For many organizations, the administrative tasks of status reports, weekly updates to the PMO, numbers to the board, etc. are wasting significant resources. Companies are assigning those time consuming administrative tasks to their project managers, however; in return strategic project management roles become more of a funnel of information and less strategic project management. Do any of the following issues sound familiar?

  • When a weekly report is completed, a project manager spots a deadline missed
  • Or, following a weekly report, the cost threshold has been exceeded

If your organization isn't flagging these types of issues before they happen. This whitepaper is for you. Find out how automating those administrative tasks can save you time and resources when it comes to delivering optimal project value.

Introduction

A cynic, according to Oscar Wilde’s famous definition, is someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. By that same measure, more and more project managers are in danger of becoming cynics – and it’s current corporate practice that is making them so.

Status reports and reconciliations; weekly updates to the PMO; numbers to the project board and a paper to the executive committee. In their zeal for better governance, companies are placing so many demands for project and program information that beleaguered project managers end up knowing not just the cost, but also the current status of everything.

In theory, that might seem a benefit. But in practice, it means that project managers become little more than a funnel for information, and the very act of reporting evolves into something self-defeating. The data is there, in black, white and sometimes red, but having spent all their time compiling it, the project managers have had no time to act upon it.

As a result, it’s only when completing the weekly report that the project manager spots a deadline missed, or a cost threshold exceeded. It’s only when updating the risk register that it becomes apparent that a particular task is going off the rails.

A working process or an all-consuming burden?

Some would claim this is evidence of a governance process that works: the critical issues are captured. But a more challenging perspective would argue that this is an opportunity missed; could these problems have been pre-empted and potentially avoided, had the project manager been able to focus on the true task of managing, instead of mere monitoring?

So where’s the middle ground here? Clearly, the need to gather and share this project information is of real value to the business: without effective tools and processes for doing so, the project manager is reliant on instinct and good faith. But if the act of reporting itself becomes all-consuming, then the value of doing it evaporates.

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