Selecting and fully implementing a project management system can have an enormous impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of your team, and today we’re going to talk about three important reasons for you to use one of these tools.
Even if you’re a solopreneur, if you have any dreams of growing a team or working with clients that you’re gonna be collaborating with on an ongoing basis, you need to be thinking ahead to how to maintain efficiency as you grow!
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Project Management Tools Help With Communication & Collaboration
The first main benefit of using a project management tool is to increase communication and collaboration.
If you’re using an outside tool, like Slack or texts or emails, discussions about tasks can be very easily missed.
Keeping everything on one platform can make things so much easier, and it also allows you to provide feedback directly on the task at hand rather than having to jump back and forth between different tools.
It also allows you the ability to assign tasks or portions of projects to others on your team, and already have all the info that they need right at hand.
This helps to prevent miscommunication, because everything is in one place.
It’s also incredibly important for remote and global teams, as you don’t have the same access as you would in a normal office setting.
This doesn’t just apply to your internal team, either!
If you’re a service based business, or you work with clients, you can actually invite them into the relevant portions of your project management tool, and this will really help to streamline your communication with them as well.
Using a Project Management Tool Allows Easy Access to Project Statuses & Accountability
The second main benefit of using a project management tool is the ability to see where any and all of your projects are at anytime from anywhere, and to enjoy the accountability that comes with that.
It allows for:
- A central hub where all of your information is easy to see and to access, and everyone on the team knows that they can refer back to the project management tool – because that’s where the most up to date and accurate information is always housed.
- Anybody on the go to see what it is that they need to see. No more worrying about leaving details at home, or not having access on mobile – it’s all wrapped up within the project management tool on the app that goes with it.
- Linking all of the documents that you need,
- Seeing how all of your projects are progressing through their different stages,
- Keeping important details all in one place,
- Quick access to when everything is due, who is responsible for key parts, and who is responsible for declaring a particular task to be complete
Not only is this key for your team members, It also enables your project manager, whether that’s a specific team member, or you as the business owner, the ability to see at a glance what stage each project is in, and who to touch base with if the project is stuck.
Project Management Software Enables You to Focus on Seamless Workflows
Any time you can inject efficiency and ease into your business, you’re going to see the benefits.
A huge caveat here is that you need to establish your workflows first before diving into your project management tool.
Templates are really attractive, but your workflows are as unique as you and your business are, and templates are often best used for inspiration or just as a jumping off point.
So please, take the time to really think through each workflow and who is responsible for each task before attempting to translate that into your project management software.
A tool is really only valuable if it’s actually being used well, and without this marrying between your actual workflows and the way that you have things structured within your project management tool, you’re going to have a lot of frustration.
This aspect of project management is even more important than picking the perfect tool, so please dive into optimizing your workflow before you even think about joining the debate about which tool is the perfect one for your business.
These are just three of the reasons that a project management tool can be a huge asset to you and your business.
As your processes become more complex as your team grows, as you have more people involved in any of the roles in your business, streamlining and keeping everything in one place can make all the difference between chaos and feeling like you’re in control.
I’d love to hear, are you currently using a project management tool in your business? And how’s it working to make life a little bit easier?
Let me know in the comments below!
