Business

How to Make Best Use of Collaborative Project Management Software

posted by Chris Valentine

Project Management software has been around for a couple of decades now and has been effective at managing simple to very complex projects. Project elements can be assigned to individuals, with deadlines set and resources allocated. However the limitation has always been when you add multiple project managers and contributors, how you can get all team members to collaborate effectively, especially when they are based in different locations. This is where collaborative project management software comes to the rescue.

What Does Collaborative Project Management Software Do?

Collaborative Project Management Software can help to bring together globally dispersed teams together. It provides persistent work rooms where team members can interact virtually at any time. These live collaboration facilities help to bridge the gap created by distance, enhancing working relationships, reducing down time, and blowing time differences out of the window.

An additional benefit of Collaborative Project Management Software is that all project-related materials, resources, documents and other project content is store in one cloud location and can be picked up where it was left off by every team member that should have access to it. This improves the speed of project delivery and the quality of it.

The increased likelihood of dispersed teams collaborating on one projects makes Collaborative Project Management Software essential for most businesses, allowing them to build a team based on skills and knowledge rather than on geographic location. Meetings can be scheduled regularly and new resources and team members added as and when required to the project. All resources and materials can be kept within the virtual room or extracted as and when required to share with external parties.

An additional feature provided by some Collaborative Project Management Software providers, is a virtual coaching or mentoring function whereby new team leaders and project managers can be supervised and trained over a period of time to help them develop the skills they require and build their experience while actually supervising an element of a project.

The Benefits of Virtual Meetings

One of the most beneficial aspects of Collaborative Project Management Software is the opportunity to carry out productive and effective virtual meetings. Whether these are for small teams, large groups or for an organization-wide announcement, meetings of all sizes are usually supported, with all invitees able to access the meeting and participate where suitable in it. Calendar invites are sent lodging the meeting in everyone’s diary, with a quick link to access the meeting.

Whereas other solutions are limited to just video interaction during meetings, Collaborative Project Management Software meetings can include sharing of documents, resources and multimedia presentations so that any type of meeting can take place brining together participants from a large number of locations at the same time.

Many organizations are now replacing their project management software and communication channels with a holistic Collaborative Project Management Software which allows for oversight of projects across the organization, bringing together employees, contractors, third parties and trainees into one forum to run projects.

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