Marketing Tools

The Problem with Project Management Software

Sometimes, I wonder if folks who develop project management solutions (PMS) use them. Within the marketing space, project management software is a must – keeping track of ads, posts, videos, whitepapers, use case scenarios, and other projects is a huge issue.

The problem that we seem to run into with all project management software is the hierarchy of the application. Projects are at the top of the hierarchy, then teams, then assets, tasks, and deadlines. That’s not how we work nowadays… especially marketers. Our agency juggles over projects daily. Each team member is probably juggling up to a dozen.

This is how Project Management Software consistently works:

Project Management Hierarchy

There are three scenarios I can’t seem to ever do with our Project Management System:

  1. Client/Project Prioritization – client deadlines change all the time, and the importance of each client may differ. I wish I could increase or decrease the importance of a client and have a system that changes the task prioritization for the members who work across projects accordingly.
  2. Task Prioritization – I should be able to click on a member of the Project Management software and see ALL of their tasks across ALL of their projects and then adjust the prioritization on a personal basis.
  3. Asset Sharing – We often develop one solution for a client and then use it across clients. Currently, that requires us to share it within each project. It’s crazy that I can’t share a chunk of code across projects and clients.

This is the reality of how we actually work:

Agency Project Management

We’ve experimented with developing a task manager outside our project manager to handle some of this, but never seem to have the time to finish the tool. The more we work on it, the more I wonder why we wouldn’t just develop our own project management software altogether. Anyone know of a solution that works closer to the way projects and marketers actually do?

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Douglas Karr

Douglas Karr is a fractional Chief Marketing Officer specializing in SaaS and AI companies, where he helps scale marketing operations, drive demand generation, and implement AI-powered strategies. He is the founder and publisher of Martech Zone, a leading publication in marketing technology, and a trusted advisor to startups and enterprises alike. With a track record spanning more than $5 billion in MarTech acquisitions and investments, Douglas has led go-to-market strategy, brand positioning, and digital transformation initiatives for companies ranging from early-stage startups to global tech leaders like Dell, GoDaddy, Salesforce, Oracle, and Adobe. A published author of Corporate Blogging for Dummies and contributor to The Better Business Book, Douglas is also a recognized speaker, curriculum developer, and Forbes contributor. A U.S. Navy veteran, he combines strategic leadership with hands-on execution to help organizations achieve measurable growth.

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