IT Project Management Software
IT project management software is a type of project management tool designed to plan and manage IT projects through their entire lifecycle. While different variations of project management software exist, most of them can handle a wide array of processes including general project planning and management, verifying technological capabilities, handling software integrations, database and storage management, and controlling costs to stay within budgets. Furthermore, planning for potential technology changes as well as security and data risks is crucial.
Companies naturally want to produce quality products and projects in the shortest time possible and with the fewest hiccups along the way. By using a cost-effective and cloud-based project management tool, they can more easily achieve this goal. What makes IT project management software different from other project management software solutions is the department and use-cases these solutions primarily focus on. As such, they are often used by corporate IT departments and independent project managers to track task assignments, expenses and the progress of application development, maintenance and deployments.
Any IT project relies heavily on teamwork and collaboration, which an effective IT project management software solution optimizes. This is achieved by focusing largely on getting team members to communicate efficiently with each other, therefore reducing the risks of failed tasks and miscommunication within the workforce. The usual issues that arise among IT workers are said to be communication and accountability. IT project management software solutions are designed to fix these problems.
When several people are involved in a project, it often takes time and many meetings to delegate all tasks properly. However, due to unexpected situations such as employees missing their deadlines or certain tasks needing more manpower, projects can often be delayed—or worse, discarded. This has a negative effect on the entirety of your organization as you can lose money and other resources. Companies and enterprises can, as a result, make use of IT project management software to prevent such events from happening.
IT project management software solutions keep team members on-track and improve productivity. They aim for organization, efficiency and effortless management. As such, these products typically have features including risk management, resource management, dependencies, milestones and critical path, third-party integrations, boards, time tracking, customizable workflow, as well as native mobile apps.
JIRA is an issue tracking and project management solution for software developers and IT support staff. Quick and easy to set up and configure, JIRA is great for agile software developers. It is also highly customizable, with the capability to utilize Kanban boards, and the abilities that come with a myriad of add-ons.
Project management software solutions are often used by industries focusing largely on marketing, information technology and education industries. For IT companies, IT project management software is crucial for their business. Creating programs and modules is not an easy task and requires pivotal collaboration. Each aspect of the applications is complex and has to be finished on a tight deadline.
With this in mind, IT project management solutions have several tools to assist you. Examples of these are Gantt charts, Kanban boards and task lists. With these tools, you can plan, manage tasks, collaborate, manage teams, track time and generate reports with relative ease.
One such IT project management software solution is Jira, a product developed by Atlassian as a system tailored to help users capture, assign and set priorities with their work. Developing applications becomes easier thanks to its intuitive design, interactive interface and seamless processes. It shares several features with most IT project management software solutions, as highlighted in the following:
This feature refers to the ability of the system to enter, prioritize, track and maintain work intake forms. Work intake forms are work requests from both external and internal clients. They usually contain the following information: the goal of the project, targeted audience, budgetary constraints and expected deadline of its completion.
Work intake forms are an effective way to contain and access data in an organized and centralized location. It reduces the risk of jotting down confusing instructions and missing out on important information. Furthermore, team members are able to view the work requests from their own devices. With work intake forms, everybody is well informed of the details for the project which saves time and effort.
Since you are working with multiple people on a variety of projects, different task views should be implemented. What this feature entails is the customization of the interface with accordance to each team members’ individual preferences. This feature helps to boost productivity and enhance creativity for the entire workforce since they are able to work in their own simplified way.
Additionally, since projects have different objectives and require distinct project tools, the feature offers a multitude of views. They are as follows: table view, Gantt chart, list view and board view. This allows the management to view the projects through different formats.
For IT companies, projects can be recurring or similar. In order to save time, you can create and modify templates to easily copy over information and details. It’s a way to manage the work intake forms and compare work requests from previous projects.
Difficulties and issues are bound to arise in each project. The trick is identifying them early on or during testing to reduce the risk of further complications later on. The custom workflow statuses feature allows you to customize and create statuses based on each individual task. Usually, workflow statuses refer to three options: in progress, in revisions and in review. This does not help in the improvement of the project as it only vaguely describes the status of a particular task.
Furthermore, with each task, you can identify what the problems usually are. If a project keeps getting stuck on a specific step or if an issue keeps recurring, you are able to fix it immediately. Not all IT companies work have similar processes so it is important to sign up for a software solution that allows for customization.
It can be difficult to pinpoint each team member’s responsibility in existing projects, especially in large companies working with multiple projects simultaneously. If not properly monitored or managed, a project can be held back due to a single task or a missed deadline. Have your software solution automate and notify certain members of your team regarding their tasks and responsibilities.
The automated task assignment feature lets you monitor and track the progress of each team member and their respective duties. It does this by auto-routing requests and notifying employees based on the details of the project and the agreed schedule of events. It integrates well with the earlier feature. Once a team member is finished with their task, the status changes to accordingly and is sent to the next employee.
IT projects are a collaborated effort from both the team leaders and their team members. They require a smooth and seamless workflow between several integrated processes within the workforce while maintaining steady communication. You also need to be mindful of the time as any delay in one task affects the other tasks.
Managing projects is a difficult and daunting task, especially if multiple are happening all at once. You become in charge of several people and tasks, which you have to consistently track. Before, team leaders would make use of whiteboards and post-it notes. Nowadays, people search for optimized software solutions to get better results. It is also worth noting that these solutions come with a customizable interface so it’s easier to tweak the system to better suit your requirements and standards.
With the help of IT project management software, you focus less on organizing your own team and more on improving the quality of the project. This is done through the integrated functions IT project management software has. With features ranging from collaboration to time tracking, improvements in efficiency, productivity, and overall business organization is expected to benefit companies utilizing IT project management software.
Asides from an optimized project management tool, companies and organizations can also reap the benefits of easier collaboration, better scheduling, better communication, easier delegation of tasks, streamlined budget management, and shared access to documentation.
When you have this software solution, collaboration tools are easily accessible by both team leaders and team members. It also becomes easier to schedule deadlines for assigned tasks while maintaining communication between members. Additionally, documentation and finance are taken into consideration as the system lets you access and manage the budget and paperwork for the project. At the end of the day, what you want is a simple management tool to assist in managing different projects with the added benefit of saving time, allocating resources and improving work ethic.
