EnterPlicity Project Management Software & Resources

This is another post in our series on Strategies for Successful Project Management Software Implementations. The following were previous posts in this series:

Tackling Project Management Skills
Project Management Skills and Project Management Software
Implementing Project Management Software: Common Strategies

Now let's talk about planning. That seems on the surface like an overly simple idea, but let's dig a little deeper.

There are a lot of organizations that do not plan, or do not properly plan their project management software implementations. A few posts back we talked about the "If we provide it, they will come" strategy and the "We can wing it" strategy. Project management software can be a strategic asset, but not if it is not properly planned and implemented.

How should an implementation be planned? For starters, you should implement basic project management principles. I suppose that would make sense, wouldn't it - using project management to implement project management software?

For example, start by properly initiating the project. Do you have proper buy-in? What are the expectations / success criteria? What are the goals and objectives? Why are you doing this and what do you need to accomplish strategically as an organization? Your objective could be reducing the amount of time that people in the organization spend on managing projects, tracking down information, or generating reports. It could be centralizing information so that decisions can be made more quickly and with up-to-date accurate information. It could be to stop projects and tasks from slipping through the cracks and thus improving service to customers. Or it could be a number of other things. Regardless, it's important that the objective is clear and the project is properly initiated.

Proper planning also means spending the time to determine the breakdown of the work that will need to be done, assign people to that work, and schedule it. Some of this will depend on the type of project management software you are implementing. If you are implementing a high-end tool, this could be quite involved. If you are implementing a low-end tool, not nearly as much (see Project Management Software Categories). At a minimum, here are some things to consider as part of your implementation plan and schedule:

• Initiation: this is the process of documenting organizational objectives and success criteria as described above.


• Technical Implementation: this is the process of getting the software installed or setup by the vendor so that it is available for use.


• Process Setup: this is the process of setting up the software to match your business needs and processes. This could include items such as setting up fields, forms, views, reports, and other settings.


• Initial Training: this is your foundational training, giving your users the initial foundation they need to begin using the software.


• Refresher Training: this is training that occurs after the foundational training, and after users have had a chance to use the system for a while. It does not have to be extensive, but it is a chance to solidify knowledge and obtain feedback.


• Review: this is the process of reviewing the implementation to date and determining what needs to change or be addressed to be sure that you are meeting your objectives.

That is basic sample. You may want to take it in phases: start with a pilot group, then implement with other groups. You may want to keep things real simple at first and phase in more advanced processes and capabilities.

Whatever your approach, the benefit is that you know where you are going, and you can always analyze your status from the perspective of your primary objectives.

That sounds simple but it often times is not done.

You need to sit down and properly plan your implementation out like you would with any other project. That is essential to make sure that you get real value out of the implementation. Otherwise, the software is just another tool that is underutilized and may eventually go away, not because it may not be good software but because it wasn't implemented correctly.

When planned out properly, the software becomes a strategic asset that fits nicely with your processes to give your organization a competitive edge.

So my question to you is...what stories do you have about project management software implementations planned well or perhaps not planned at all?

It has been an interesting and busy last month, hence the lack of blog entries. That will change moving forward. It really is important to make blogging a part of your processes because the day to day things can really get in the way on occasion.

The good news is that we have been busy in spite of economic news and presidential elections. I have personally gone to client and prospective client sites, as well as visiting the PMI Global Congress in Denver as an exhibitor. There is always information to glean no matter how many times you have done something, and I'll eventually incorporate some of those things in these posts.

For now, we'll resume our series of strategies and keys to successfully implementing project management software.

In our last post we discussed the relationship between the project management skills of an organization to a successful project management software implementation. Read it here. We discussed how project management software is a tool to help improve project management discipline to accomplish key strategic goals. But the software works alongside of good processes to do that.

Let's talk about what an organization can do if they lack good project management skills? How can they bridge the gap? This is not at all an uncommon scenario. I am going to list out several ideas in this post. Send me your ideas and what has worked well for you at blog@teaminteractions.com or by posting a comment.

First, let's talk about training. Training is probably the first thing that people think about. Sending key personnel to a training course can be helpful if it is done strategically. Just sending someone to a class and expecting your project management woes to be solved is like buying some software and also expecting they will be magically solved. Think longer term. Who is the best person? What type of course do they need? If the desire is for project management to permeate the organization, who can learn this stuff and also pass it on to others in the organization.

Make sure you attend the right training. A popular form of training out there is PMP Certification Training. This is project management training designed to help the student pass their Project Management Professional (PMP) certification test. That may work well if you are serious about this and want someone well versed in project management that is certified. But be sure this person also has the experience to go along with it.

