We have discussed a lot of different topics around project management software in this blog. They included topics such as the selection and implementation of PM software. But what are some tips to actually use project management software effectively? I thought it would be helpful to get down and dirty on some specific topics, such as what is the right way to use a Gantt View, types of reports that you should be creating, etc., etc.



Let's start with the topic of tasks. I will deal with this in two separate posts.

How should you use tasks in your project management software? Besides projects, tasks are a fundamental building block of most project management software systems, from stand-alone desktop tools to high-end PPM systems. A project is typically broken up into tasks and sub tasks: actionable items that someone is actually going to perform.

I should say that not everyone breaks a project up into tasks. Some organizations only want to track high-level project information. It depends on your needs and objectives. For example, a high-level PMO (project management office) or corporate office may want to track high-level project information, but leave the day-to-day task breakdown, scheduling, and the management of such to individual groups and project managers. In their case, they are not concerned with breaking projects out into tasks.

But for a majority of organizations, tasks are important. Why? Because projects are too high-level. The work needs to be broken down into pieces that can be assigned to individual people, and tracked to completion. Some common problems we see that organizations have are a lack of visibility into project schedules, a lack of visibility into what resources are working on, and a lack of visibility into what is actually done and what is falling "through the cracks".

How can you find out what the true status of a project is if you don't know the true status of the tasks (actions) that are being performed to complete the project? How can you know the true workload of a resource (person) if you don't know the number, load, and schedule of the various tasks (actions) that resource is being asked to do? Tasks are fundamental to solving these problems.

In light of that, it would be very beneficial for us to manage them correctly and with the appropriate tools that match the specific needs, objectives, and culture of our organization.

So how should you use tasks? How far should you break them down. What types of tools should you use?

I'll offer some simple guidelines in our next post...