Introduction Technologies (particularly "task management software") has been and will proceed to be an crucial portion of task management dialogue and practice. This is justified. The right task management computer software that is executed correctly can have important, positive outcomes on an firm. However, the wrong computer software, or software implemented badly can pull an organization down. In our knowledge, we have witnessed corporations wrestle with the proper implementation of the correct computer software. A lot of occasions we locate this stems from a constrained or misunderstood look at of the function of technology in the 1st location. For illustration, companies may seem for a resource that can just "routine projects", or they basically do not consider through the broader, strategic purpose that the technological innovation should provide. This qualified prospects to selecting the wrong technologies or not utilizing it in a way that offers the most benefit for the business. The function of this white paper is to offer a clean standpoint on five major needs of technologies (and project management software program in specific) in undertaking administration. These purposes arrive from lessons discovered in the aviation subject. The aviation subject is comparable to venture management in the sense that it seeks to develop predictable, productive outcomes in an activity with inherent risk. It utilizes technological innovation heavily to satisfy that aim. By studying the function of technological innovation in aviation, we can derive the key and similar purposes that technology need to serve in task administration. In so performing, we can also boost the strategic use of technological innovation to assistance our organization's strategic objectives, demands, and processes. Objective 1: Situational Awareness Some of the most critical aviation systems, this kind of as the ILS (instrument landing program), glass panel shows, and GPS (international positioning program) are targeted on situational recognition: letting the pilot know at each moment where the plane is headed, how it is oriented, how higher it is, where it wants to go, how it is carrying out, or a amount of other parts of details. Task management technology is no distinct. It wants to give situational awareness of every single project's scenario, in which they are headed, how they are carrying out, and how they require to commence. It also needs to give consciousness of the scenario of an organization's whole venture "portfolio." If you can't utilize your technological innovation to know the current circumstance of your projects, you are not employing technology successfully. The "present project situation" could be various relying on your firm and its specific processes and aims. It might imply the standing of the undertaking schedules, the high quality of the deliverables, the present degree of chance, the fulfillment of the consumers, or the state of the spending budget or income figures. It may mean how existing source utilization will impact the project, what concerns have arisen that would derail the undertaking, or what has slipped by way of the cracks. The essential issue is to constantly be informed of the project situation so that you can make smart, well timed, properly-informed choices. You can factor this into your task management technologies implementation by undertaking the following: Identify the essential info that you want to sustain situational consciousness. Make certain that your venture management software program tool(s) can monitor and offer this details. Prepare your workers on offering this information inside the tool. Function two: Selection Generating In aviation, pilots should be capable to make swift decisions utilizing precise information. For example, a pilot wants to know exactly what is wrong with the plane to make a great selection on subsequent actions. They need to have to know how a lot gasoline is remaining to make a selection on temperature avoidance. In the same way, professionals want to have accurate data to make conclusions in project administration. They need to have to know what is wrong with a task so they can make a good selection on up coming steps. They need to know useful resource availability to prioritize efforts and choose directions. In many corporations, this variety of data is not conveniently available, both since the appropriate toolset is not in location or the toolset has not been carried out in a way that supports this strategic goal. In excess of ten years back there was a venture supervisor place that was held by the author of this whitepaper. Every single 7 days, the venture administration team would spend hours (practically) compiling long standing studies for management. They would need to monitor down the position of every thing and doc them, alongside with a host of other data. Is it great to have this data compiled? Of course. But it confident is a resource-intense way of performing it that could be substituted with good technology and great procedure. Was the details properly and utilized? That was unclear. Inquire your self, what is the info you need to have to make very good choices? What issues does your organization routinely face? Do you have actual-time perception into these problems? Do you have all of this information readily offered at all times? If not, make a professional-lively effort to use procedure and technological innovation to empower your decision making to be much far more correct, educated, and successful. In purchase to make decisions, two factors have to happen: The information essential to make decisions should be compiled. The information needed to make conclusions have to be easily obtainable. Task management computer software technologies suits into this broader purpose, but once more you need to ensure that: You know what data you require. Your project administration software program engineering is able of compiling the details you need to have to make decisions. The information in your undertaking administration application technology is constantly easily obtainable. Your group is educated on how to accurately compile the right data into the instrument so that you can retrieve it to make choices. Objective 3: Automation of Schedule Tasks A modern article in an aviation periodical referred to a specific modern airliner as a 650,000 pound laptop. There is a lot of technologies in cockpits these days and much of it automates regimen duties for pilots. For case in point, pilots can use automatic engine management techniques that get rid of the require for the pilots to control the certain thrust ranges, temperatures, and other engine parameters checklists are automated alerts (notifications) are automatic and so forth. This automation does 3 factors: It reduces the danger of human mistake (i.e. somebody makes a mistake although subsequent a dull, routine method). It frees up the assets (aka pilots) for far more essential factors. It makes it possible for far more tasks to be accomplished in the exact same volume of time with much less people (a third pilot is no longer essential). There are many, numerous program tasks performed in task management which get an massive sum of time. Each and every business has schedule duties that it has to do to be operational. Sometimes it is inconceivable how numerous numerous hrs are put in on mundane routines. This could only be because it