No matter what role you have within an organization – be it engineer, salesperson, consultant, marketer, or business owner – you’ve acquired a second responsibility: project manager. But managing marketing projects has become more challenging than ever. Why? The work environment has expanded across departments, across job roles – and even across continents. To achieve organizational objectives, cross-functional teams form, collaborate, dissolve and re-form to tackle precisely defined projects and fulfill specific deliverables within carefully controlled deadlines and budget demands. Learn more today!
7 Ways to Optimize
Project Team Productivity:
Using customizable Web-based software to your business advantage
WHITE PAPER
Intuit QuickBase http://quickbase.intuit.comINTRODUCTION
The [Excel] system worked well for No matter what role you have within an organization - be it engineer, salesperson, consultant, the first couple of years of business, marketer, or business owner - you've acquired a second responsibility: project manager. but it soon became very difficult But managing projects has become more challenging than ever.- too time-consuming and laborious. Why? The work environment has expanded across departments, across job roles - and Daniel Pries, founder and principal, even across continents. To achieve organizational objectives, cross-functional teams form, ProPoint Graphics collaborate, dissolve and re-form to tackle precisely defined projects and fulfill specific deliverables within carefully controlled deadlines and budget demands.
In other words, we don't work in "departments" as much as we work on projects. And projects mean lots of people sharing loads of information across offices and time zones. It means, frankly, that there's a great demand for effective, efficient project management.
Whether you're constructing a new building or collaborating on a lead generation program, a great deal of success depends on the software tools that facilitate project collaboration, applications that help teams achieve their goals.
That's what this paper is all about. To be genuinely helpful, the right project management tool shouldn't become a project unto itself. Instead, the best tool allows you and your colleagues to focus on what you do best - your work.
In the following pages, you'll discover seven ways that you can optimize project team productivity with customizable, Web-based project management applications. By taking advantage of easy-to-learn, easy-to-use software that's expressly designed for effective project collaboration and communication, your teams can stop swapping spreadsheet files and exchanging emails, and at the same time, reduce their dependency on IT application support and increase their ability to work - and succeed - together.
1. Eliminate the "spreadsheet shuffle"There's an old saying: "When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." For many companies, the spreadsheet is the hammer they apply to any project. And just as a hammer is a poor way to measure dimensions or cut wood, the spreadsheet - though familiar - introduces more project management problems than it solves.
When you and your colleagues do the "spreadsheet shuffle," your team choreography descends into chaos. Without a centralized project work space that easily integrates individual efforts into standard versions of information, your project is exposed to conflicting documentation. Using spreadsheets means wasting time reconciling multiple document versions. Lack of adequate tracking and audit tools makes it nearly impossible to find errors. Worse, spreadsheet programs haven't been designed to encourage communication: they have no features for tracking progress, prompting activity or alerting team members to deadlines.
Emailing spreadsheets is a project work-around, not an effective means for managing work. The alternative? A project management application that centralizes project information, provides all team members with secure access to the information they need-whenever and wherever they need it-streamlines data gathering, tracking and communication, and makes it easy to stay on the same page and easy to monitor progress.
1Intuit QuickBase 7 Ways to Optimize Project Team Productivity: Using customizable Web-based software to your business advantage2. Seek the packaged vs. custom software sweet spot When seeking a project management tool, professionals and business owners have often A recent study by TripleTree and been caught between two options: off-the-shelf, packaged project management applications the Software and Information or custom solutions built in-house or with outsourced developers. Industry Association found that on-demand deployments are 50 to Each has its pros and cons. Packaged applications offer the convenience of out-of-the-box 90 percent faster, with a total cost features and rapid deployment. But they impose their rules on users, have limited features of ownership five to ten times... [download for more]
