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Project management software comes in a lot of shapes and sizes — and some are nicer than others. If you want to give your project team the tools they need to excel, choosing the right type of software should be your number one objective.
One type of software that can help with almost all aspects of project management is a project management information system (PMIS). These powerful platforms offer tools for project planning, cost management, project risk management, tracking project progress, and everything in between.
To help you decide if PMIS software is the right choice for your client services business, let’s take a detailed look at what it is, how it works, and how a PMIS enhances every stage of the project lifecycle.
What is a project management information system?
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A PMIS is a specialized type of project management platform that focuses on managing information related to various project phases.
These systems provide a convenient space for storing and organizing all project information along with a variety of tools, templates, and apps designed to streamline every phase of your projects.
A PMIS offers some of the same functionality as traditional PM platforms, such as task management tools and collaboration features. But what really sets a PMIS apart from other types of platforms is its focus on comprehensive information management. PMIS also tend to feature more capable tools for data analysis and reporting so you can squeeze all the insights out of your project data.
Benefits of using a project management information system
If you still uses Excel spreadsheets to organize project information, prepare to be blown away by what a solid PMIS can offer:
Enhanced collaboration and communication
“The kinds of errors that cause plane crashes are invariably errors of teamwork and communication.”
If you want to keep your project from crashing and burning, giving your team members the right communication and collaboration tools is a great place to start.
PMIS software offers several tools for communicating with team members and project stakeholders alike. This includes chat tools for real-time communication, email integrations, discussion forums, file-sharing tools, and more. These tools make it easy to collaborate on decision-making and project activities regardless of where your team members and stakeholders are located.
A PMIS also helps team members easily find the information they’re looking for, further speeding up communication and collaboration.
Improved planning and scheduling
Project transparency and effective project planning go hand-in-hand. When you can easily visualize every phase of your project and what it will entail, things like planning individual tasks and scheduling deadlines become much easier.
By helping you organize all of the information about your project in one place, PMIS software brings clarity and transparency to project management — which is a major part of project success.
Additional tools like time tracking, Gantt charts, and task management features can provide even more help when it comes to planning and scheduling projects.
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Increased efficiency and productivity
A PMIS platform’s task management features help keep everyone on task and aligned toward common goals. By bringing transparency to the project, they ensure that everyone on the team is informed about their expectations, promoting accountability.
PMIS also help streamline many tasks and activities that go into project management. They offer convenient collaboration tools and an easy-to-use platform for completing project workflows, helping agencies boost their productivity (and ultimately their profitability too!).
Effective resource management
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Effective resource management is key to successful projects; whether it’s money, personnel, or anything else, project resources are never unlimited, and managing them effectively is key.
A PMIS assists with resource planning and management by providing tools and dashboards for estimating resource requirements, assigning resource allocation, and tracking resource usage. This brings visibility to your project budget and other resource utilization metrics, making it easier to manage all of your project resources more effectively.
It can also boost your business’ bottom line. Wasted resources can be a big expense, but using a PMIS to manage resources more efficiently can save a lot of money.
Essential features of project management information systems
Project management information systems can offer plenty of value to project teams, but not all of these systems are created equal. Want a PMIS to optimize project performance? Make sure it has these features:
Task management
A good PMIS should offer a user-friendly platform for managing project tasks. With Teamwork.com, for example, you can quickly create project tasks using a wide range of templates, assign those tasks to team members, and track their progress every step of the way.
Teamwork.com also offers powerful task management features such as task prioritization, task dependencies, time tracking, and more!
These features make it easier to organize all of the various tasks that make up a new project. They ensure that everyone knows what they need to do and nothing slips through the cracks. They also help promote task transparency and the individual accountability that comes with it.
Scheduling and planning
PMIS software assists with every aspect of scheduling and planning projects. It helps you to create informed timelines and milestones for your project based on project data, analyze dependencies and potential risks, and manage resource availability to create a comprehensive project plan.
While it’s important to remain flexible, project management isn’t a situation where you want to fly by the seat of your pants. If you want to create more comprehensive, data-based project plans, choosing a PMIS with advanced scheduling and planning features can help.
Resource allocation and management
A PMIS provides unmatched visibility into resource utilization so that you can allocate and manage project resources more effectively. This applies to a range of key project resources including material, technological, and human resources.
PMIS tools such as resource utilization tracking and resource forecasting provide detailed insights that can help agencies allocate resources more strategically.
Document management and control
Client work projects tend to entail a lot of documentation. If you don’t have a system for conveniently (and securely) storing, accessing, sharing, and managing project documents, issues are bound to follow.
A PMIS like Teamwork.com centralizes all of your project documentation in one easily accessible yet secure space. It provides tools for sharing documents and collaborating on them, tools for quickly finding the documents you need, and tools for tracking document changes. This streamlines document management and gives you full control over the process.
Communication and collaboration tools
When team members work in silos, the results are rarely good. That’s why it’s essential to choose a PMIS that offers effective communication and collaboration tools such as instant messaging, discussion forums, and real-time notifications.
According to the Project Management Institute’s 2023 Pulse of the Profession survey, organizations that prioritize soft skills like communication and collaboration have projects that meet their goals at a 7% higher rate than those that don’t. By equipping your team with tools that make communication and collaboration more efficient, you can level up these soft skills in one fell swoop!
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Budgeting and financial management
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A PMIS offers excellent financial visibility, giving you tools to estimate project costs, create budgets, track expenses, and generate financial reports.
Going over budget is a nightmare that keeps a lot of IT project managers up at night. Thankfully, a good PMIS offers plenty of features designed to help client service businesses maintain financial control and prevent cost overruns.
How a PMIS enhances the project management lifecycle
From initiation to closing, a powerful PMIS like Teamwork.com enhances every stage of the project lifecycle. Here’s how:
Initiation
A PMIS provides a structured framework for initiating projects, offering tools for creating project charters, identifying stakeholders, and establishing initial timelines. This brings transparency and organization to your project right from the start, setting the stage for successful project execution by ensuring everyone is on the same page.
Planning
From Gantt charts to resource calendars to budgeting tools, PMIS software offers a variety of features to help agencies plan out their projects. These tools help streamline and organize the planning process by keeping everything structured and organized. Tools like resource forecasting and risk analysis features also empower a more informed and data-based approach to planning things like project scope, objectives, timelines, and resource requirements.
Execution
A PMIS helps agencies successfully execute project plans by providing tools for seamless collaboration, task management, and real-time communication. Tools like task tracking, instant messaging, and discussion forms help keep team members aligned and working together efficiently. This improves productivity during the execution phase and also reduces the risk of costly errors due to miscommunication.
Monitoring and controlling
Thanks to helpful dashboards, reporting tools, and advanced analytics features, a PMIS such as Teamwork.com helps you monitor and control projects like never before. A PMIS provides real-time insights and complete visibility into a project’s key performance indicators (KPIs) as well as its risks, helping to address issues proactively and keep their projects on track.
Closing
By providing a centralized location for all project documentation, a PMIS can be a big help when it comes time to close a project. Things like finalizing deliverables, obtaining stakeholder approval, and closing out contracts are all streamlined when project documents are easily accessible.
Thankfully, this is an area where PMIS software shines! By offering tools for storing, organizing, and searching project documents, a PMIS helps close projects efficiently and error-free.
Enhance every stage of the client work lifecycle with Teamwork.com
A PMIS like Teamwork.com is the all-in-one platform teams executing client work need to enhance every phase of their projects.
From real-time communication tools to task management tools to tools for effective resource allocation (and much, much more), Teamwork.com puts everything you need to manage projects more effectively right at your fingertips.
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