Introduction
Technology (especially “task management application”) has been and will proceed to be an important part of venture management discussion and follow. This is justified. The right venture administration computer software that is carried out properly can have important, positive consequences on an business. Even so, the wrong computer software, or software program carried out poorly can pull an group down.

In our knowledge, we have noticed businesses wrestle with the correct implementation of the right computer software. A lot of moments we find this stems from a restricted or misunderstood view of the function of technology in the initial spot. For example, companies might look for a device that can just “schedule tasks”, or they just do not think via the broader, strategic objective that the technology need to provide. This qualified prospects to picking the improper technological innovation or not employing it in a way that supplies the most value for the organization.

The objective of this white paper is to provide a refreshing viewpoint on 5 key needs of technology (and venture management software program in distinct) in task management.

These reasons occur from classes learned in the aviation field. The aviation area is comparable to project management in the sense that it seeks to produce predictable, profitable outcomes in an activity with inherent danger. It makes use of engineering heavily to fulfill that aim. By finding out the role of technological innovation in aviation, we can derive the main and comparable functions that technologies must provide in project management. In so undertaking, we can also increase the strategic use of technology to support our organization’s strategic targets, wants, and processes.

Objective 1: Situational Consciousness
Some of the most crucial aviation systems, these kinds of as the ILS (instrument landing program), glass panel shows, and GPS (global positioning method) are targeted on situational awareness: allowing the pilot know at each instant where the plane is headed, how it is oriented, how higher it is, where it requirements to go, how it is performing, or a amount of other items of info.

Task administration technologies is no different. It wants to give situational recognition of each and every project’s predicament, exactly where they are headed, how they are doing, and how they need to have to proceed. It also demands to supply consciousness of the circumstance of an organization’s total project “portfolio.” If you cannot make use of your technology to know the current predicament of your initiatives, you are not using technology properly.

The “recent task situation” could be different depending on your firm and its certain processes and goals. It may possibly suggest the position of the undertaking schedules, the top quality of the deliverables, the current diploma of threat, the satisfaction of the clientele, or the condition of the funds or revenue numbers.

It could mean how present useful resource utilization will influence the project, what concerns have arisen that would derail the undertaking, or what has slipped via the cracks.

The critical point is to always be informed of the undertaking scenario so that you can make intelligent, timely, properly-educated selections.

You can element this into your venture management engineering implementation by undertaking the following:

Recognize the important information that you want to preserve situational awareness.
Make certain that your project administration software program device(s) can keep track of and provide this data.
Train your personnel on delivering this info inside the resource.

Function 2: Choice Creating
In aviation, pilots should be ready to make fast conclusions employing exact data. For case in point, a pilot demands to know just what is wrong with the plane to make a good selection on subsequent measures. They want to know how significantly gas is remaining to make a decision on temperature avoidance.

Equally, managers want to have precise information to make selections in undertaking management. They need to know what is improper with a project so they can make a good selection on subsequent measures. They need to have to know source availability to prioritize efforts and pick directions. In several companies, this sort of info is not conveniently obtainable, either because the correct toolset is not in spot or the toolset has not been applied in a way that supports this strategic function.

Above ten a long time back there was a task supervisor place that was held by the writer of this whitepaper. Every week, the venture administration team would commit several hours (virtually) compiling long position studies for administration. They would want to keep track of down the status of every thing and document them, along with a host of other details. Is it excellent to have this information compiled? Of course. But it positive is a resource-intensive way of doing it that could be substituted with very good technologies and good process. Was the details successfully and used? That was unclear.

Question by yourself, what is the information you require to make great conclusions? What problems does your organization routinely confront? Do you have true-time insight into individuals difficulties? Do you have all of this info commonly offered at all occasions? If not, make a pro-lively energy to use process and technology to allow your determination making to be considerably a lot more correct, informed, and powerful.

In purchase to make decisions, two issues have to take place:

The information needed to make conclusions need to be compiled.
The details necessary to make selections have to be commonly available.

Venture management application technologies suits into this broader objective, but yet again you need to guarantee that:

You know what information you need to have.
Your undertaking administration application technology is capable of compiling the data you need to have to make choices.
The information in your venture administration application technology is often easily obtainable.
Your group is educated on how to appropriately compile the proper info into the instrument so that you can retrieve it to make conclusions.

Objective three: Automation of Regimen Duties
A recent post in an aviation periodical referred to a certain modern day airliner as a 650,000 pound pc. There is a good deal of technological innovation in cockpits nowadays and much of it automates program tasks for pilots. For example, pilots can use automatic engine administration methods that get rid of the need for the pilots to handle the distinct thrust stages, temperatures, and other motor parameters checklists are automated alerts (notifications) are automatic and so forth.

This automation does three issues:

It reduces the threat of human error (i.e. an individual can make a mistake although subsequent a unexciting, regimen method).
It frees up the methods (aka pilots) for a lot more crucial factors.
It enables much more tasks to be completed in the identical quantity of time with fewer people (a 3rd pilot is no lengthier needed).

There are numerous, many schedule duties carried out in task management which just take an enormous amount of time. Each and every firm has program duties that it has to do to be operational. Sometimes it is inconceivable how several countless hrs are invested on mundane actions. This may only be because it is far more relaxed and effortless to do things the exact same way that we are utilised to doing them. Some that come to head contain the notification of activities, the reporting of status, obtaining out if some thing is accomplished or not, discovering a document, routing incoming requests for work, filling out and disseminating forms, and collecting time.

