EnterPlicity Project Management Software & Resources

The demand for project management software has not let up in spite of all the economic news of today. Hence the delay in getting some of these posts out. But we do have plans to crank these out much more frequently, so thanks for the patience!

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

Take It In Phases
Planning: Another Key Strategy
Tackling Project Management Skills
Project Management Skills and Project Management Software
Implementing Project Management Software: Common Strategies

Here's another strategy: focus on processes, not product features.



Project management software in and of itself does not solve anything. It is just a tool. Anyone can eventually learn how to mark a task as complete, enter time in a timesheet, or upload a document. But the point is not to use project management software, but to get real value out of it by being more competitive, more efficient, making better decisions, or whatever your objectives are.

By combining the software with the proper processes you achieve just that. When talking about implementing project management software, this is key. Here are some tips on how to accomplish this:

Document your Key Processes
What are the key processes that will support your primary objectives? Document these. What is the process to create a new project? To schedule a project? To update status? Running reports? For example, let's say that you are an engineering organization. Your process to create and schedule a project may be something like this:

• Create the project and fill out the project name, engineer, product type, and sales person fields.


• Use the template that corresponds to the product type.


• Reset the project start date to the approved start date.


• Designate which people will fill which roles.

That is simple but fulfills a potential objective: standardizing the project process for new products, and creating a central repository of key project information (i.e. the engineer, product type, etc.).

If you are a professional services organization, you would have a different process, and so on.

Train on Processes not Product Features
The tendency when implementing new project management software (or any software for that matter) is to train people on the use of the software. What features does the software have? How do you use those features?

The problem with that is that most of your users will not use all of those features, and the focus is on using the software instead of getting business value out of the software.

Instead, train people on how to implement the business processes within the software. That does a few things. It simplifies the process. People get trained on what they need to know instead on a lot of stuff that is unnecessary. It focuses everyone on the key objectives (instead of focusing on the software). And it produces results right away that are more inline with the primary objectives.

Do some people need to learn the software well? Sure. But I'll bet you anything that is a far smaller number of people than you think.

Use Templates Wherever Possible
Utilize project templates and other "template-like" capabilities wherever possible. This will help to instill your processes and provide some standardization so that information is valuable and not "messy". It helps to instill your processes because people are following templates and not making things up as they go along. It prevents them from doing things the way they feel like doing it.



There is a lot more that we could discuss about this, but I think you get the point. Focus on your processes and you will accomplish a lot more in a lot less time than if you focus solely on the software.

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

Planning: Another Key Strategy
Tackling Project Management Skills
Project Management Skills and Project Management Software
Implementing Project Management Software: Common Strategies

Another successful strategy that I have personally seen is to take your implementation in phases.

A common phenomenon in really any type of software implementation is "it's gotta do this-itis". People get very wrapped up in everything that the software MUST do for it to be beneficial. Never mind that they have absolutely nothing today and everything is done via pen, paper, and email. I suppose it is quite natural. After all, it truly can be an opportunity to expand the efficiency and competitiveness of an organization. But the key words there are "can be". Like anything else it must be managed correctly.

If you are familiar with project management, you have hard of the triple constraint on any project: time, cost, and scope. By adding all of these "must haves" to your project management software implementation, you are adding what? Scope, of course. Which means it will take more time and cost you more in terms of actual dollar cost or the cost of time. Not to mention the increased risk by adding complexity to the project.

So what to do? All of these "must haves" may in fact be beneficial. And there may be a minimum set of functionality that is required (although I would often argue that the threshold is lower than most people think).

The answer is phases. You have a short term and a long term plan. The key is that you don't try and do everything at once. That allows you to get a quick bang for the buck, get everyone comfortable, establish fundamental processes, and validate that your approach works in the first place.

For example, you may start off with a simple phase one whose objective is to get all active projects into the system, and train key personnel on how to create projects and associated schedules. That's it. After that, you may train others on how to update their status or, if you need to track time, how to add time spent on projects. After that, you may focus on making this truly a strategic repository by gradually adding complexity: documents, issues, risks, costs, etc. based on what your organization needs.

However you do it, the phased approach, wherever possible, works wonders. It provides some immediate benefit, enables the recognition of that benefit much quicker, and it simply isn't as scary to a user base that may be skittish about doing something new.

I'll be willing to bet that you will be surprised what you have accomplished in six months, as opposed to the organization that tries to do everything at once.

What has your experience been?

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.