is much more comfortable and effortless to do items the identical way that we are utilised to performing them. Some that appear to head include the notification of occasions, the reporting of position, discovering out if something is completed or not, finding a document, routing incoming requests for perform, filling out and disseminating types, and accumulating time. The correct venture administration software program engineering can automate the regimen factors that your group does. This has comparable rewards for project management: It lowers the risk of human mistake in your procedures. It frees up resources to do far more important items (this sort of as billable work or taking perform off someone else's plate). It makes it simpler to perform the approach (considerably less talent is essential to perform it). It enables a lot more responsibilities to be achieved in the identical sum of time with much less men and women. If you implement or use technological innovation with out possessing this broader objective in mind, you will not be employing your technological innovation successfully. In simple fact, you may possibly be simply swapping one resource out for another without having a internet benefit. What are ways that technologies in task management can automate program duties? Having status inputs (these kinds of as a staff member moving into percent comprehensive) and immediately rolling that up into project-level standing. Immediately notifying crucial staff when an issue has arisen. Centralizing all info so that there is 1 location to uncover it. Routinely routing incoming requests so that the correct individual can see and respond to it. Collecting time documented details and immediately generating reports on actual time use. Automatically aggregating all task strategies and schedules into useful source utilization sights and stories. Automatically creating new projects from templates that comply with a pre-outlined route and eradicate the require to re-create that route. Automating the generation of proposals and other templated documents. What this seems to be like for your organization will be various because you have different strategic targets, diverse processes, and distinct pursuits that consume up a good deal of your staff's time. The stage is to realize the purpose of technologies so that you can use it strategically to accomplish a specific function. As with other functions, you need to get pro-energetic motion to satisfy this function by ensuring: You know which tasks are regimen and time-intense in your group. Your project administration software program device(s) can automate these schedule responsibilities. Your project administration software program resources(s) are setup properly to automate these routine responsibilities. Purpose four: Support for Standardized Procedures Standardized processes are a massive component of the aviation world and a huge purpose why it has experienced good results at making predictable, successful results in a risky atmosphere. In aviation, engineering supports the standardized method atmosphere. Technologies is not implemented due to the fact it would be awesome or neat. It is strategically executed to support the standardized processes. For case in point, component of the takeoff checks process is to confirm that the appropriate runway is programmed into the flight management pc. Well, in several techniques, the proper runway is shown appropriate the place the pilot demands to see it to complete this standard procedure. It is also common treatment that when an aircraft is descending in clouds in the direction of a runway that they cannot commence below a particular altitude until the runway environment is in sight. Technology supports this approach by displaying the bare minimum altitude and alerting the pilots if they go under it. Engineering in undertaking management tends to be separated from the objective of supporting standardized processes. We might have a procedure, but we could also be seeking for a "scheduling device." In other terms, we look at them in a different way, but the two go hand in hand. One of the principal reasons of engineering have to be to assistance the standardized procedures of an group. Why is a standardized process essential? Since you can't have a predictable (ordered) final result if you have a random process. The process need to be standardized and ordered. Engineering ought to assist us employ, preserve, and boost standardized procedures throughout the group. Examples contain online checklists and templates, exception reporting of items outside the house the process (aka alerts), and workflow automation that follows a certain approach. These types of factors support the strategic method and the all round goal of implementing strategic aims. Your project management software program tool(s) need to satisfy this essential function as well. You also require to get the pursuing pro-energetic measures: Guarantee that your procedures are documented correctly. Guarantee that your venture administration software program tool(s) assist your procedures. Make sure that your staff understands how to deal with the process in the tool. Guarantee that your team is skilled on executing the method within the tool. Objective five: Insight into Traits, Issues, and Functionality In aviation, there are methods and even corporations in area to mine knowledge and identify traits and possible future risks. Is there a pattern of particular blunders that pilots are generating that need to be tackled by way of coaching? Is there an strange spike in routine maintenance anomalies for a particular aircraft? This is often the furthest thing from the brain of a undertaking manager. We are so busy with the day to day that we are not able to (or will not) take the time to seem at factors like trends and possible troubles. Even so, that is part of our job. Problems and pitfalls are usually lurking and will strike when we the very least count on it. This is exactly where technology will come in to perform. As in aviation, technology can make it less complicated to do this. The right technologies will help us run stories, seem at information exceptions, and supply related views into our undertaking management environments. There are two details here really worth mentioning: When you choose technology, you need to maintain this purpose in brain. How simple is it to mine for different varieties of info? We need to be experts at quickly drilling into info and extracting beneficial data. Conclusion Corporations carry on to wrestle with both bad task management application resources or venture management software program resources that are not implemented accurately. The purpose of this paper was to aid organizations recognize the broader purposes of technologies in venture management by seeking at lessons from the aviation subject. By carrying out so, companies can expand their point of view and pro-actively apply these reasons in their very own venture management environments, thus generating a toolset that more and more supports the strategic targets, needs, and processes of the group. Want to Discover More? Visit the "Traveling into Venture Management" weblog at for more perception, classes, and dialogue on what venture administration can understand from aviation to generate predictable outcomes and manage danger. Diverse IT firms use different platforms to host the applications. |