Even then, when approval is attained, often it is project managers only who have access to the solution, with the business citing cost-saving reasons. The problem is, though, if they are the only ones using it, then the administration burden is actually greater, not reduced.
It is important then, to do the homework and provide a solid business case for the implementation of this type of solution. And this is how.
A study, surveying almost 2500 project team members, conducted by market research firm Harris Interactive Service Bureau (HISB), discovered that 55% of those questioned spend between one and three hours per week attending status meetings; whilst 57% multitask during them. A further 70% did not believe that status meetings help them accomplish work tasks; with 40% of those surveyed feeling that status meetings were a waste of time. Sixty-seven percent of respondents claimed to spend between one and four hours per week preparing for status meetings; and 59% said that this preparation took longer than the meetings themselves.
It is clear from these results that within project offices there is a large amount of resource time - and, thus, capacity - spent in project status meetings. While project communication and a greater visibility of the current status are critical to the successful completion of projects, there must be a better and more productive alternative to a weekly project status meeting per project.
If the majority of project team members spend on average two hours per week in status meetings, and project managers spend double that time preparing for meetings, then, realistically, project status meetings are costing the business two hours per team member and four hours per project manager per week.
This equates to one full day per month for team members and two days for project managers. If a business has five project managers and 20 team members within the project office, this totals 30 working days of time spent in status meetings.
These figures might be acceptable should these meetings hold value, but, as the research above clearly states, most team members feel that they do not help accomplish work tasks and almost half believe them to be a complete waste of time.
A possible solution to this dilemma would be to limit project status meetings to 30-minute sessions, thus saving 20 days per month. Taking into account an average resource rate of USD100 (more than R1000) per hour, with this small change a company could save USD16 000 (over R160 000) of productivity hours per month, which is not a paltry sum. Nevertheless, this presents an additional challenge: How do you cut meeting times to 30 minutes whilst ensuring that everyone remains abreast of what is going on? The best way forward would be to take the following steps:
With this in mind, how can you afford not to implement project office software for all resources in your project office?