I am going to switch gears a little bit to have a discussion about some common project management software implementation problems. All is well and good to pick the right tool with the right benefits and the right vendor who will partner with you, but that obviously does not ensure success. There are a number of roadblocks that can cause things to go south. These include lack of organizational support, resistance to change, competing priorities, etc.



One of those is a lack of technical expertise or availability of that expertise. In other words, to implement project management software in-house (except for stand-alone / simple solutions), it takes some technical expertise. Not everyone has that, or more commonly those resources are busy doing other things.

A simple method of addressing this is to adopt a Software as a Service (Saas) solution. These services are provided by many vendors as a way to circumvent any need for technical expertise. In this type of solution, the vendor hosts the software in their own environment / data center as a service to the customer. All the customer has to do is to log in to the site over the Internet. This is easy, convenient, and puts the burden on the vendor. This will probably cost you more in the long-haul as opposed to a direct purchase, but addresses the technical problem and is almost always cost-effective in the short term.

Here is an interesting blog I recently ran into, if you want to learn more about SaaS in general.

But what about those organizations (I'm talking about you, government) who cannot go this route because of security, regulations, or because they simply do not want to? In this case, you MUST have at least SOME internal resources to support the initiative (unless the vendor takes over complete responsibility for all of the technology, which would be very difficult). But there are a couple of things you can do. You can get the vendor more involved. A good vendor will be able to take care of many the technical aspects for you, even though it is in-house, and at least minimize the internal resources needed. This will cost you more, but it can be a good strategy. Just be careful, the vendor will not have the authority to handle everything, and you need to accept some responsibility in-house.

I would like to know what implementation hurdles you have, or have experienced in the past? Send them to blog@teaminteractions.com.