Enterprise project management software is one of the most important investments for any organization. Because it has such a significant effect on long-term organizational success, PM software is often the subject of intense focus, even if the amount of money involved is small compared to a company’s overall budget. If project team members aren’t using your PM software effectively, these strategies can help you get them engaged and ensure that you are getting the maximum return for your investment.
Choose the Right Software
The first and most important step in influencing your team to use PM software is choosing the right solution. If your organization is still using old, on premise project management software, your team may never be able to make full use of it, simply because the software may not be able to meet their needs. Today’s highly mobile, highly decentralized project teams need a cloud-based solution that allows team members to provide and receive updates in real time, regardless of their location. And since no two project teams work in exactly the same way, flexibility is another must-have feature. Look for software that lets each project team choose its own methodology, while maintaining the ability to share information with other teams using different project management methods.
Identify Your Current Challenges
Motivating team members to use your enterprise project management software, in some ways, is like making a sale. Simply explaining your software’s features will probably not be enough. In order to get your team to take action, you need to get them thinking about the current challenges they face and how much better they could do their jobs if those challenges were eliminated. Remind your team members of any issues that may have come up on past projects due to miscommunication about schedules, missed task assignments or other common problems, and they’ll become more receptive to a change in their work habits.
Demonstrate Your Software’s Benefits
Once you have your team thinking about the obstacles they face today, show them how your project management software can help. Demonstrate your new solution’s capabilities, and be sure to emphasize the benefits that team members will enjoy once they begin to use it themselves, such as more balanced workloads, more effective communication, improved team performance and easier access to project documents.
Provide Support and Resources
User-friendly project management software like Planview AdaptiveWork is easy for employees to learn, so you shouldn’t need to build in a lengthy training period before team members begin to use it. However, it’s important to let your team know where they can go to get additional information about their software, or to find industry-specific apps to further enhance the solution’s capabilities.
Planview AdaptiveWork delivers best-in-class project and portfolio management solutions for organizations in a wide range of industries. Browse our project management solutions to find out how Planview AdaptiveWork can help you make the most of your project management investment.
