What are the characteristics of software projects?

And before project management software, everything was done manually. There are two types of project management software – desktop and web-based.

Project management software is used for planning, resource allocation, change management, and scheduling. It allows companies to effectively control costs and manage budgeting through quality documentation and management.

When choosing project management software, there are many things to take into consideration. Remember that not all your projects require all the features offered by project management software you utilize.

A solid understanding of your project requirements before selecting the right project management software is ideal. The following are important features of project management software:

Resource Management

Resource management of the project is one of the fundamental expectations from project management software. This involves human resources.

Resource Management helps project managers plan the availability of resources for all projects. Project management software like TeamHeadquarters by reviewing each member of the teams’ past 90 days of activity and understanding current tasks assignments from all projects, the project manager will do a better job of managing resources. He or she will quickly find this to be the best resource management intelligence they have ever had.

Document Management

Projects will generate a lot of working material, such as documents, images, and other files. Without a dependable and easy-to-use document management feature, collaborating around documents can be challenging. Project management software should have a document management facility with the relevant access control system.

Task Scheduling

Scheduling is one of the principal features that should be provided by project management software. When it comes to activity scheduling, project management software should provide the ability to draw Gantt charts.

A good project management software should allow you to integrate your scheduled tasks with your calendar while taking into account work and personal calendars, provide you with a single location to schedule all your work and easily transfer your calendar onto your timesheet for manageable entries.

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Issue Tracking

Project management software should have features to track and monitor the issues reported by various stakeholders of the project. During the project life cycle, there can be many issues related to the project that needs constant tracking and monitoring.

When choosing the suitable project management software for your needs, evaluate the characteristics of software and match them with your project management requirements.

If you’re looking for project management software that gives you a unique and complete integration of service desk, TeamHeadquarters provides you total control of project ticket queues, integrated email agents, sophisticated and comprehensive resource management, task scheduling, project groups, portfolio dashboards, integrated status reporting, integrated and customizable reporting, the inclusion of customers on project tasks and tickets and a Customer Self-Service Portal.

We spend a lot of time examining software project failures but it’s equally important to understand why some projects succeed. Here’s a short list.

1. Commitment. The business stakeholders and the technologists are committed to the project — not just at the outset but throughout. This takes intense collaboration. There is also an executive sponsor or champion — someone with the authority to make things happen. (If there is a client-consultant relationship, this is doubly important.)
2. People. The right team is assembled. There is an appropriate mix of senior, mid-level and junior people. The skill sets are also mixed and complimentary. Everyone understand their role and how it fits into the project. Most importantly, there is a core group of exceptional people who are capable of leading the project both administratively and technically.
3. Goals. The project has clear goals that everyone understands and accepts. This includes the critical dates that the team has to hit. The scope of the project is narrow enough for everyone to comprehend and embrace yet wide enough to deliver value to the business. The constraints placed on the project are reasonable and realistic.
4. Communication. Frequent and open communication is encouraged. Everyone is willing to share information and thus everyone knows what’s going on. Whenever the team reaches a milestone or achieves a major successful outcome, everyone celebrates.
5. Focus. The team is focused on getting the project done. They are not distracted by cultural, hierarchical and bureaucratic barriers. They use informal contacts and relationships to make things happen.
6. Learning. Everyone has the opportunity to learn and grow during the course of the project. They are encouraged to test and experiment. When mistakes are made, they are leveraged as learning opportunities.
7. Change. The team deals with change effectively. That means they don’t try to block change but they don’t throw the doors wide open and allow anything to change any time. They find a middle ground and accept change as an opportunity to learn and improve the final result.
8. Environment. The team has the right environment for getting the job done. This covers everything from office space to desks and chairs to software development tools.

Every situation is unique, of course, but these traits are common to most successful software projects whether they follow a prescriptive approach like waterfall or an agile one like Scrum.