5 Habits for Highly Effective Projects

We’ve all heard about highly effective people and how they manage their lives and businesses to become more efficient and effective. The best ones use a dynamic combination of common sense, personal commitment, and sound business strategies to get ahead and stay in a leading position.

But what if you could customize such habits to precisely target project management challenges? LoadSpring Solutions, Inc., presented this process of running efficient and effective projects, narrowed down to five key steps or “habits,” at a global virtual seminar. The result? Maximized efficiency and enhanced decision-making, leading to greater project management success.

Habit 1: Leverage best-in-class software to get best-in-class results

There’s no single project management software solution that does everything for every phase of every project. Each job stage has its own set of unique requirements, resulting in today’s dizzying range of project management apps. The main point is, whether you have 3D or 4D requirements, estimating, or other specific needs, it’s of the utmost importance to get specialized, best-of-breed applications – then make them easily accessible to the right people through the cloud.

It’s critical to research and outline various categories of apps and identify which ones will be used strictly on-premises, SaaS-enabled, and have perpetual licenses that should be hosted in the cloud for ease of access. Use a single cloud environment that provides additional support, ease of use, and secure access for all your teams. Such an environment lets top project management teams focus on value-adding project-focused activities while outsourcing others related to deploying and implementing software applications.

The most successful project management firms segment their apps this way. It allows them to corral perpetual license apps to enhance usability and provide support for a network of users who depend on interoperability. These organizations leverage the capabilities and resources of specialized partners to provide such fit-for-purpose apps cost-effectively.

Habit 2: Never forget your “must-have” project apps

Project management firms quickly learn that scheduling, risk, and cost analysis applications are absolute necessities. Without them, any project may be destined for mediocrity or failure. In addition, visibility into project analytics helps drive accountability throughout the organization. For this reason, there are three “bare minimum” project app requirements that simply can’t be ignored or shortchanged:
• Scheduling & Resource Management
• Risk Analysis
• Cost Management & Earned Value Management (EVM)
Scheduling & resource management apps let you plan out critical tasks to manage each project better. They help you avoid over-scheduling or under-utilizing assets from start to completion.

Risk analysis software “looks” for early warnings of adverse events that can delay job completion or increase costs. Suppose a project is at a P80, P70, or even only a P30 confidence level. In that case, you can determine which adjustments are needed to maximize favorable probabilities and deliver your project on time and within budget.

Cost management & EVM apps help you phase critical tasks and assign costs, particularly with projects for government customers. Such applications collect earned value management (EVM) data and create grids and S-curves that let you track progress over time. This type of software integrates directly with the LoadSpring platform and LoadSpring ProjectINTEL capability, consolidating your project intelligence into a single customizable dashboard.

There must be complete integration between the applications and the ERP (enterprise resource planning) system to make this a seamless process for the organization.It’s also important to work with tools that simplify information collection by using Cost Breakdown Structure (financial information) and Work Breakdown Structure (project task information). Without program dashboards that combine cost, schedule, and risk analytics, the engine that supports the project may not offer effective support to your network of participants.

As a firm and its projects mature, more applications may be needed, such as proposal management, performance analysis, and others.

Habit 3: Make sure every app is accessible and interoperable

Project professionals seek out the ease of use and integration between applications to enter data once and benefit many times over – right up to the reporting stage. A powerful way to help companies improve these factors is via LoadSpring’s project platform. With it, multiple apps can be accessed inhouse via single sign-on while managing access through LoadSpring’s enterprise-wide identity management solutions.

It’s important for offsite access to set user privileges based on role or company divisions, depending on different project and administrative needs. This allows for better control over who sees data and has access to various applications.Access for third parties is a common headache in the world of project management. Project teams need to ensure that all contractors and subcontractors participating in the project can securely access their applications – not just internal team members. All players need access that lets them participate in the project. A neutral and secure cloud platform can help achieve this.

Project managers can sleep well at night knowing that contractors, subcontractors, and joint venture partners have access to their critical information—without going behind security firewalls. This keeps your sensitive data secure from prying eyes. You may now wonder how to integrate all your different platforms and deployment methods, not to mention how to manage different apps in various locations, which can also complicate IT audits. Relax, it’s easy. This interoperability challenge is what LoadSpring helps companies overcome through a single unified tool known as LoadSpring. This secure platform is used for administration, support, and reporting, while effortlessly solving access and interoperability challenges.

Habit 4: Take control of your project software upgrades, not vice versa

Organizations that manage highly effective projects know that software is meant to support your project, not the other way around. These organizations know that it’s key to have the flexibility within a project to stay on the software version the project team feels most confident using. Newer isn’t always better, and effective project teams know the value of resisting the urge to run an upgrade simply because it’s available.

Attempting to push all team members to the newest software versions overnight can jeopardize accurate project reporting and put interoperability at risk. Smart project experts take control of their software upgrades. They run them when it’s best for the team, such as at the end of a project. This minimizes the risk of unnecessary lag and mistakes while delivering the project within time and budget.

Utilizing multiple software versions can be a competitive advantage at the project level. Working with a specialized cloud solutions partner like LoadSpring can assure that planned outages, upgrades, and patches are done in concert with your needs—not against them—so there are no surprises. LoadSpring supports your software needs even if it means continuing to run an older version of the software for an extended period.

Habit 5: Make apps accessible to all invited members

With standalone software on individual systems, only core project members and contractors have access, but at the exclusion of other critical parties such as executives. It’s essential to seek a cloud provider that understands this, thus increasing your enterprise network of project participants including executives. Securely and strategically increasing this accessibility helps increase the adoption of policies, procedures, and most importantly, the apps themselves. Suddenly the level of participation goes from a handful of core project members to the full gamut of managers, field workers, and high-level decision-makers participating more holistically. And unlike captive, standalone software, apps accessed through the cloud can be available worldwide to anyone on any device.

Conclusion

As more project management professionals seek to accelerate their cloudfirst strategies, it’s vital to find a cloud project management partner that offers unique solutions that provide a competitive edge and the technical knowledge and application experience to keep your operation running 24/7/365. LoadSpring helps capitalize on enhanced cloud access, faster software adoption, team-wide data entry, and software integration, leading to better and faster decision-making and results.