Why Project Management?
We're used to managing cases, not projects. While we have technology systems that help us receive and track cases, few programs use systems that help staff manage and coordinate on projects or collaborative efforts. Instead, most of us rely on ad hoc management systems and email.
You work on projects more than you realize -- work with courts on self-help initiatives, with social service agencies on outreach projects, with other offices on hotline development, with state entities on various task forces, staff or website committees, with staff or other programs statewide or regional conferences, with supervisors on implementing some new procedure or technology...and more. Increasingly, we want staff to co-author and collaborate on manuals and support materials as well.
What does Project Management Software Do for Us?
Project management software provides users with a centralized system within which to track all the aspects of a project. There, you can do things like:
- Plan
- Schedule and record milestones
- Construct “to do” lists
- Assign tasks to staff
- Track time spent on tasks within a project
- Share working drafts of documents, and
- Leave messages to everyone working on a project.
PM software saves you thinking time because it gathers this information into one place where you can see it all at once. It saves you even more time because it guarantees that you will always know where to find the newest version of a document, the date of a deadline or that critical observation that you remember reading, but cannot find in your email. (Of course, another benefit of using a centralized system for planning and tracking projects is that it removes all those planning and tracking tasks from your email…)
