Tools in project management: creating order out of chaos
A tool is a resource that helps you achieve your goal, not a goal in itself. Likewise in project management, tools in project management help to structure the project and create order out of chaos. But of course, the tools you choose don’t necessarily guarantee good project management, let alone a successful project.
Nicolas De Greef, Managing Partner of Equalminds, sticks to the KISS principle when choosing his PM tools: “Keep it simple, stupid!” he says. “I keep hammering home the point that tools should first and foremost support project management.” Simplicity is as much a virtue when it comes to the project manager’s tools as it is for the overall strategy.
Nicolas’s advice is to start with the basics and start small. For him, that still means the ubiquitous MS Excel. “There are tools for practically everything, from time registration to automatic invoicing. But the truth is that I’ve used Excel to manage the largest projects of my career. Partly because the client chooses the tool but it’s still the easiest tool for me to work with.”
Analog is allowed, digital is a must
Nicolas’s colleague Lynn Ergeerts takes this a step further. “I may be a bit old-fashioned in this respect, but Post-its and whiteboards are hugely valuable tools for me.” For example, at the start of every project, Lynn uses different colors to mark out the blocks of work on a whiteboard.
However, Lynn is also mindful of the limitations of analog tools. Fellow project manager Bert Casaert, who is also a fan of analog tools, feels the same way: “Post-its work well if you want to lead your team to a certain conclusion. However, you must ensure that the conclusion is accessible to everyone afterward. You must document the conclusion by digitizing it so that everyone can locate key information, no matter where they are.”
“Of course, you can take photos of Post-its and whiteboards,” adds Nicolas. “That’s true, says Bert, “but you can’t easily search through them.” That’s why he doesn’t work with paper notebooks but with their digital equivalent: Microsoft OneNote. “I can’t work without good tools, and I’ve tried a lot of them over the years, but OneNote has remained a constant. You can access it from anywhere. You can quickly find information using search terms. You can even use it to manage your tasks and, if necessary, delegate them to your colleagues.”
The industry standard: Atlassian Stack
When it comes to digital project management tools, Bert isn’t hugely enthusiastic about Confluence. “I find that it quickly degenerates into an unstructured repository of information. And the search functionality isn’t good enough to compensate for that, in my opinion.” However, according to Nicolas, today’s industry standard is Atlassian Stack, a bundle of PM tools that includes the Confluence company wiki in addition to the Jira flagship.
Although not a fan of Confluence, Bert does enjoy working with Jira. “You can expand it quite easily and, in contrast to a tool like ServiceNow, you can also work with it in a granular way. In my experience, ServiceNow makes it more difficult to create order out of the chaos that inevitably comes with a big project.”
Tailored solutions for every client
In the end, our project managers are highly adaptable professionals who are always ready to use the tools the customer already has in their arsenal. If they want to use the tools they’re used to working with, we’ve no doubt worked with them before, too. Often, management needs to receive reports via particular tools.
Of course, if we think it’s going to help the project, we’ll recommend a specific PM tool, especially if the organization doesn’t have one in place. But when it comes down to it, we are generalists. We work just as well with Excel and Post-its as we do with the most sophisticated PM tools. When choosing between one or the other, the needs of the customer always come first. And as always we aim to come together with the client to choose the best tool for the job and get the work done.
