Stress and long hours are part of every project manager’s life who battle to get the most out of the resources at hand to achieve the scope. The main goals are to be on time, within budget and deliver quality; a combination that can be impossible to plan and achieve and can be devastating for some project managers.
We all know that achieving these 3 things together is theoretically impossible. Most often, project managers sacrifice quality and budget just to achieve the set deadlines or have a strict budget and sacrifice quality and push deadlines. There are exceptions where all bricks align and delivery is within the planned scope; however to achieve this requires a lot of planning, effort and time which we don’t have at disposal.
Project managers are people that need to multitask and manage not only the project but all aspects of the project including organizing and motivating the people. We can group this into five main areas: planning, organizing, coordinating, motivating and controlling.
Planning a project can be extensive and exhausting mostly because the process towards defining tasks, assigning resources, estimating costs, setting milestones is usually very complex. On the other hand, the project manager needs to track and coordinate the project progress on a daily basis. The project manager needs to be sure that all project members understand and are striving towards achieving the project goal. And, of course the project manager must control the project flow and make appropriate adjustments if necessary.
Is it too much for one person to deal with?
Having the right skills is not enough; having the right tools is as important in order to be efficient and successful.
We have seen a lot of new project management solutions on the market piping out like mushrooms. Some of them cost even thousands of dollars. Some of them lack crucial project management features. Most of them lack advanced project management features. So, how to pick the best one at an affordable price and still have all the needed features? We all know MS® Project, however a professional license can cost close to one thousand dollars.
Seavus Project Planner is a project planning and tracking software, used to plan and track projects, manage resources and track project costs. Project Managers use Seavus Project Planer to organize work and project delivery as well as to manage resource schedules and scope changes.
The software provides all of the desired productivity and it’s simple to use, very effective, and most importantly, it will help you win over biggest threats of your project success.
How can you utilize Seavus Project Planner?
Define project plans with reduced efforts
As mentioned above the project planning process is the initial and crucial component of the project lifecycle. If the planning is not done properly, the chances to fail in the next phases increase exponentially. Seavus Project Planner provides the easiest environment where project managers can set rational expectations for the objectives that need to be accomplished. The intuitive and easy-to-use workspace makes the schedule building, resource allocation and cost assignment effortless and accurate.
Effectively manage resources and costs
Most projects, if not all projects face limited budgets and resources. It is pure magic for the project managers to successfully balance budgets and resources. Seavus Project Planner’s advanced project cost tracking features empower the project manager to achieve effective cost tracking and avoid spending more than the project actually has. On the other hand, resource management is eased with resource availability tracking and over allocation management, hence allowing assignments’ adjustments to avoid conflicts in tasks.
Gain project control and keep guard on the project progress
Seavus Project Planner is software that will help you not only to set rational expectations for the objectives to be accomplished, but to present precise information to every team member regarding their tasks and deadlines. Using Gantt charts, resource tables, tracking toolbar and customizable forms the project is clearly communicated to team members. In addition, the intuitive workspace provides opportunity to track and control the work of team members through the project lifecycle. Adding notes to tasks in Seavus Project Planner is simple, but has high impact in delivering the desired results.
Adequately present project information
Project stakeholders want/need to be up to date with the project status at every point of time. The project manager is obliged to present the project progress information to the stakeholders. Hence, stakeholders need to understand the project plan. Project managers can choose from different views, forms and tables to display project information effectively. Additionally, they can use the Copy option to copy data to MS® Office applications and use it for various needs.
For ex: Project managers can copy cost data to include it in reports in MS® Excel. Also, when presenting project status in board meetings project managers can copy relevant data from the plan created in Seavus Project Planner to an MS® PowerPoint presentation.
Instantly access needed options and views
Driven by the 1-click away concept, Seavus Project Planner is the only desktop project management solution that offers Quick Bars which allow the project managers to access options with 1 click. Quick Bars access your calendar, Gantt chart, network diagram, resource sheet, task sheet and other frequently used options using the function keys.
Integrate Seavus Project Planner with other systems in your organization
If you are a developer and in need to extend Seavus Project Planner’s options to better serve your project planning and tracking needs, you can make use of Seavus Project Planner’s open API (Application Programming Interface).
The open API allows you to get the most of Seavus Project Planner while integrating it with other systems in your organization.
Integrate Seavus Project Planner in an MS® Project environment
Project managers in organizations who use Seavus Project Planner can collaborate and share project plans with project managers who use MS® Project. This make is it possible to integrate Seavus Project Planner in an existing project management environment where MS® Project is the main tool used to plan projects. The goal of this integration is to reduce the license costs for existing MS® Project users by providing a fully compatible project planner for a far lower price.
Introducing Seavus Project Planner in such organizations drastically reduce project management costs, but also:
- Empowers collaboration among stakeholders using Google Apps
- Lets organizations create an environment where project managers use Seavus Project Planner and team members use Seavus Project Viewer, which additionally cuts costs.
Empower collaboration within teams
Having a collaborative project management environment in your organization is the key for project success. Thus, in order to motivate teams to collaborate and achieve superior results Seavus Project Planner launched the Google Apps Integration.
The Google Apps Integration empowers the project managers to continuously collaborate with project’s stakeholders. Namely, project managers are able to collaborate and share project plans created in Seavus Project Planner and store those on Google Apps.
Then, the project plans can be accessed and updated by all project stakeholders (Project Customer, Resource Managers, and Project Team Members).
Organizations that decide to collaborate with Seavus Project Planner and Google Apps:
- Achieve collaboration without the need for any server installation
- Utilize existing Google Accounts for project collaboration
- Access projects from anywhere around the Globe
- Reduce the Inbox clutter
Having a successful project plan is not a single thing to do. It means identifying priority needs and opportunities, discussing and testing various possible courses of action and afterwards choosing the most appropriate ones, analyzing and accepting what can be achieved, estimating both human and material resources needed to reach objectives, anticipating possible problems and getting acceptance from all stakeholders about clear targets and timetables for the work in view. All of this is built in Seavus Project Planner, so it is powerful guide in the planning and tracking of your project.
Introducing Seavus Project Planner as your project management tool completes the circle for success. You can forget about miscommunication, missed deadlines, over allocation and overspending.
Feel comfortable with your project and satisfied with your results. Win over failure; be organized, productive and effective with your planning. Be happy!
If you want to learn more how to improve your project management skills using Seavus Project Planner, you can follow Seavus Project Planner on Twitter (@projectplanner).
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