PM Tools - Are You Getting Your Money’s Worth?
There are many project management tools in the tech sector. I have worked with Jira, Azure, Asana, and TFS (to name a few). Over the years, I have noticed that organizations like to use them but don’t always use them to their full extent. Since they are paid apps, wouldn’t it be a good idea to try to get your money’s worth?
Many organizations like to use multiple tools to handle different needs. One place I worked at used Jira exclusively for software development, but Asana for executive project management tasks. I understand this was due to the executive management feeling more comfortable with Asana; they paid double for licenses when they could have used Jira’s functionality for the same results. It required training for new personnel in both applications and operations had to develop solutions to tie both applications together for automation. While these weren’t overly complex tasks, they weren’t efficient (or practical, in my opinion).
When selecting your PM Tools, ask yourself the following:
What do I need my tool to do?
Who will need to use it?
Do I need multiple tools, or can I perform the same tasks with one tool?
What is the cost of using the tools, and who needs access?
It often comes down to comfort level and training. If your organization wants to implement something like Jira, it needs to know how to use the application. Often, it is a good idea to send someone from the organization to train on the tool or hire an outside vendor who specializes in training your teams on its usage.
If you already have multiple tools, evaluating whether you need more than one is a good idea. If you can consolidate your tools into one tool and train your people to use it, it will likely be a better investment in the long run.
I would have loved to have consolidated the Asana users into Jira at that past job. It did everything that Asana offered at the time, and would have saved us a lot of money that could have gone towards more personnel or other tools that we needed that didn’t duplicate the processes.
