Introduction
Technologies (specifically “task administration software”) has been and will proceed to be an critical component of undertaking management discussion and apply. This is justified. The appropriate venture administration software program that is implemented properly can have considerable, positive outcomes on an business. Even so, the mistaken software program, or application applied poorly can pull an organization down.
In our experience, we have seen organizations wrestle with the correct implementation of the appropriate software. Numerous moments we discover this stems from a constrained or misunderstood check out of the function of technologies in the initial area. For example, companies may seem for a instrument that can just “plan assignments”, or they simply do not believe via the broader, strategic goal that the technologies must serve. This qualified prospects to picking the wrong technologies or not employing it in a way that supplies the most benefit for the group.
The goal of this white paper is to give a refreshing perspective on five main purposes of technologies (and venture administration software in distinct) in project management.
These reasons arrive from lessons learned in the aviation field. The aviation discipline is similar to venture administration in the sense that it seeks to generate predictable, profitable results in an activity with inherent chance. It makes use of technological innovation greatly to fulfill that aim. By researching the function of technology in aviation, we can derive the significant and related functions that technologies must provide in undertaking management. In so undertaking, we can also enhance the strategic use of technology to help our organization’s strategic aims, demands, and procedures.
Objective one: Situational Recognition
Some of the most essential aviation technologies, such as the ILS (instrument landing method), glass panel displays, and GPS (international positioning method) are concentrated on situational recognition: allowing the pilot know at each and every moment the place the aircraft is headed, how it is oriented, how higher it is, in which it demands to go, how it is executing, or a variety of other parts of details.
Task management technological innovation is no various. It needs to offer situational awareness of each and every project’s situation, in which they are headed, how they are executing, and how they require to move forward. It also requirements to provide consciousness of the circumstance of an organization’s whole venture “portfolio.” If you cannot employ your technologies to know the existing scenario of your projects, you are not making use of technology successfully.
The “existing venture predicament” may be distinct based on your firm and its specific processes and aims. It may possibly imply the status of the venture schedules, the quality of the deliverables, the recent diploma of chance, the pleasure of the consumers, or the state of the budget or revenue quantities.
It could mean how current resource utilization will affect the task, what concerns have arisen that would derail the task, or what has slipped by way of the cracks.
The crucial factor is to always be mindful of the project circumstance so that you can make intelligent, well timed, properly-knowledgeable decisions.
You can aspect this into your venture administration engineering implementation by undertaking the following:
Discover the essential data that you require to maintain situational consciousness.
Make certain that your undertaking management software program tool(s) can track and give this information.
Teach your workers on providing this details within the resource.
Goal two: Selection Generating
In aviation, pilots have to be in a position to make rapid selections employing accurate data. For instance, a pilot wants to know just what is improper with the aircraft to make a excellent choice on subsequent measures. They want to know how significantly gasoline is remaining to make a selection on temperature avoidance.
Equally, administrators want to have accurate info to make conclusions in venture management. They need to know what is improper with a task so they can make a great decision on next steps. They want to know useful resource availability to prioritize efforts and decide on instructions. In numerous organizations, this type of info is not easily obtainable, either since the appropriate toolset is not in area or the toolset has not been executed in a way that supports this strategic purpose.
In excess of ten years ago there was a project manager situation that was held by the writer of this whitepaper. Every single 7 days, the undertaking administration team would devote hours (literally) compiling long position reviews for administration. They would want to keep track of down the status of everything and doc them, together with a host of other data. Is it excellent to have this info compiled? Yes. But it certain is a useful resource-intense way of carrying out it that could be substituted with excellent engineering and very good procedure. Was the data effectively and utilized? That was unclear.
Request your self, what is the info you need to have to make good decisions? What issues does your group routinely experience? Do you have true-time perception into people troubles? Do you have all of this data commonly available at all moments? If not, make a professional-active work to use approach and engineering to enable your determination making to be much more exact, informed, and successful.
In get to make conclusions, two factors have to arise:
The details essential to make choices need to be compiled.
The data needed to make choices must be conveniently available.
Task administration software technology suits into this broader purpose, but once again you require to guarantee that:
You know what information you need to have.
Your project administration application engineering is capable of compiling the details you want to make choices.
The data in your task administration software technology is often readily offered.
Your team is skilled on how to correctly compile the appropriate data into the resource so that you can retrieve it to make conclusions.
Purpose 3: Automation of Regimen Jobs
A current post in an aviation periodical referred to a particular contemporary airliner as a 650,000 pound computer. There is a lot of engineering in cockpits these days and much of it automates regimen tasks for pilots. For illustration, pilots can use automated engine administration systems that remove the need for the pilots to control the specific thrust levels, temperatures, and other engine parameters checklists are automated alerts (notifications) are automatic and so forth.
This automation does a few issues:
It decreases the chance of human mistake (i.e. an individual makes a error whilst adhering to a dull, schedule procedure).
It frees up the assets (aka pilots) for a lot more essential factors.
It allows much more duties to be accomplished in the very same amount of time with fewer folks (a 3rd pilot is no more time needed).
There are a lot of, many program responsibilities executed in undertaking administration which get an huge volume of time. Every single organization has regimen duties that it has to do to be operational. Occasionally it is inconceivable how several a great number of several hours are spent on mundane pursuits. This might only be because it is more comfy and effortless to do items the very same way that we are utilized to carrying out them. difference between kanban and scrum that come to head incorporate the notification of events, the reporting of standing, obtaining out if one thing is completed or not, discovering a document, routing incoming requests for function, filling out and disseminating varieties, and accumulating time.
