Without the right tools, it can be difficult to manage projects. And if those tools don’t communicate effectively to each other, that makes it even harder. Using tools within Microsoft 365 helps streamline processes and keep employees on the right task. They also work together to ensure projects run on time.

We spoke to three Microsoft employees from different areas of the business to find out what their main challenges are in their day to day job and how they’ve tackled it.

1.      Create a hub of centralised information

The average worker spends nearly 20 percent of the work week looking for internal information or tracking down colleagues who can help with specific tasks. In many cases, information is spread out across disparate sources. We often find ourselves jumping from files saved to the desktop to specific SharePoint sites or as attachment within emails.

More often than not, information that isn’t stored on the cloud but on individual hard drives can cause considerable grief for project managers who collaborate frequently with others.

“Planning a marketing campaign has multiple dependencies, within my team and externally. Without the use of a dedicated project management tool it can be challenging to pulse check the status of each task and follow up when needed. Emails alone do not provide a holistic view of the project, especially when there are multiple versions of documents floating around,” says Alissa Warne, Digital Marketing Manager at Microsoft.

“Switching to Microsoft Project and ensuring that my main stakeholders also use it, centralises information so I only have to check one place for what needs to be done and what is completed. It also holds others accountable for their deliverables by sending them notifications.”

Project for the Web can help to provide visibility of the project’s current status through the Roadmap feature. This allows you to highlight specific project tasks or activities from several projects and share with different stakeholders.

Additionally, Project for the Web is embedded in Microsoft Teams. This makes it even easier for team members to see project status, task assignment, and any updates. Plus, it’s all in the same space where they communicate and collaborate. That means they can spend more time performing the work they need to do instead of switching between applications.

2.      Personalised assistants with AI

“Working in marketing you’d think that it’s all big campaigns and glamorous events, but as a product marketeer, I spend a lot of time managing projects. Projects means people, which means calendars,” says Hasan Javed, Microsoft Product Marketing Manager for Firstline Worker and Microsoft 365.

Finding the right time to meet between busy co-workers and customers can be difficult. Between finding time to brainstorm, map out the next quarter’s priorities, or plan events with partners, and even to answer emails from that ever-growing inbox. To help him effectively schedule his time, Hasan turns to Cortana, his virtual assistant.

“I can now email Cortana and ask her to schedule my meetings, book me a meeting room and set up a Teams meetings, all in one simple click. Cortana has improved my productivity by automating tasks that I, and 99 percent of people I know, hate doing. Thank you, Cortana, you’ve made my complex projects, just a little easier.”

Cortana not only can help manage your calendar, but can also remind you of your commitments, even if it’s just remembering to pick up milk on the way home. You can base your reminders on time, a location, or even people. This makes it easy to keep track during busy times, or when you have a full diary.

3.      Using analytics to organise your time

Jose Cortes, is a busy commercial executive at Microsoft. He often finds it challenging to strike a healthy balance between his work and personal life. Particularly with a young child and jam-packed schedule.

Effective time management and prioritisation of important tasks are key here.  He breaks his workload down to weekly chunks and prioritising tasks based on what will deliver the most impact. Doing this, Jose is able to determine how to effectively use his work day. He no longer has tasks that spill over into personal time.

“This is one of the most important things that Microsoft’s culture has taught me, in addition to having a growth mindset. Usually it is very easy to fall into executing tasks you enjoy doing, but not necessarily make impact in what you do. For instance, I sometimes find myself helping other colleagues or replying to emails in some topics that interest me. However, if at the end those email responses are not generating any value to my customers or my organisation, I’d park that email for a while. I focus on what really brings value, such as preparing for a negotiation with a customer. When I find some spare time, I take care of those other emails.”

Jose also credits AI-infused applications with helping him reclaim time back in his day. He uses the My Analytics feature within Microsoft 365.

“It not only lets me know how much time I’ve been multitasking in the past week, or who are the people I collaborate with the most, but also remind me of pending tasks or responses based on emails I sent to customers or colleagues. Where you say, for instance, ‘I’ll update you next week’ or ‘I’ll send you that email tomorrow,’” He says.

“When it sees you are getting too many meetings or calls together in a specific day, it books Focus Time in my calendar. This is technology really helps me make a difference at work and in my personal life.”

Tools like Microsoft Project enable Jose to have an overall view of all the current projects and what is on track or late. Project for the Web, in particular, highlights what tasks are overdue in different colours. This makes it easier to follow up at a glance. He can also use Power Automate to generate an automatic report with all overdue tasks.