Alternatively, many universities have excellent extended learning courses in project management. These tend to be several months in length and provide a good foundation of project management taught by project management professionals with a flair for real-world scenarios.

You can also check out the many companies that offer online project management training courses and resources. Just Google "project management training" and you will find a wealth of them.

Second, you can hire someone with project management experience. This may not be possible, obviously, but an ideal scenario is to hire a person that can give you instant experience and also be able to convey that experience, skills, and knowledge throughout the organization.

Third is self-study. Start an in-house self-study program. There are many excellent books and self-study resources to help you become better versed in project management. These days you can also find resources online, such as The Project Management Podcast, with the latest knowledge and trends.

Fourth, "hang out" with project management professionals. Learn what they do, how they think, best practices, etc. A good opportunity to do this is with your local PMI (Project Management Institute) chapter. These chapters hold regular meetings and provide a good opportunity to discover what is happening with project management, learn what others are doing, and be exposed to more resources. You can find information on local chapters at www.pmi.org.

Fifth, bring someone in temporarily. There are many consultants, professionals, and others who are geared towards coming into an organization to help them with project management skills and knowledge. This could be conducting some training classes for your organization, or consulting over a longer period of time and helping you setup a training program / good processes.

Take these ideas, and any others, and think about them strategically. Where do you want your organization to be a year from now? 2 years from now? This isn't a one time thing. This should be a continual improvement in the project management discipline of your organization. When you have this type of commitment, your project management software implementation is much more strategic with a greater liklihood of achieving real strategic advantage for your organization.

Those are some simple, straightforward ideas for you to think about. Send me your stories and ideas and then we'll move to other strategies to make your project management software implementation strategically successful.

Is there a relationship with project management skills and the success of project management software?

We discussed some of the strategies that are employed by organizations trying to implement project management software (see earlier post Implementing Project Management Software: Common Strategies). But what does work? What is the right way to implement project management software in a way that meets expectations and provides strategic value to the organization?

No one can come up with a scientific, one-size-fits-all process for implementing project management software. There are too many variables. What is appropriate and works for a large organization may not be appropriate and may even backfire for a small organization. However, we can learn from experience and evaluate some common traits of successful implementations.

The first is the concept shared by some readers that project management skills and knowledge as an organization is important to a successful implementation.

Why might this be and what can an organization do about it? Well…the obvious answer as to why this might be is that implementing project management software is a project like any other project and it needs project management discipline to be successful. But I think there is more to it than that. The goal of project management software should be, at least in part, to improve the project management processes of an organization. In other words, to help it get better at managing their projects so that…fill in your own blank here - products get to market quicker, or more work is done with the same number of people, or customers are happier by eliminating things falling through crack.

The software should complement the project management processes. If there are no project management processes or the skill set to do good project management, the software is not going to solve that. Instead it is simply something that sounds great, but turns out to be only half the puzzle. How can you implement a tool to help you with project management if you do not understand project management? The tendency will be to “whither in the wind”.

Now a point could be made that project management software could instigate good project management processes. For some that may be heresy, but I’ve seen it happen for the simple reason that sometimes you can get people to buy into implementing software instead of reinventing business processes (who wants to do that?). And in some cases it starts a discussion about how to use it properly, which starts a discussion about the right processes an organization should be following (or what they currently are). But even when this is the case, the software is supporting the processes, not a substitute for them. So processes must be put in place by someone (or multiple “someones”) who have at least a basic understanding of project management.

So what can an organization do if they are lacking in project management skill or knowledge? We’ll cover that next…

What are your thoughts on this topic? Send them to blog@teaminteractions.com or post a comment.

There are a lot of different strategies employed to implement project management software (or software in general). Here are a few that I have seen.

1. The "If We Provide It, They Will Come" Strategy

The theory behind this strategy is that if you put a project management system in place, people will use it. Or they will use it if it's good or easy enough. I am sure that there are instances where this has worked, but I cannot think of a single time I have personally seen it work well. If people don't have to change and there is no pressure to do so, why change? It is human nature to stay the course. This is usually the type of organization that comes back later and indicates that "no one is using the software".

2. The "Let's Do It All Now" Strategy

This strategy is employed when there is consensus to setup project management software, and everything is done at once. Forget phased approaches or initial goals and milestones...let's overhaul all of our processes and implement as much change and features as we can right away. It sounds great, but like most projects that start with the "wild enthusiasm" phase, disillusionment often times follows from trying to bite off too much at once.

