4.4 Choosing the Right Virtual Project Management Tool

When you choose a Virtual Project Management Tool it is important that it matches the company’s needs. It must be flexible and be able to be adapted and cover all or at least most of their needs. Digital Change Makers have selected a few possible tools in the Digital Change Makers Toolkit. In this section you will understand what is involved and needs to be considered when selecting a Virtual Project Management Tool for your mentee/mentees. You will learn about Monday.com as a possible option in the Monday.com webinar section where they use Zoom Webinars. Then you are invited to try and set up your own webinar using Zoom as a communication tool.

Simplified transparent work culture; virtual project management systems are a cloud-based work operating system. It is important that they offer a simplified platform to manage any team, anywhere on any project while creating a more transparent work culture. As a result teams become much more productive and engaged with transparency. Greater transparency leads to greater trust, better engagement, better communication and long-term success.

Integration of all employees; employees need to be able to rely on guaranteed interactivity without geographic limitations. They must be able to use the tool on their mobile devices. Users must be able to create smaller multidisciplinary groups with their own objectives. Everyone needs to be kept in the loop even reception. It is beneficial to have a platform that is linked to social media channels so staff can keep up to date with external and internal activity e.g. see a new product on Instagram, read or develop Blogs, watch a video on how to use a new digital tool or product. This ensures everyone is informed by being able to educate themselves. An ideal virtual project management platform should allow agile file sharing that is integrated into internal solutions meaning email inboxes are emptied of such information.

Total Customization and Control: an ideal platform should be totally customizable so you can build your workflows in any way that works for you and your team. Its core components are boards, groups, columns, items.

Having boards or dash boards that are intuitive and easy to use is essential e.g. drag and drop, colour coded Boards that are flexible, intuitive, easily shared, label any column what you want, add items as many as you want, add/edit/remove/drag/drop. Has multiple templates for all company and department needs e.g. Sales pipelines, Marketing campaigns, Recruitment processes, Video production planning, Tasks management, Progress tracking, Product roadmaps, Business processes, Design planning, Bug tracking, Event management, Construction planning

Better Communication, Collaboration and Visibility is paramount so users don’t have to synch meetings, find emails (message boards are all kept together for each pulse), all the files kept in each related item, status updated, know if someone has seen your work, who has seen it, provide feedback. Cross Functional should be part of its features so all teams can work together in one organized centralized place. Users should be able to assign tasks, have full visibility who is working on what, what is done, if they are stuck, waiting for approval etc. Full view of timelines, updates, milestones, Time Tracking, Dashboards, Integrations of other tools e.g. Mailchimp, Slack, Gmail, Different views e.g. Gantt Chart View, Automations (someone notified when a task is complete)

It should integrate with other important company online platforms required e.g. Dropbox, Excel, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Integromat, Slack, Trello, Zapier