What we define as “wasted time” in project management is the sum of low value-added tasks performed by all of your collaborators during the life cycle of a project. This waste is ubiquitous in most businesses. What are the reasons for this waste? And above all, how do you improve the productivity of low value-added work ?
1 – Reporting
Probably one of the most important tasks, reporting can also become very time-consuming: manual collection of information, reconciliation and formatting of data for various reports and project steering committees. In addition, the accumulation of information from Excel files and local files leads to the multiplication of inaccurate, redundant, missing, unavailable, unknown or obsolete data and consequently a lack of reporting reliability.
Project team members report spending an average of one day per week preparing reports for steering committees or project follow-ups. It is essential to standardize reporting processes and adopt a tool to centralize information.
2 – Timesheet
Nobody likes to fill in timesheets, yet they are essential for monitoring projects. Users need to dedicate time to their timesheets, while project managers and resource managers have to spend time administering them.
Time tracking is important to ensure that all project team members correctly report their time spent on project, out-of-scope tasks, vacation, etc. Timesheet automation saves you time and allows teams to focus more on value-added activities.
3 – Searching for project documents
Project team members often report spending more than one day a week searching for important project-related documents such as models, key indicators and financial information. A recent study indicates that for 35% of companies, not having a “centralized document exchange system” is a fundamental business issue and often results in the purchase of project management software. Establishing a centralized database simplifies and speeds up document searches.
4 – Poor communication or lack of communication
In the age of digital and social networks, while there is a plethora of communication channels, it is hard to believe that project managers waste time hunting and transmitting information. Overloaded mail boxes, constant phone calls, meetings … all means of communication that have the capacity to absorb the hours of your days like blotting paper. As for documents, communication must be centralized to be truly effective.
5 – The overwhelming number of tools
Today, you can choose between thousands of collaborative work tools to simplify our job … which could end up making us lose time! Your resources fill in their timesheets and absences on your ERP. You assign tasks in a planning tool that does not take them into account. You share documents on the internal chat tool and validate decisions by email … And of course, none of these tools are integrated with each other.
Just as for documents search, centralization is key! It’s important to opt for just one tool that integrates all the logistics of project management.
6 – Manual tasks management
The lack of automation of a large volume of simple and repetitive tasks, such as managing timesheets, communicating tasks assignments and monitoring the implementation of project activities. Of the companies we surveyed, 62% cited “time / project cost entry” as the main problem resulting in the purchase of project management software.
The basic function of a project management software is to automate common low value-added tasks, such as time sheet administration, job assignment communication, execution tracking, and validation,. alerts and associated notifications.
The ultimate solution to eliminate waste in your projects
Low value-added tasks performed by project teams represent a much larger workload than high value-added tasks. It is therefore better to focus productivity efforts on low value-added work to improve overall project productivity.
A simple solution to solve all these problems is to adopt a portfolio and project management software, like Sciforma, that integrates all the features mentioned above, such as the centralization of information, documents, means of communication & automation of simple tasks.
Ready to take the next step? Download our ebook on eliminating waste and lost time in your projects.
Camélia Docquin
Camélia is Sciforma’s Marketing Manager for Europe and enjoys learning different perspectives of the current business environment and project management challenges that enterprises and individuals face daily. Main interests include : innovation, digital transformation, and strategy execution.