ADI News

Internet Marketing – Task Management Software and the Next Steve Jobs

A vision, talent, clarity, organization, ambition and a seemingly unstoppable nemesis, which of these do you possess and which can you obtain? Steve Jobs built his legacy from the ground up, sticking to a mission of creating a hybrid of art, music, community and technology and this all started from a garage with a few friends. While there will never quite be another Steve Jobs and while not everyone has such an imposing nemesis as what IBM was to Apple in the early days, your company has every bit as much potential. It’s that passion that wakes you up every morning and keeps you working through the night and if you only had a few extra dollars or a few extra hours, you could really finally breakthrough.

Think, rethink, try and try again, if this isn’t working, well then you might be doing it wrong.

If you are a ‘small fish’ company and you are battling your way to the top of your niche, alone, then it might be time to reconsider a ‘school of fish strategy’. There are hundreds of other startups and small businesses out there, one person, or a group of friends, trying to build a productive company just like you. By combining efforts, your companies could have a better chance of thriving in a saturated market. What you want is to find companies small companies that offer services that strengthen your efforts. By creating partnerships and alliance, either temporary or permanent, your ‘school of fish’ becomes large enough to take on the sharks or whatever larger sea dwelling creatures that you imagine larger businesses to be.

By adding service providers through a one-off or contract, you can build a team to handle any current projects that you may have, which gives you more time to work on obtaining more projects. Well, in theory that sounds right, but what happens is that either you or one of your partners gets bogged down in a sea of managing outsourced talent. That’s where task management software can help.

Task management software can make a smaller company or even just one person, be organized enough to work as if they are a much larger enterprise. Task management software offers organization and clarity so that the small business owner can express their vision and talent in the most efficient way possible. ProTasker is one company that small businesses will appreciate, because ProTasker started off in the same way and because of that, they give back to the small business community with a sixty day free trial of their software.

With task management software, the small business can add that element of organization that larger companies use to thrive in this ever changing world of business. So, if one of the missing elements in your business plan has been a lack of organization in task management and project management, consider adding ProTasker to your team. If you have ever lost a client or failed to get a client because of a failure in communication within your company or someone dropped the ball into a disorganized pile of projects, then task management software is what can change that.

If you are not a project manager or have never interacted with project management or task management software, then here’s a primer on why it is so important to have in the next five years of your business. Hope this helps with your internet marketing strategy and working to strengthen your business in 2012:

The Utilization of Project Management Software as a Method for Dealing Project Change Requests

The utilization of projects opposed to more traditional operational practices has become a standard in many modern work places. This change is said to have come about due to the requirement for companies in many industries to operate and remain profitable in the increasingly competitive, ever changing, contemporary business environment.

As the current international business situation is so variable and unpredictable however, many companies, and project managers alike, are experiencing difficulties with the utilization of traditional static project management methods. These issues are coming about, in part, due to the incorporation of internal and external changes made to projects post-commencement. Authors such as Symonds (2011) have therefore cited change management as “an inevitable part of any modern project”.

Many contemporary project managers are consequently, extremely concerned about the practice of ‘change management’, which is basically defined as the procedure of tracking and applying changes during the course of a project. Change control is furthermore described by Haughey (2011) as a five step process, the last four steps of which, directly involve the project manager. These steps are:

The submission of a proposal regarding change(s) to the project.
The generation of a summary regarding the impact the change (s) may have.
The reaching of a decision regarding whether or not to implement the proposed change(s).
The implementation of said change(s).
The confirmation that the change(s) has been correctly carried out to the petitioners’ satisfaction.

Owing to the fact that change management can, over the scope of several concurrent projects, become an extremely pressing issue for project managers, many managers have enlisted the aid of various project management software packages to carry out the bulk of these processes.

Project management software initially simplifies the procedure of change management by allowing change requests to be raised and prioritized by both internal and external parties, via the completion of an online form. During the completion of the online form the petitioner must generally assign a priority, an implementation date and a short summery of the effect that this change may have on the project. This prompt, standardized request format consequently allows managers to quickly review and respond to change requirements.

After the manager has decided to implement a change, management software is able to further aid them by providing a real-time insight regarding the effect of the change implementation. Such software can also offer the client, upper management, project manager and collaborators, with detailed up-to-date reports, which can be generated on demand. This enables the manager to more easily confirm that the change has been carried out to the required specifications set down by the internal or external change petitioner.

It can easily be distinguished that project management software has the potential to provide project managers with a useful tool for better dealing with both internally and externally requested project changes. It is furthermore proposed, that this application will become increasingly utilized, as companies are forced to become increasingly flexible and efficient to cater to their various clients’ needs.

The Advantages of Project Management Software Regarding Project Collaborators

Traditionally many businesses have maintained ‘normal operations’, which generally entail the regular manufacture and sale of the same product, or products. The increasing globalization of businesses, as well as the escalating pace of many undertakings however, has resulted in a progressive utilization of specialized, conceivably one-off ‘projects’ as a standard way of operating.

This exponential increase in the use of projects is said to have come about mainly due to the fact that companies require novel projects to remain efficient, flexible and competitive, especially in the current international market. There are however, numerous issues, which have arisen from the growing contemporary employment of projects.

As a project is generally comprised of an assemblage of people working toward a defined goal, these operations require a central ‘project manager’, who orientates and controls the enterprise from conception to completion. Most contemporary project managers are spread extremely thin, due to the fact that they are responsible for the administration of numerous simultaneous operations. This phenomenon has been termed ‘project overload’ and results in the following dilemmas regarding project team members, or ‘collaborators’:

Inaccessibility of key individuals (such as the project manager).
Inability to communicate effectively with one another.
Obscurity of responsibilities.
Division into groups which work alone and sometimes (unknowingly) against one another.

These issues have the potential to cause projects to run inefficiently and over budget, deadlines to be missed; and may ultimately result in the overall failure of a project, or in extreme cases a business. Project managers have consequently turned to project management software as a method of mitigating the occurrence of these events.

Project management software is advantageous as it can be employed by the project manager right from the conception and planning phases, through to the completion of a project. One of the main benefits of project management software however, is its ability to provide a communication platform for collaborators. Such platforms generally allow for open transparent communication between all involved, in comparison to traditional closed means of communication such as email.

Improved communication consequently allows key individuals to be more easily and readily accessible, therefore making project operation much more efficient. This is especially important in the case of ‘virtual’ or international projects where there is little, or no, face-to-face contact between project members.

Project management software, furthermore, allows for the clear real-time allocation of responsibilities and tasks within a project setting. This means that all collaborators are generally aware of not only what they are doing, but also of what other project members are working on. This in turn permits team members to plan ahead, foresee possible issues, and to work in better unity with one another.

It can consequently be noted that project management software like that offered by ProTasker is becoming an essential component for project managers in many project situations, as it allows for smooth and efficient operations. The increasing contemporary interest in the utilization of projects signifies that such software will only continue to increase in value, as project managers become subject to ever mounting pressures, such as ‘project overload’.