3. The "We Can Wing It" Strategy

Why employ project management to implement project management software? What fun is that? Yet that often times happens. Project management software is implemented without someone overseeing the process and / or without good project management principles being employed. The implementation of project management software can have a significant, positive, strategic impact on an organization, and it should be planned with that in mind.

4. The "Let's Get Consensus" Strategy

Consensus is an interesting word, especially when applied to project management software. Don't get me wrong, consensus can be good when applied correctly. But all too often "consensus" is the goal when both selecting software and determining how to implement it with the right processes...instead of what is best for the organization. What happens? You guessed it. Nothing. Everything languishes waiting for "consensus" and for someone to make a decision. It is good to get feedback from the people that will be using the software and from folks that understand the business objectives. But like everything else it should be balanced.

Have you experienced one of these scenarios in an organization you have been a part of, or have you yourself gone down one of these paths? What other types of scenarios have you seen? Share them by emailing blog@teaminteractions.com and if we get some interesting ones, I'll post them.

We'll also begin to explore some real strategies on how to properly implement project management software.

We have completed our review of the various project management software categories in the market. If you missed any of the posts, you can go directly to them below:

Project Management Software Categories: Introduction
Project Management Software Category #1: Simple / Stand Alone Tools
Project Management Software Category #2: Collaborative Tools
Project Management Software Category #3: Mid-Size Tools
Project Management Software Category #4: High-End Tools
Project Management Software Category #5: PPM Tools

Let's wrap-up this discussion. First of all, why do it in the first place? Three reasons.

One, many people that are researching project management software do not know where to start because there are so many tools out there. Hopefully, this discussion will help them begin to understand what to look for and the type of project management software tool they need.

Two, other people are trying to fit the wrong tool into their organization. They hear or read about a tool, or know the company that developed the tool, and they go for it. It is important to understand the nature of these tools. An organization with 15-20 people is most likely going to be overwhelmed by a high-end tool.

Three, still other people are simply not aware of what is out there today. They are pre-disposed to use a "standard" project management software tool such as Microsoft Project, and are not aware of the breath of possibilities that can really have a significant impact on their organization.

Is this discussion meant to convince you that one tool or category is better than another? No! As I have stated in these posts, you need to evaluate the tool categories and characteristics and map those to the needs and makeup of your organization. That is probably the most important step that you can take to make this a successful effort for you.

So where do you go from here? In subsequent posts, I'll cover topics such as specific steps to take as you begin your search, how to prepare your organization for a project management software implementation, and other practical considerations.

If you have topics that you would like to see addressed, post a comment or send them to blog@teaminteractions.com.

There is a fifth category that needs to be addressed. First, if you missed our earlier posts, click below to access the previous posts in this series on project management software categories:

Project Management Software Categories: Introduction
Project Management Software Category #1: Simple / Stand Alone Tools
Project Management Software Category #2: Collaborative Tools
Project Management Software Category #3: Mid-Size Tools
Project Management Software Category #4: High-End Tools

The fifth category has been getting a lot of press lately, and that is the Project Portfolio Management (or PPM) category. In some ways, I am reluctant to put this into a separate category. Why? Because it really moves beyond project management and gets into a concept called portfolio management. We may address that in a later post, but for now our focus is strictly on project management. However, I include this in its own category because when organizations are looking for project management software they may be specifically looking for these types of tools.

One more note on the categorization is that these tools are almost a hybrid in that some of them are mid-sized tools and some of them are high-end tools, with the characteristics and drawbacks that come with the associated category. It is my belief that a lot of these are turning into higher-end tools because there can be a lot of complexity that comes with the concept of portfolio management.

Because of all that, characteristics of tools in this project management software category are a little harder to define. They may include characteristics of tools in the mid-size category, or they may include characteristics of tools in the high-end category. You will have to look back on those posts to analyze where a particular tool fits.

The defining characteristic of this category is that these tools include a focus on portfolio management. A definition and discussion of portfolio management, especially from an IT perspective, can be found in many places, such as Wikipedia. In short, you can think about managing portfolios of projects as you would manage a portfolio of investments. Projects are systematically managed in "portfolios" for better governance. The tools in this category support that process.

The primary benefit of this category is that they support the process of portfolio management, which may be important to a company that is heading in that direction.

The drawbacks of this category are two-fold. First, there is an inherent complexity that is added because you are now going beyond project management, and that must be represented in the tool. Second, many organizations struggle with getting their basic project management straight, much less trying to handle portfolio management. These tools may not be a good fit in that case.

What that means is that you should consider tools in this category if your organization is mature enough for portfolio management, you already have well defined project processes and discipline, and portfolio management is a strategic initiative for your organization.

Next time we will wrap up our discussion of the project management software categories.