same time can be highly challenging and stressful to the project manager. This will also result in unnecessary problems and delays in the completion of the projects. In such situations, your project managers will be able to handle the projects easily and efficiently by making use of robust project management software tools.

There are various factors that need to be taken into consideration while managing a project and some of the crucial factors include scheduling, resource allocation, cost control, quality control, risk management, etc. As there are too many variables involved, keeping track of all of them can be highly complicated.

Besides that, larger projects will involve multiple teams. Keeping track of each one's progress and performance will not be an easy task if it has to be handled manually. Project management software will help us synchronize various aspects of the project in a matter of few clicks. The efforts required by the project manager to coordinate various aspects of the project will be reduced considerably when you use effective project management software tools.

What Are The Benefits Of Using Project Management Software?

Project management software assists your company team in completing projects, keeping within your budget, staying on track and collaborating. Effective project management software helps you handle complex projects without interruptions from unclear roles, miscommunication, convoluted tasks and lack of accountability.

Using good project management software tools will help the project managers become more efficient. Even the most complex projects can be handled easily. Rather than spending hundreds of hours in keeping track of the progress, project managers can utilize their precious time in more productive work that will contribute towards the faster completion of the project.

When every company is trying hard to keep the project development costs low, project management software tools will help us keep the project costs under control. The overall cost of the project can be calculated easily at any given point,. This will help us manage our budget effectively and keep it under control. One of the main reasons why project costs run out of control is that, we often will not have an effective tracking system. Good project management software tools will help you in budgeting your project as well as in keeping track of the budget during the course of the project development. Cost control is much easier with the help of project management software tools.

Project management software will also help us complete the project in a timely fashion. If there are any delays with any particular phase of the project or with any particular team, it can be identified in good time and corrective measures can be taken.

It is always good to invest in project management software tools, as it will save you a lot of money, time and energy on the long run. It will take care of every aspect of your project from project planning to project completion.

You can prepare effective task lists for your team and keep a tab on each one's progress. You will also be able to foresee any impending risks much before they actually occur. It is much easier to avert an impending risk than taking corrective measures after they occur. Such an approach will also save a lot of time as the project will never be stalled while the corrective measures are implemented. You will be able to keep track of deviations in terms of planned performance versus actual performance.

What Are Key Characteristics Of Good Project Management Software?

The best project management software is easy to update as problems arise in your project. These programs can manage projects in various industries—technology, accounting, construction, engineering, training and many more. Accommodating project management software will also keep track of your team resources and offer reporting and collaboration options.

Company Server Based or Web Based?
- Company Server Based: As a program that installs on your project manager and employee's computers, project management software runs doesn’t need an internet connection. Project management software is also a one-time purchase, unlike SaaS modules that require a monthly subscription. Make sure the project management software you choose runs on your company's operating system. If not, consider using a online project manager.

- SaaS Module: A software as a service (SaaS) runs from either your company server or the manufacturer’s server (depending on your monthly subscription), rather than installing on individual computers. This type of project management software lets your entire team access your project from anywhere they have Internet access. This also means you can use any SaaS with any operating system (Windows, OS X or Linux).

Flexibility: Flexible equals successful. Project management software keeps everyone on your team on the same page, making sure each group or resource knows what the others are doing. This lets project managers delegate tasks, monitor progress, schedule deadlines, assess risks and more.

Accountability: Project management software should feature personal and financial accountability. Most project management software provides graphs, feedback, time sheets, Gantt charts, milestones and task assignment. The best also monitors budget, tracks expenses, regulates resources and calculates costs.

Managing Resources: Resource management is equal with being flexible. Project management software manages all resources—people, talents, money and time. Sometimes knowing who your team is and what skills they have will make the difference. Effective resource management will let you build team profiles to assign the right task to the right person.
World-Wide Communication: Some project management software lets team members collaborate with clients around the world while others have remote applications to smartphones and manage global schedules; regardless of the time zone, projects are completed on time.

Collaboration
How information and issues are communicated with project team members, including email, conference calls, meetings, web-based locations and more. Collaboration should be easy to use.

Resource Management
Project management software should manage and control the resources needed to run a project, such as people, money, time and equipment.

Project Management
The process, practice and activities needed to perform continuous evaluation, prioritization, budgeting and selection of investments is key. Proper project management capabilities provide the greatest value and contribution to the strategic interest of your company.

Ease of Use
All project management software has a learning curve, but the best have functions that are easy to find and simple enough for anyone to use. Users can be employees, subcontractors, clients, telecommuters, or staff working at other branches. These users can all access your account simultaneously, from different locations, at any time, and each user can be allowed their own access rights.

Help/Support
Project management software should offer a comprehensive user guide and help system. The manufacturer should provide email addresses or telephone numbers for direct answers to technical questions.
Whether you’re part of a small business or an international conglomerate, project management software will help you streamline the project management process so you can end with success on time, every time.

What Are Key Features Of Project Management Software?

