Do you have a vision and you can't make it happen? Have you been given a task with a clear goal and its implementation is stalling or has come to a screeching halt? Have you been entrusted with a project that doesn't fit into your normal workload and you don't know where to start or stop? Do you have to implement a project with very limited personnel and financial resources? Do you need to see the status of the work in progress at any time and from anywhere in order to make timely decisions about where to slow down and where to add more? Are you not good at evaluating the success of the tasks assigned to you? Introducing the project management software MS Project.
If you answered YES to any of the above questions, then you know it's time to start using project management software.
Using project management, the company
- achieves the set goals more easily
- saves human resources
- saves financial resources
- saves the forces of the person who manages the project - the project manager
- saves management time, to whom the project manager is accountable for the project results
Software for project management makes the task possible:
- unbundle
- realistically determine deadlines
- plan resources (financial, time and personnel)
- monitor project progress and task completion
- define any obstacles early on and find a way to overcome them
- correctly evaluate the success and effectiveness of efforts and resources
The key to the successful completion of any project is teamwork backed by quality leadership. It's easy to say, but leading a project through the choppy waters of a constantly evolving organization is a job that only an experienced project manager can do without a hitch. In a flood of deadlines, meetings, emails, obstacles, tasks and deadlines, perfect organization is key. Fortunately, we have effective tools to achieve this.
Project management software MS Project, one of the most comprehensive project management platforms
If you were looking for a project management platform, you'd find a lot of them these days. Especially the covid era has contributed to their development and implementation even in organizations that did not use them before. However, one of the most comprehensive platforms is offered by Microsoft, specifically Microsoft Project. It not only offers project managers of small and large companies the ability to plan their tasks and reallocate tasks within teams, but a big plus of MS Project is the ability to present projects through customizable Gantt charts.
Thanks to the simple visuals, anyone on the team can easily see what tasks are being performed and what phases will follow.
Create a timeline, divide tasks, measure costs
The project management software MS Project offers easy orientation in the project issues. With Project, there is no more wading through mountains of e-mails, calling interested parties, time-consuming tracking down the necessary information. Using MS Project, you can create timelines for your project, assign tasks, measure costs and visually represent the overall status of each part of the task. It's then easy to review each phase. In addition, MS Project project management software offers the ability to provide feedback on each task.
And speaking of cost measurement, the budgeting toolkit allows you to predict project costs and benefits.
You will appreciate the MS Project project management software in an environment where you already work with MS tools
Microsoft Project is not the only tool for successful collaboration and communication in a Microsoft team. In addition to Project, you can use Microsoft 365 Collaboration Tools. These are dozens of applications that allow you to collaborate efficiently and quickly. Some of them have become the basis of almost every company's functioning (Outlook, Word, Excel), covid has rocketed the mass use of Teams, others are still in the background and are only just coming into users' awareness, such as Viva, Planner and many others.
Communication in the team without long e-mail forwarding
Active use of Microsoft tools for team collaboration eliminates the flood of emails not only in the project manager's inbox. Communication, for example through the already mentioned MS Teams, is faster and more flexible. In addition, it is possible to chat individually and in groups, share a screen and save history, make a video recording or transcribe the spoken word.
MS Teams vs. Yammer
Another communication tool from Microsoft is Yammer. It is an internal social network, not just a chat platform. Only employees or co-workers can join this social network, which guarantees a high level of security for the data entered. Yammer allows open communication, publishing messages "on the wall", communicating in 28 languages (and you can translate messages using Google Translator), sharing conversations, setting up polls and creating virtual events.
Collaborate in real time with the cloud - anytime, anywhere!
Of course, Microsoft offers the option of storing documents in the cloud. Cloud storage for files used by multiple SharePoint users is one of the greatest benefits to team collaboration ever. By storing a project in the cloud, a worker makes it available to everyone who is collaborating on that project. They can access it from anywhere, anytime. The whole team can work on the same document at the same time without any problems.
"Which version is valid in the end?"
Cloud storage keeps all versions of a file in one place. This eliminates the aforementioned searching through a flood of emails to find out "which version of a document is the final one". When you save a presentation to the cloud, for example, you can instantly collaborate on it with colleagues across the globe, track suggested changes and respond to feedback. You can add a comment to each version of the document that shows who the document is intended for and what to do with it.
Most people would think that OneDrive is cloud storage..." It is. SharePoint and OneDrive are both cloud storage and each has its own meaning. While SharePoint will be appreciated by members inside and outside the company for sharing and working together on a single document (by the way, documents shared via MS Teams are also stored in SharePoint), OneDrive is a repository specifically designed for a given user's documents primarily for that user only, unless they share them with a specific coworker. OneDrive can be used to automatically back up a file or sync folders and files across multiple devices.
Whether you are developing a smartphone app, developing complex tailored marketing strategies or offering turnkey wedding organisation, success is always based on good communication and project organisation.