The appropriate task management computer software technological innovation can automate the routine factors that your firm does. This has related benefits for undertaking administration:

It minimizes the threat of human error in your processes.
It frees up sources to do much more essential things (this sort of as billable work or having operate off somebody else’s plate).
It helps make it simpler to execute the process (less ability is necessary to complete it).
It enables far more responsibilities to be attained in the same sum of time with fewer individuals.

If you put into action or use engineering without possessing this broader goal in head, you will not be using your technological innovation efficiently. In simple fact, you may be simply swapping a single instrument out for yet another with no a web advantage.

What are techniques that technology in undertaking administration can automate routine tasks?

Getting status inputs (these kinds of as a group member entering per cent full) and immediately rolling that up into venture-amount status.
Automatically notifying important staff when an concern has arisen.
Centralizing all information so that there is one particular spot to uncover it.
Routinely routing incoming requests so that the correct person can see and reply to it.
Accumulating time noted details and automatically generating studies on genuine time utilization.
Routinely aggregating all task ideas and schedules into beneficial useful resource utilization views and stories.
Automatically creating new initiatives from templates that comply with a pre-described route and remove the need to re-create that route.
Automating the era of proposals and other templated files.

What this appears like for your business will be diverse due to the fact you have distinct strategic aims, different procedures, and distinct actions that try to eat up a good deal of your staff’s time.

The level is to understand the function of technological innovation so that you can use it strategically to complete a particular purpose.

As with other functions, you require to get professional-energetic motion to satisfy this function by ensuring:

You know which duties are program and time-intensive in your organization.
Your venture management software program device(s) can automate these routine duties.
Your undertaking administration application instruments(s) are setup correctly to automate these routine duties.

Objective 4: Help for Standardized Processes
Standardized procedures are a massive component of the aviation globe and a massive cause why it has experienced success at creating predictable, profitable results in a risky environment. In aviation, technology supports the standardized approach surroundings. Engineering is not applied due to the fact it would be cool or neat. It is strategically carried out to assist the standardized procedures. For illustration, element of the takeoff checks approach is to validate that the correct runway is programmed into the flight management laptop. Well, in numerous techniques, the proper runway is exhibited proper the place the pilot wants to see it to total this normal procedure. It is also regular process that when an aircraft is descending in clouds in direction of a runway that they can not commence beneath a particular altitude unless the runway setting is in sight. Technological innovation supports this procedure by displaying the bare minimum altitude and alerting the pilots if they go underneath it.

Technological innovation in venture management tends to be separated from the objective of supporting standardized procedures. We may possibly have a procedure, but we may possibly also be hunting for a “scheduling resource.” In other terms, we seem at them in different ways, but the two go hand in hand. 1 of the principal purposes of technology have to be to assist the standardized procedures of an business. Why is a standardized approach essential? Due to the fact you can’t have a predictable (purchased) result if you have a random procedure. The process must be standardized and purchased.

Technological innovation ought to aid us put into action, sustain, and enhance standardized procedures throughout the business. Illustrations include on the internet checklists and templates, exception reporting of objects outdoors the method (aka alerts), and workflow automation that follows a distinct approach. These types of factors assistance the strategic method and the all round objective of utilizing strategic goals.

Your undertaking administration software program instrument(s) need to satisfy this fundamental goal as nicely. You also want to get the adhering to professional-active measures:

Make sure that your processes are documented accurately.
Guarantee that your venture administration application instrument(s) support your processes.
Guarantee that your team understands how to handle the procedure in the tool.
Ensure that your team is trained on executing the method inside of the tool.

Objective 5: Insight into Developments, Issues, and Performance
In aviation, there are methods and even companies in area to mine information and discover trends and likely potential dangers. Is there a development of particular problems that pilots are making that need to have to be addressed by means of coaching? Is there an strange spike in routine maintenance anomalies for a certain plane?

This is frequently the furthest point from the head of a undertaking manager. We are so active with the working day to day that we cannot (or will not) take the time to seem at issues like tendencies and possible problems. Nonetheless, that is component of our work. rememo.io/ru/about and risks are often lurking and will strike when we least assume it.

This is in which engineering arrives in to play. As in aviation, technologies can make it less difficult to do this. The correct technologies will support us operate stories, appear at knowledge exceptions, and supply comparable sights into our undertaking administration environments.

There are two factors below really worth mentioning:

When you choose technological innovation, you must maintain this function in mind. How simple is it to mine for different kinds of knowledge?
We need to be experts at speedily drilling into info and extracting helpful data.

Conclusion
Businesses proceed to wrestle with both inadequate task administration software program resources or task administration software resources that are not carried out appropriately. The purpose of this paper was to aid companies realize the broader reasons of technology in task management by seeking at classes from the aviation discipline. By carrying out so, corporations can increase their viewpoint and professional-actively put into action these reasons in their very own task management environments, hence producing a toolset that progressively supports the strategic targets, demands, and processes of the firm.

Want to Find out More?

Check out the “Flying into Task Administration” site at [http://www.flyingintoprojectmanagement.com] for a lot more perception, lessons, and discussion on what project management can discover from aviation to produce predictable results and deal with danger.

About the Author

Mark Kenny is an aviation fanatic and task management practitioner. He holds a personal pilot’s license with an instrument score, about 200 hrs of traveling time, and practically selected aviation as his profession. Mr. Kenny has also spent over fifteen many years functioning in project management in a variety of capacities. He obtained a Certification in Task Management by way of the College of Washington, held venture administration roles in the manufacturing, large-tech, and health care industries, and is at present the President of Group Interactions, Inc., which develops EnterPlicity.