Enabling productivity

These project management challenges are common to all of us. But by adopting digital tools and smarter working habits, it can contribute to the successful delivery of the project.

Using a cloud-based project and portfolio management solution will go a long way in helping employees align, prioritise, and optimise their projects. And once they harness these tools, it will give them the time they need to focus on adding value to the business, their roles, and creating an innovative, collaborative culture.

To find out more about selecting the right project management tool for you, check out my earlier blog. Or, read more about Project for the Web.

About the author

Paulina is a new Microsoft Aspire hire who just graduated from the University of Cambridge, where she completed her MBA. She is currently part of the Modern Workplace business group in the role of Product Marketing Manager for Project and Visio. She localises the benefits and uses of these Microsoft solutions to UK market. Paulina has a green belt in lean six sigma. She also has a strong belief in the search for constant improvement in everything we do. Be it learning a new language, improving at a particular sport, or just being smarter about the way we work.

The post 3 ways to tackle project management challenges and be more collaborative appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

While many projects can be quite simple, it can get very complicated very quickly. The reality is that coordinating different people and making sure things go smoothly, on time, and on budget isn’t always easy. It takes time and effort. A big part of what can make this easier is just using the right tools for you and your team.

Most people I know manage their business projects and plans on spreadsheets. And while spreadsheets are great, and can do wonders in the right hands, they’re not really designed to help you manage projects.

Step 1 – Figure out what could be improved

To pick the right tool, you need to understand what could help make the process managing easier for you and your organization. Here a couple questions that can help shed light on what those improvements could be.

Consider…

• What are we spending our time and resources on?
• What problems need to be solved?
• Where can we be more productive?

Step 2 – Figure out what you need

Now that we know what we could do better, we can start looking at how to do this.

Capabilities can widely vary from one software to the next. The simplest tools can offer an organised view and management for a To-Do list; the more complex tools allow allocation of tasks with dependency and users, as well as resource management and high reporting capabilities.

These are some of the capabilities you might want to consider when evaluating project managing solutions:

A quick measure to how good a solution is would be to evaluate:

–              The amount of time and work it can save across the organisation

–              The risks it can help detect and mitigate

–              The benefits it can deliver through helping finishing projects on time and on budget?

Not all capabilities are as important, and what might be important can vary from one project or person to the next. To figure out what capabilities are relevant to your case, go back to what it is you want to achieve.

Step 3 – Test it out

So much about deployment depends on the way we work. There is no such thing as the perfect tool. Whether one solution is right or not depends on how people use it – and if they use it.

• Roll out your solution to a single department first
• Identify ‘champions’ – people that are enthusiastic about the tool and can help deploy it and teach others how to use it
• Encourage time and training so all team members understand how to use the tool, and its benefits
• Record results, quirks, and any additional considerations necessary for a successful implementation
• Ask for honest feedback and, where appropriate, act upon it

Step 4 – Review how people are using the tool

Even after a solution has been found, make the time to observe and analyse how other people are using the tool.

Successful implementation depends on internal buy-in at all levels of the business. Make sure they can use it – but just as importantly, ensure they understand the benefits it brings to their roles. These concerns will vary, depending on the department and job role, just as the capabilities they use will vary.

• Record positive and negative reactions
• Listen to and act on post-implementation feedback
• Respond with personalised comments, not blanket statements – for instance, the concerns of the leadership team won’t be the same as those in the finance department
• Hold additional training sessions – don’t just show employees how to use the system, help them master it

Introducing a project management tool into your company is a project in itself. The best advice: choose wisely. That’s why Microsoft Project promises to offer the complexity required to fit the needs of your organisation, with the ease-of-use employees demand, empowering them to be more productive and efficient than ever before.

Find out more

Microsoft Project is a complete cloud-based project and portfolio management solution, designed to help you align, prioritise and optimise your projects, your way. Simple, intuitive, and designed for everyone, Microsoft Project is a powerful, scalable platform for managing any type of work – from team projects to the most complex portfolio and resource management initiatives.

About the author

Paulina is a new Microsoft Aspire hire who just graduated from the University of Cambridge, where she completed her MBA. She is currently part of the Modern Workplace business group in the role of Product Marketing Manager for Project and Visio, where (apart from writing blogs like this one) she localises the benefits and uses of these Microsoft solutions to UK market. Paulina has a green belt in lean six sigma and a strong belief in the search for constant improvement in everything we do; be it learning a new language, improving at a particular sport, or just being smarter about the way we work.

The post How to find the right project management tool appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.