The correct venture administration computer software technology can automate the program items that your organization does. This has comparable rewards for project management:
It reduces the risk of human mistake in your procedures.
It frees up sources to do far more critical factors (this kind of as billable perform or using work off a person else’s plate).
It can make it less complicated to execute the method (significantly less ability is needed to perform it).
It allows more responsibilities to be accomplished in the very same volume of time with less individuals.
If you apply or use technological innovation with no obtaining this broader goal in brain, you will not be using your technological innovation properly. In simple fact, you may possibly be just swapping one particular tool out for another with no a web advantage.
What are approaches that technology in undertaking administration can automate routine responsibilities?
Getting position inputs (these kinds of as a crew member entering per cent comprehensive) and routinely rolling that up into venture-stage position.
Instantly notifying crucial personnel when an issue has arisen.
Centralizing all data so that there is one spot to uncover it.
Routinely routing incoming requests so that the appropriate particular person can see and reply to it.
Collecting time documented data and instantly generating stories on genuine time use.
Instantly aggregating all venture programs and schedules into useful resource utilization views and reviews.
Routinely generating new projects from templates that comply with a pre-defined route and eliminate the require to re-produce that path.
Automating the era of proposals and other templated files.
What this looks like for your firm will be various since you have different strategic aims, distinct processes, and distinct pursuits that take in up a lot of your staff’s time.
The level is to recognize the objective of technology so that you can use it strategically to attain a distinct function.
As with other needs, you need to get pro-lively action to fulfill this objective by making sure:
You know which jobs are routine and time-intensive in your organization.
Your undertaking management application tool(s) can automate these program tasks.
Your venture management software program tools(s) are set up appropriately to automate people program tasks.
Function 4: Assist for Standardized Processes
Standardized processes are a enormous element of the aviation globe and a large cause why it has had success at generating predictable, profitable results in a dangerous surroundings. In aviation, technology supports the standardized process setting. Technologies is not implemented since it would be cool or neat. It is strategically applied to support the standardized procedures. For illustration, component of the takeoff checks method is to validate that the correct runway is programmed into the flight management laptop. Properly, in several systems, the proper runway is shown correct exactly where the pilot needs to see it to total this regular procedure. It is also common procedure that when an plane is descending in clouds in the direction of a runway that they can not move forward underneath a specified altitude except if the runway setting is in sight. Engineering supports this method by displaying the least altitude and alerting the pilots if they go below it.
Technological innovation in venture management tends to be separated from the purpose of supporting standardized processes. We might have a method, but we may possibly also be seeking for a “scheduling device.” In other words and phrases, we search at them in a different way, but the two go hand in hand. A single of the major purposes of engineering should be to help the standardized procedures of an business. Why is a standardized method essential? Due to the fact you cannot have a predictable (requested) outcome if you have a random approach. The approach should be standardized and purchased.
Engineering must support us implement, sustain, and improve standardized procedures across the firm. Illustrations contain online checklists and templates, exception reporting of products outside the procedure (aka alerts), and workflow automation that follows a specific method. These varieties of factors assistance the strategic procedure and the general purpose of implementing strategic targets.
Your project management software device(s) ought to fulfill this fundamental objective as properly. You also need to have to get the following professional-lively measures:
Ensure that your processes are documented properly.
Guarantee that your task administration software tool(s) help your processes.
Guarantee that your staff understands how to manage the process in the tool.
Guarantee that your group is educated on executing the approach within the instrument.
Purpose 5: Perception into Traits, Issues, and Performance
In aviation, there are techniques and even companies in area to mine information and identify trends and likely potential risks. Is there a craze of particular errors that pilots are creating that need to be resolved via training? Is there an unusual spike in servicing anomalies for a specified plane?
This is frequently the furthest point from the head of a task supervisor. We are so occupied with the day to working day that we are not able to (or will not) take the time to appear at items like traits and potential troubles. Even so, that is portion of our occupation. Problems and risks are often lurking and will strike when we least expect it.
This is exactly where technology comes in to play. As in aviation, technological innovation can make it less difficult to do this. The right engineering will assist us run reports, search at data exceptions, and offer related sights into our task management environments.
There are two details listed here value mentioning:
When you decide on technological innovation, you must keep this objective in thoughts. How effortless is it to mine for various varieties of info?
We ought to be authorities at rapidly drilling into knowledge and extracting useful information.
Summary
Companies keep on to struggle with either inadequate task administration computer software instruments or venture administration software program equipment that are not applied properly. The goal of this paper was to help businesses realize the broader functions of technology in venture management by searching at lessons from the aviation subject. By undertaking so, organizations can broaden their viewpoint and pro-actively implement these functions in their very own project management environments, therefore producing a toolset that increasingly supports the strategic objectives, needs, and processes of the firm.
Want to Discover More?
Check out the “Traveling into Project Administration” weblog at [http://www.flyingintoprojectmanagement.com] for much more insight, lessons, and discussion on what undertaking administration can find out from aviation to develop predictable outcomes and control chance.
About the Author
Mark Kenny is an aviation enthusiast and project administration practitioner. He retains a private pilot’s license with an instrument score, about two hundred hrs of traveling time, and practically selected aviation as his occupation. Mr. Kenny has also spent over 15 a long time operating in venture administration in various capacities. He received a Certificate in Project Administration through the University of Washington, held undertaking administration roles in the producing, higher-tech, and healthcare industries, and is at the moment the President of Staff Interactions, Inc., which develops EnterPlicity.