April 11, 2021
Project management tools have evolved exponentially. Since the first tools in the 80s to avoid drawing schedules manually, to the digital workplace of today, people collaborating on projects have felt overwhelmed by tooling. Not far ago, they had to use only a few strict process oriented tools. Nowadays, they feel anxious using a variety of freemium ones.
Every day, project management is more and more important for business. Project management can help organizations stay ahead of the competition. By 2027, employers will need nearly 88 million individuals in project management-oriented roles. We project managers are high level professionals who don’t just follow the sponsor’s directions anymore. Now we are supposed to be accountable for project results, communicate proactively with top managers, anticipate problems, enhance opportunities, etc.
We need a good toolbox to be effective in a collaborative distributed environment, with stakeholders demanding information in real time. Luckily for us, project managers will not be replaced by robots. Social skills will keep essential for success on every project. When projects fail badly, after a long delay or over costing too much, causes are not to be found in tools or methodologies –tools are just a means to an end. Project management tools will not replace us. Chances are they will help us to be more effective as project managers by giving us knowledge base repositories for lessons learned and risks, interactive feedback platforms, chatbots, voice assistants, AI, big data, business intelligence, blockchain, etc.
Project management tools will not replace us. They will help us to be more effective as project managers.
With remote projects everywhere, project managers are supposed to have a high technology quotient. Now they are considered poor practitioners if they communicate through long emails, documents or presentations; if they attach documents –or even worse, videos– instead of sending links to files; if they include us into an WhatsApp group (unsolicited); if they make us feel zoom fatigue, etc.
Nowadays, there are many excellent design tools that, if used properly, can save project teams a great deal of downtime, allowing them to collaborate effectively. Project teams can work effectively, saving a lot of waste and time, if they use properly some available, excellent design, intuitive tools. Project managers who are proficient on productive tools can focus on what is important: stakeholder management, risk management, servant leadership, change management, implementing corrective actions to get the project back on track, etc.
Nowadays, there is no need for ad hoc tools or digital transformation projects to improve the technology on project management.State of the art has evolved so far, that now it is possible to have most projects’ technological needs covered with a free project management toolbox. This applies to big and small organizations, public or private, long or short projects, big or small teams, predictive or agile projects. If a project manager is proficient at these kinds of tools and uses them wisely, he or she can contribute tremendously to the digital transformation and the business value delivery at the organization. From PMPeople we recommend this list of our 9 favourite freemium tools:
Images provided by PMO team at Econocom
A premium organization with 200 team members and 1 PM would only pay 200 euro a year!The main premium benefits are: