Benefits of Online Project Management
The “Virtual Teams” of today are usually geographically dispersed. The only approach to manage them is by using Online Project Management. The project team can share ideas, data, and resources amongst themselves and also with the customer. The benefits are evident in each of the following procedures:
1. Planning
Online Project Management provides a clear blueprint of the project activities. Resource planning is a great benefiter here because online tools provide the employees with a resource management tab. What resource is currently being used and which are available to be used are mapped intelligently. Team management can be conducted conveniently with better structured and more dynamic workflow system.
2. Communication
Going online helps the employees to remain in touch with fellow colleagues 24/7. Emails have become obsolete and newer technologies of message delivery are being perfected. Immediate notifications can be dispatched within the blink of an eye. The messages can be archived and printed as hard copies too. Some online tools also provide features to attach files to these messages.
3. Milestone Tracking
The whole company and even the clients can keep tabs on the proceedings of the project. By going online, email and SMS admonitions for the upcoming milestone can be generated. The reminders can be pinned to the desktop so that no milestone gets unnoticed. Online tools also let the professional create personal milestones for their specific works.
4. Simulations and Graphics
Simulations for cost benefits, risk assessment, budget reports etc are highly recommended to be performed all through the 5 phases of development. The newest updates from all over the diverged team can be incorporated to simulate the most recent scenarios. Flash based Gantt charts can be dispatched online to the whole team to give them an intuitive view of the task schedules, priorities and dependencies.
5. Document Management
With Online Project Management the challenging task of data management is simplified. Files can be maintained in different shelves. This helps with the access control. Consistency constraints are guarded employing the concept of locks. Recent modifications to any public file can be notified to all concerned.
6. Tracking
Resource, schedule, workforce and issue tracking are major ingredients for project management. Real time tracking helps to refurbish the statistics. Budget reports are heavily dependent on expense tracking for each individual.
7. Security
Security cannot be compromised at any level. All the data is primarily secured using passwords and firewalls. The reliability of SSL layer is implicit to these web based tools. Access permissions are followed earnestly. Backups are more reliable over the web. Even if one server crashes, all the data can be recovered from servers all around the world using the ever mighty internet.
8. Transparency
Transparency provides ethical security. The employees and clients are at ease knowing that every little operation is being chronicled in the central system. No fabrication is possible with a strongly transparent system.
Online Project Management Summary
Managing projects online is also instrumental in change configuration and quality assurance reviews. Their flexibility towards language support helps cope with social and national barricades. Online Project Management has been made the task of a project manager easy – at least as easy as it can get!
Quick Summary of the benefits of online project management
- Planning
- Communication
- Milestone Tracking
- Simulations and Graphics
- Document Management
- Tracking
- Security
- Transparency