Problems with Project Management Software
What drives project success or failure? According to Standish Group, success and failure is driven from these top five factors:
Executive support
User involvement
Experienced project managers
Clear business objectives
Minimized scope
Most project tools are missing the points
Why do most project management software focus on things like who has what task, when are they due, and what's been done?
The above top five factors above seem to be a good place to start. Notice none of the factors are related to "due dates" or "task assignment", which is what most project managers focus on most of the time.
Most project tools today focus on due dates and task assignments, but not on the top five factors above. Don't get me wrong, these project management tool features are important. I assume the organizations researched by the Standish Group already practice the basics such as task list scheduling and people assignments. They probably use project management tools from big vendors.
Missing best practices
The problem with project management software is that they miss the opportunity to ensure success with the top factors. First of all, there’s little guarantee that the project management tool will contain the top five factors in a project's task list.
Secondly, even if they did contain this list, there’s no way to ensure they will be executed perfectly for success. For example, look at the Executive Support factor. It’s easy to have this as a task item, and it's straight forward to get a nod from the sponsor and mark this task done. Even an official sign-off isn't hard to obtain.
The hard part is to draw out the expectations for Executive Support. Maybe the expectation contains the executive’s view point on the ultimate value of the project deliverables. Or maybe it's an understanding of how and when the executive will be updated.
Think about how to get this task done right. It should be done so correctly that the executives will guarantee they will do their part to ensure the project will be a success. This how-to example is what I call a best practice. Something that is known to succeed and can be repeated over and over along with future improvements. Focused practices on the five Standish Group factors are missing and that’s the problem.
The idea of best practices is about turning the top five factors into a set of process steps on how to accomplish them the best ways for success. These types of processes need to be correct, clear, and simple enough for any project lead or team member to execute.
Solve these problems with best practices
Imagine a project management software platform including best practice execution and governance as a core basic feature.
I would be pushing it by calling this the “killer app”. But, would I? If a project management software had killer best practices with complete how-to steps, image the power of success.
Now go down the line with the other top factors. Imagine a proven best practice for ensuring correct user involvement. Imagine junior project managers having the know-how at their finger tips. Image the process driving us to what it means to have clear business objectives. This is power!
Written by Paul Dandurand, PieMatrix Founder
Photo by Sander Sammy