Project Dashboard
This should allow you to view the health of your projects online with charts and tables and help you keep projects on track at all times.

Project Planner
Allows you to build a new task list, schedule your tasks, allocate resources and monitor progress. A well-structured project is usually a combination of:

• User Assignment: Several users can be assigned to a project, with specific access rights in each project.
• Task Groups: A project can be divided in phases or modules, for easier management. Task groups can also be used to define sub-projects, sub-products, etc.
• Tasks tree: Work with your tasks using a tree, or look at them using a flat list and quickly modify the task parameters directly from a task tree, no need to open a task page.
• Task Types: A project usually includes various categories for the work that needs to be accomplished. A task type can an improvement, an addition, an issue, etc. Every task should have a variety of characteristics for efficient management.
• Task Status: Tasks within a project are likely to go through many statuses, from the beginning until completion. Task statuses can be created in accordance with your needs, using "Waiting", "In Progress" and "Completed" types.
• Task Reminder: Avoiding delays is a great part of a project's success. Get notified by email when your assigned tasks' deadlines are approaching or have passed. 
• Task Dependencies: Task dependencies let you decide when a task can be started. For example, testing a software bundle can only start after building the application file is completed.
• Task Priorities: The level of urgency of each task might influence the project's completion. Task priorities are useful to identify which tasks should be prioritized. A task priority can be "Low", "Normal", "Urgent", etc.

Time Tracking
This should allow you to complete your timesheets online and automatically update your project dashboards, plans and reports , so you're always kept up-to-date. Tools may include Calendars, gantt charts

Expense Tracking
This should allow you to monitor your project expenses and track any type of expense such as people, materials, equipment and office expenses. As each expense is entered, the Project Dashboard should tell you whether you're under or over budget.

Risks, Issues, Changes
This should allow you to manage risks, issues and changes dailycarefully. This project management software allows you to track them day-by-day, so that that you can quickly resolve them before they impact on your deadlines, costs and resource availability.

Project Reporting
This should allow you to create customized reporting such as Weekly Project Status Reports, Resource allocations and adjustments, etc. You should have the flexibility to print or send to key project personnel.

Online Storage
This should allow you to upload all of your files, documents, forms, templates and reports into the project management software so that it becomes your central document store. You should be able to save as many documents as you wish and access them from anywhere, anytime.

Security and Access Rights
All employees within an organization have different roles. That requires access rights that are peculiar to each one. Normal users should be granted different access rights from one project to another, while administrators have full control over all data in the system. The software should also allow use of filters for tasks to see only the tasks that you are interested in (filter by status, priority, assignee, tags, deadline, date of modification, keywords). Save filters for easy re-use in the future.
 
Email Notifications
Email notification system should be a desirable option. It keeps you informed on ongoing activity you are involved in, without having to be logged in the project management software. You can simply read the email notification details to be aware of changes.
 
Document Management
A project may often require additional documentation. Instead of emailing documents to users, you should be able to simply upload the documents you need on your projects and tasks. This way, all assigned users to the project or task can download the shared documents at anytime, from anywhere.

Relative links
Easily link a task to another task or to a knowledge base article or to a discussion post or to an email message. Conveniently see relations between various entities in the project and easily browse all the project’s data.
 
Project cloning
Easily clone any data (tasks, discussions, articles, files) from one project into another. Create a default project with the tasks and other data which you need at the start of each project and then quickly clone this data into every new project to avoid entering it again each time you begin the work with a new client.

Project Templates
Copying a project is a great time saver and should ensure that your organization's standards are maintained from one project to the other. By creating projects from templates, it is guaranteed that project managers create their projects from a standardized source. Furthermore, the parent/child relationship should let you link a project template with one or several child projects
 
CSV Data Import/Export
Another time-saving feature is the cababilty to to quickly save your data as .xls or .csv fromat and upload users and tasks from/to another application in CSV format.

Discussion Forum
A discussion forum is an indispensable feature in a web-based project management software. Discussion forums can be used company wide to share thoughts, ideas, issues, knowledge and lots more. Users can also be notified by email when a new reply has been posted to a topic.

Make Your Clients Happy
Your project management software should allow you to communicate with your clients regarding their projects in one centralized place. Make your work transparent to your clients and they will feel much less stress working with you. At any time, 24 hours a day, they will be able to see the status of the project, the latest developments, and even assign tasks to the team members.  

What Are Some Popular Project Management Software?

http://www.attask.com

http://www.clarizen.com/

http://www.basecamphq.com

http://www.aceproject.com

http://www.celoxis.com

http://www.easyprojects.net

http://www.geniusinside.com/

http://www.projectwizards.net/en/merlin/

http://www.projectinsight.net 

http://www.minuteman-systems.com/ 

http://www.project-management-software.org   

Project Management Software - Resources

Capterra - Resource for Software Buyers

ISO 9001 FAQ provides answers to commonly asked questions about the ISO 9000 family of quality management standards.