Sometimes I wonder if folks that develop project solutions actually 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 the top of the hierarchy, then teams, then assets tasks and deadlines. That's not how we work nowadays… especially marketers. Our agency is easily juggling 30+ projects on a daily basis. Each team member is probably juggling up to a dozen.
This is how Project Management Software consistently works:
Here are three scenarios I can't seem to ever do with our Project Management software:
- 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 changed the task prioritization for the members who work across projects accordingly.
- 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.
- 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:
We've actually experimented with developing a task manager outside our project manager to handle some of this stuff, 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?
Technically, this may not be “project management software”, but I am starting to use Trello in my day to day operations. Simplicity is one of its greatest virtues. My non-technical clients can even understand how to use it within 5 minutes.
And it’s free.
Thanks @andrewangle:disqus, I’ll check it out!
Personally, I use my own project management software for my SEO business. Built specifically for SEO businesses only. Project management itself is just too “general” to be 100% effective to all types of business in different industries.
Douglas, we’ve built Brightpod (http://brightpod.com) with exactly this is mind. Most PM tools aren’t built for marketing teams but you should take a look at Brightpod.
A few of the things we’re doing differently is a way for agencies to filter projects by clients, involve clients in discussions (without them having to login), an editorial calendar and an easy Kanban style layout that makes more sense for ongoing campaigns that are spread out over stages.
I’d love to know what you think about it so do give it a spin!
Hi Douglas. Thanks for sharing your valuable insight! Some time passed by, but it is still actual.
I’d suggest to have a look at our Project Management solution for marketing teams – Comindware Project – when seen through the perspective of your requirements highlighted in the article.
Comindware Project allows task prioritization. To do that you should just go to workload section. Click on a team member to see ALL of their tasks across ALL of their projects and then will be able to adjust the prioritization on a personal basis. Unfortunately, there’s no client/ project prioritization, but prioritization on a personal basis might help – not so quick variant, but any way. As for asset sharing you can create specific discussion room titled like “Useful Assets” and use it as a single hub for all the assets. They will be available across projects.
More information about Comindware Project and 30-day trial are available here – http://www.comindware.com/solutions/marketing-project-management/ We will be glad to hear your feedback about the solution. Would you be interested to review it?
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Great article. I would share my experience with “Done”, it is a project management software.
Once the Done Application was applied to our business procedures, we realized that productivity levels among our group of employees were all over the place and that our project managers were deficient in billing the appropriate hours per client project. Within the first month, after the system implementation, we were able to recover more than 10% in billable hours.
Some of the team members thought we were spying on them. Some faulted other team members, and others just didn’t want to listen and decided to leave the company. But at the end the day, the message was understood by the remaining team members and, today, the team is profitable again. Our project managers no longer need to spend as much time monitoring the team, and everybody gained personal autonomy.
After twelve months of use, our profitability was up more than 60% compared to previous years. Done’s transparency offered to give the teams a more serene working atmosphere while maintaining a high level of performance.
I would suggest you to visit http://www.doneapp.com for more information.
Try Bitrix24. It has all of what you need and want. I run a digital agency also. I felt the same pain