Winning the case for project management software

Even then, when approval is attained, often it is project managers only who have access to the solution, with the business citing cost-saving reasons. The problem is, though, if they are the only ones using it, then the administration burden is actually greater, not reduced.

It is important then, to do the homework and provide a solid business case for the implementation of this type of solution. And this is how.

A study, surveying almost 2500 project team members, conducted by market research firm Harris Interactive Service Bureau (HISB), discovered that 55% of those questioned spend between one and three hours per week attending status meetings; whilst 57% multitask during them. A further 70% did not believe that status meetings help them accomplish work tasks; with 40% of those surveyed feeling that status meetings were a waste of time. Sixty-seven percent of respondents claimed to spend between one and four hours per week preparing for status meetings; and 59% said that this preparation took longer than the meetings themselves.

It is clear from these results that within project offices there is a large amount of resource time - and, thus, capacity - spent in project status meetings. While project communication and a greater visibility of the current status are critical to the successful completion of projects, there must be a better and more productive alternative to a weekly project status meeting per project.

If the majority of project team members spend on average two hours per week in status meetings, and project managers spend double that time preparing for meetings, then, realistically, project status meetings are costing the business two hours per team member and four hours per project manager per week.

Thirty working days spent in status meetings

This equates to one full day per month for team members and two days for project managers. If a business has five project managers and 20 team members within the project office, this totals 30 working days of time spent in status meetings.

These figures might be acceptable should these meetings hold value, but, as the research above clearly states, most team members feel that they do not help accomplish work tasks and almost half believe them to be a complete waste of time.

A possible solution to this dilemma would be to limit project status meetings to 30-minute sessions, thus saving 20 days per month. Taking into account an average resource rate of USD100 (more than R1000) per hour, with this small change a company could save USD16 000 (over R160 000) of productivity hours per month, which is not a paltry sum. Nevertheless, this presents an additional challenge: How do you cut meeting times to 30 minutes whilst ensuring that everyone remains abreast of what is going on? The best way forward would be to take the following steps:

• Step 1: Implement project office software. A good project office tool will cost less than USD50 (R500) per month, per resource, for 25 members.
  
• Step 2: Provide the entire project office with access. The cost for all 25 users would be USD1250 (around R12,500), contributing to a saving of USD14 750 (almost R150,000).
  
• Step 3: Implement a culture that promotes project team members providing real-time updates on project tasks, risks and issues as they happen, using your newly installed project office tool.
  
• Step 4: Cut off all other channels and stores of project documentation and updates, so that documents are not stored in more than one location and there is no response to emails requesting status updates.
  
• Step 5: Modify the project status agenda so that it is not used to check back on what has happened and what was achieved or, even worse, as a place for the project manager to ask each resource how far they are with each open task, issue or risk. Rather focus the agenda on discussions relating to addressing open risks and issues collectively and discussing potential forthcoming project tasks. Team members will be more engaged and feel more connected, thus seeing greater benefit and multi-tasking less. Decision making and problem resolution will also be improved and collective, and the team, and thus project, will benefit.

With this in mind, how can you afford not to implement project office software for all resources in your project office?