5 Signs Your Projects Need A Collaboration Tool

Executing large and complex projects effectively has never been easy. Now, organizations with a reputation for excellence are being further challenged to deliver. Shelter-at-home and work from home requirements have highlighted operational norms that are common with well-established firms, yet are hampering workflow in the “new normal”.

The appearance of these five signs may indicate your organization needs a Project Collaboration Tool:

No source of truth:

Searching for the most up to date version of a document is frustrating and an unnecessary way to allocate resources. However, when teams are working from home and saving files direct to their hard-drives, this situation cannot be helped.

Without a project collaboration tool, best case, it takes longer than it should to identify the most recent document version. Worst case, multiple parties contributing means that changes are overwritten or versions conflict with each other.

Accessibility issues:

Project files need to both be adequately secured while also be available to appropriate access levels. Achieving both without a specialized, organization-wide tool can be almost impossible.

Without a project collaboration tool, best case, it takes longer than it should to get access to the files you need. Worst case, files are lost when specific devices fail, or aren’t properly secured.

Informal Processes:

Each team member has their own way of working. Without centralized, face to face leadership, processes can suffer.

There’s the quickest and most effective way to achieve desired project outcomes, but if it’s not documented and implemented using a project collaboration tool, organizations can leave themselves open to operational excellence vulnerabilities.

Best case scenario, outcomes are inconsistent and new team members take longer to ramp up. Worst cases scenario, junior team members miss critical steps in delivery.

Duplicated efforts:

Without real-time project updates and transparent roles and responsibilities, siloed team members may end up executing the same tasks, unbeknownst to each other.

Best case, this is an ineffective use of resources. Worst case, optics in front of stakeholders are compromised.

Project bottlenecks

Supervisors and organizational leaders are responsible for so much and are pulled in multiple directions every day. At times, projects become bottlenecked, waiting in an inbox unnecessarily. Team members may be delayed without access to status updates appropriate to their responsibilities.

Best case, projects take longer than they need to. Worst case, critical initiatives stagnate and fail to be completed.

Organizations that have been required to rapidly and substantially modify their daily operations are learning, some more painfully than others, that they are challenged to continue to operate as effectively.

Often on multiple time zones, locations and schedules, made more difficult by school closures and mental health concerns, employees need all the support they can get to collaborate effectively.

Decentralized Teams Collaborate For Project Success with ISETIA – the award-winning Project Collaboration tool firms are deploying to save between 4-30% of project costs. ISETIA has helped organizations large and small save between 4-30% of their project costs.