| At a glance Time to lead your projects. Use the right tools for building project plans, assessing risks, assigning resources, and tracking progress and budgets of your projects. Use authenticated real-time information to make decisions with confidence and speed. |
As a project manager delivering IT services, do you chase other managers to get the right resources? Do you run after the changing requirements of customers? Are you mostly in reactive mode? Do you struggle to obtain the status of your project in terms of progress, budget, and timelines? Do you have to spend too much communicating with team members and other stakeholders? Is it difficult to collaborate with them effectively?
Is your job more of chasing than leading? Why is this so? Do you have the required tracking tools for project management?
Constraints and conflicts
A project manager’s job involves some amount of follow-up for sure. There are all kinds of conflicts. There are some rigid constraints.
You need that particular expert on your project but she is overbooked. Alas, talented people are always overbooked. To make it worse, one of your prolific coders comes to you and says that he needs to take some leave.
Your customer has come up with some changes. The finance head is telling you that you are behind on billing. Every new day brings new challenges. Yet, you can be on top of your projects if you are armed with the right information.
Be on top of your projects
You want to be on top of your projects. You wish to lead and not merely run after changing goalposts. You could do with some help. You need tools and efficient workflows on top of your project management software.
You need to know which resources are available now and what their skill sets are. You need resources with skill sets that match your tasks. You need to know the work breakdown structure used in a similar project in the past and how it helped.
You need to know the running and projected cost of your project so that you can decide on trade-offs involving resource costs and capabilities. You wish to know scope changes and whether they are billable or not.
A single version of the truth in real-time
If you can instantly get all the above information and more when you need it, you can make better-informed choices. You can lead your project rather than merely chase people.
A well-crafted Professional services automation (PSA) software that is designed to meet industry practices and standards provides all the above information in real time.
Such PSA software integrates your existing software packages like CRM, project management, HRMS, ERP or accounting, etc. It takes data from where it is entered, processes it, and presents it at the point where it is needed.
It prevents duplication of efforts and multiple versions of data. It provides you with a ‘single version of the truth’ every time you need it.
Project management made enterprise-class
PSA software links your project management to proposal building at one end to HRMS and ERP at the other end. It lets you participate in developing realistic and technically sound proposals and lets you do soft-booking of resources when the chances of deal finalization are high.
It provides you key learnings from similar projects in the past. It helps in risk assessment and working out their mitigation strategies. It provides you with data and analytics on resource allocation & utilization.
The PSA software shows the running and project costs of your projects and their budgets. It provides you all the tracking tools for project management.
Lead your projects with PSA software
In short, capable PSA software frees you from endless email threads and phone calls and puts you in front of actionable real-time dashboards. The PSA software lets you lead your projects.
Choose your PSA software with care. Choose an experienced PSA vendor-partner who can help you implement the PSA software.
Kytes PSA is the one that will do all the above and more for you. Contact us at [email protected] for a demo.
Read more on the subject
Reasons why organizations should not use Excel for resource planning
How to recognize a project management culture?
Reduce the gap between as-sold and as-built project costs
Listen to this episode of Kytes Podcast:
Project managers as CEOs of their projects
