Traditional project management tools fall short
Generally speaking, a project consists of three stages: planning, implementation and completion. Regardless of the stage that you are at, there is a tool that can simplify and streamline the effort. The choice of tools can be decisive to the team's ability to communicate efficiently and meet the project's targets.
Project management tools come in a variety of sizes and shapes, depending on the purpose and application area. Common to most tools is that they focus on initial project planning. Traditional project management tools are very helpful for breaking projects down into suitable components, defining milestones and decision points, and allocating resources for various tasks. Because the project manager usually takes charge of planning, the need for communication and cooperation with others is limited at this point. Apart from a swearword or two when the tool refuses to draw the project plan the way it was intended, this stage tends to be relatively pain-free.
Unexpected developments
Once the detailed planning has been completed and the project is under way, cooperation among the various participants comes to the fore. That's when the effort is most vulnerable to unexpected developments unless everyone is working together and communicating properly. Efficient implementation demands appropriate tools to structure project data, prioritise and monitor various contingencies such as new customer requirements, and ensure that everyone is kept up to date and furnished with the most recent information.
The curse of the inbox
Without a predetermined idea or plan for project communication, things can easily fall apart once external participants arrive on the scene. One of the most common errors is to depend on e-mail and internal file servers to meet a project's communication needs. How many times have you rummaged through your inbox in vain for the latest version of an important document?
E-mail is the ideal vehicle for fast, day-to-day communication among a handful of people, but it is clearly flawed as a communication platform for an entire project. By the same token, a shared folder on an internal file server can help keep track of documents. But problems start to arise when the information is to be passed along to participants outside of the company's network or key documents vanish into thin air without an audit trail.
The project manager and team need to cooperate and communicate most during the implementation stage. Paradoxically, that's the need that traditional project management tools tend to neglect. For want of better alternatives, the gap has been partly filled by e-mail and general collaboration applications such as file sharing tools. However such applications are rarely suited to the needs of the project, but work best from an organisational point of view within the company's own network.
Traditional project management tools may be of some assistance during the final stage in order to facilitate reporting and follow-up. But blatant vulnerabilities emerge once again if a number of people are involved.
State-of-the-art platform
New web-based applications such as Projectplace resolve many of the above problems by providing the entire project team, including external participants, with a common platform adapted to the project's particular cooperation and communication needs. While the power of the application is most evident during the implementation stage, it is also useful as a way to involve more people in the planning, final reporting and follow-up processes.
Projectplace is a new, leading-edge application to handle communication, as well as a project management tool that reaches much farther than the traditional approaches with which you may be accustomed. Projectplace gives you the means to communicate the way you would like to. The rest is up to you and your employees.