The Importance of ICT in Project Management
Tempo Team
Information and communications technology (ICT) plays a profound role in any business growth. It improves employee communication, automates many business operations, and enhances the transparency of your projects. That will enhance client and employee satisfaction, increase profits, and give you a chance to grow.
Here are 6 ways ICT can boost your project management outcomes.
1. Better Employee Collaboration and Productivity
As your team grows, it is hard to keep all employees in the loop. Using email and spreadsheets to communicate with staff members is not enough anymore, since they are too time-consuming. According to Carleton University, your employees spend 11.7 hours at work and 5.3 hours at home reading and sending emails. Another survey shows that employees spend 4.1 hours checking their work-related emails every day. You will need to equip them with faster internal communications channels that will ensure the uninterrupted flow of information.
With drag-and-drop project management tools, you can finally stop the CC and BCC craze. You can now create countless projects, assign new tasks much faster, and add team members that are actively involved in the project. That means that the rest of your team will not receive irrelevant notifications about the tasks that have nothing to do with them. Additionally, your employees are given the decluttered space where they can leave comments, share files, and reassign tasks in a few clicks. They will be able to prioritize their tasks and manage their time more efficiently.
IM chat tools will also help you bridge the gaps between your teams and keep them aligned. With Slack, for example, your employees can create multiple channels, based on the topic, and choose which channel they will join or leave.
It’s already pretty easy to see how beneficial leveraging information and communication technology in project management can be, isn’t it?
2. Managing Remote Employees
One of the main problems project managers face when organizing remote teams is collaboration. To boost your remote team’s morale, you need to provide them with effective multi-channel communication.
Just because your team members cannot meet in person does not mean they cannot get to know each other and collaborate successfully. With the help of SaaS collaboration tools, you can now create virtual water coolers for your employees and encourage them to communicate leisurely. For instance, Help Scout has started its Troop Talks, where remote employees choose a conversation topic and schedule an online meetup to discuss it.
In other words, modern workplaces are mobile-enabled and more flexible. Let’s take the example of online phone systems. Today, they offer far more than traditional call features, such as call waiting or queuing. Leading VoIP service vendors, such as Nextiva or On Sip, even offer comprehensive employee communication suites. Apart from traditional phone calls, project managers can also schedule video conferences with up to 250 people, chat in real-time, host virtual meetings, and share screens.
3. Reducing Costs
As a project manager, you need to continuously communicate with employees and clients. If you are still using a traditional landline phone system, it is time to rethink your decisions. While most analog phone service providers offer affordable plans for local calls, the costs of long-distance and international calls can be exorbitant.
With cloud-based phone services, you do not need to watch the clock while talking to remote staff members or international clients. Those services are delivered over the internet, meaning you will only pay for a monthly rate rather than being charged based on your location or the minutes you spent talking. Yet another benefit of combining ICT and project management.
4. Improving Data Security
Statistics say that 76% of US businesses experienced phishing and social engineering attacks. Therefore, whether your team members are working in-house or from the comfort of their homes, you should never underestimate the power of information security.
Remember that one of the major causes of online hacks is employee negligence. Luckily, as a project manager, you can encourage team members to enroll in a corporate ICT course to learn the basics of cybersecurity.
To establish information security in project management, you should also:
Define strict roles and responsibilities related to data security.
Set clear cybersecurity goals.
Perform risk assessments.
Work with the IT department on developing strict information security policies.
Build a BYOD policy for employees using private devices at work.
Back sensitive data up regularly.
Choose SaaS tools that use encryption.
Install and update cybersecurity tools, such as antimalware, firewall, or encryption software.
5. Tracking Project Success
Tracking employee productivity via spreadsheets is possible, but it would eat up a lot of your time. Fortunately, many automated cloud tools can track employee progress for you, letting you focus on finding opportunities for business growth.
Using project management tools, you can easily track your tasks, projects, and employees. Dashboards are simple, allowing you to visualize your most relevant project data. With project management solutions like Portfolio Manager, you can easily monitor the status of each project. By focusing on the right metrics, KPIs, and data, you can create thorough reports that will understand your projects’ progress and make more informed decisions in the future.
6. Simplified Client Reporting
One of the most significant aspects of any project is client communication. When hiring your team, clients want to know whether you are meeting their expectations. However, tracking the progress of each project across multiple tools requires lots of dedication and time investments.
That is why you should consider using reporting software. Reporting tools integrate with most tools your team already uses. That way, you will be able to combine the features from multiple tools within a reporting program and see your major KPIs in a single dashboard. That will provide your team with more granular data analytics and help you create more relevant client reports.
Over to You
With the help of the right ICT project management tools, project managers can finally automate many aspects of their jobs.
You will be able to organize employees, assign tasks, and track project performance from multiple devices. You will be able to decentralize communications and talk to clients or remote employees without having to worry about the cost of phone calls. Most importantly, you will boost workplace collaboration, which may lead to significant improvements in worker productivity.
All of those benefits really prove the importance of ICT in project management. Have questions about ICT? Ready to upgrade your project management productivity? We’re happy to help. Contact us today!
