CHAPTER 1
1. Supports Multiple Project Methodologies
Why it’s important
To be successful, any solution you implement needs to support multiple project methodologies, otherwise your team will start using unauthorised tools to do their work.
The three main methodologies you should be looking for any solution to support are waterfall, agile and water-scrum-fall which combines the best of waterfall and agile together.
How you benefit
- Choice of methodology in how to run a project keeps your team in the same solution and on the same page
- All your project data in one place, means nothing gets lost in translation and your execs get a single set of reports
- One solution means less time lost dealing with procurement and legal issues bringing on multiple PM vendors
CHAPTER 2
2. Support Best Practice Templates & Automation
Why it’s important
Being able to follow best practice projects in a repeatable way puts your team on the path to success, so you want a solution with strong support for project templates.
By leveraging automation based on the criteria in your CRM or ITSM, you can pick the right template from your library to ensure your team is always positioned to be able to follow best practices.
How you benefit
- Multiple project methodologies keep everyone in the same solution
- Best practice templates keeps everyone on the same page
- Automate project creation and updated to avoid double entry of data and information
CHAPTER 3
3. Captures your Customer Goals & Requirements
Why it’s important
If you don’t have a clear idea of what your customer goals are at the outset of a project, how can you possibly forecast the real value your internal or external customers are expecting from the project?
By not only only defining your project goals, but by also capturing their requirements and scoring each requirement for how big an impact it has on meeting your goals, you can prioritize your efforts to deliver maximum value in the time you have available.
How you benefit
- Know your project goals and the impacts each will have on their business
- Map requirements to your goals
- Prioritize work on the requirements that will deliver the most value for your internal and external customers
CHAPTER 4
4. Lets you find the person with the right skills
Why it’s important
As your team grows in number, it becomes increasingly harder to keep track of what skills your team has, who has upcoming PTO and what people are assigned to in the coming weeks. Without knowing this information your resources may become double booked, putting your delivery timelines in jeopardy.
You are also hit by an inability to know when you can take on new projects, either reducing your utilization metrics or making false promises to your new customers on when you can deliver.
How you benefit
- Keep projects on schedule driving customer satisfaction
- Use your team more efficiently, increasing your resource utilization rates
- Know when your team can take on more work, to keep the whole business growing
CHAPTER 5
5. Risks, Issues & Change Requests
Why it’s important
Great Project delivery involves managing the intangibles that come up along the way, two of the key ones being identifying and mitigating Risks, along with managing Issues that arise.
The third common item you need to your Project Management solution to allow you to manage are Change Requests along with associated scope, cost and profitability impacts.
How you benefit
- Projects are about more than just tasks so make sure you have a solution to manage the unknowns
- Use automation to engage the right people to solve issues and mitigate risks
- Report on potential problems across all your projects
CHAPTER 6
6. Health Trends across all your Projects
Why it’s important
As the manager of a team, running multiple projects simultaneously and being able to see the health of each project at a glance allows you to pre-emptively direct your team’s resources to solve issues before they derail your projects in a negative way.
Being able to choose which health metrics to track, such as customer, financial and timeline health puts you in the box seat for running a successful projects office or team.
How you benefit
- Provides your executives with an easy way to visualize the status of all your projects at once
- Trend arrows show if your heading in the right or wrong direction
- Drill into project details to take remedial action quickly and get the project back on track
CHAPTER 7
7. Always available KPI Reporting
Why it’s important
Collecting data is one thing, but presenting it to your management team in a manner that lets them make informed decisions to improve the business is another.
That’s why you need your Customer Project Management solution to come with not just a set of out of the box reports but is also customizable by your business users, so all the reports and dashboards that your executives need to make decisions to drive your business forward are always at hand.
How you benefit
- Report on all your KPIs in real time, 24 hours a day from any device
- Visual dashboards with drill down capabilities to the underlying details
- Configurable to your unique business needs
- Scheduled email updates of your key reports
CHAPTER 8
8. Online Training & Certifications
Why it’s important
When you invest in a solution, it’s typically the start of a multi-year relationship with the vendor and the solution. Over time, new releases will roll out and your team will change as people move roles and you bring on new hires.
So you need a vendor with a strong online training solution to keep your staff up to date and onboard new employees. Look for a vendor with training broken out by roles, and one with a certification program, so you can measure your team’s training effort.
How you benefit
- Keeps your team informed of the benefits your business can get from updated versions of solutions
- Gets your new hires up to speed quickly on your key business solutions
- Certification programs let you find qualified staff with pre-existing competence in your onboarding solution
