In managing a project, you certainly need various project management tools to support the smooth running of the activities in it. Did you know the reason?

A project is a complex activity that involves many stages, attributes, and various layers of people. The stages will be divided into five to a dozen sub-stages, elements will be divided into various tools, attributes will be divided from budget to time, and humans will be divided from project owners, stakeholders, project managers, and other project teams. Therefore, it is important to use a tool that can organize all kinds of these complexities.

Therefore, here Tomps.id summarizes the top 5 project management tools that can make it easier for you to manage projects!

Important and Basic, Here are The 5 Best Project Management Tools For Any Project

1. Project Charter

Are you still confused about making a strategy for your project? If so, immediately make a Project Charter together with the client and all stakeholders. Project Charter itself is a short document used in project management. This document is also often referred to as Project Definition or Project Statement.

More or less, the Project Charter also determines the success and failure of a project. This is because the Project Charter contains important information that covers the scope to be achieved from an ongoing project. Importantly, this one document is valid information that clearly describes what your client wants in their project. This will certainly make you more confident and focus on forming the right strategy for your project.

Whether the project runs or not will depend on the readiness of the Project Charter. For this reason, this document was created before the project officially entered the execution stage. Later, the Project Charter will be a parameter for decision-making whether the project will be started by explaining the description of the process and the objectives to be achieved. This initial part of your project will build the foundation for your future project management results. If you don’t have a Project Charter that readies from the start, it means you’ve been planning to fail for your project from the start.

2. Milestone Chart

If your project priority is on time, then creating a milestone chart can be an obligation. According to PMI, the Milestone Chart is a complete plan for each important stage in the project, not a marker for the completion of each task at hand. This project management tools will break down a large project cycle into smaller phases so that project managers can better plan, schedule, and execute.

A good project manager certainly knows that the final result of the project management strategy that is formed is certainly closely related to the plan that was made. So, by planning a deadline through this Milestone Chart, you can start to lock in the achievement of the desired project in the future.

3. Iron Triangle / Triple Constraint 

This term may often be heard by active project actors. Iron Triagle, also often called Triple Constraint, is a project management tool that is used to measure aspects of time, cost, and quality. The Time-Cost-Quality Triangle is another great way to understand the priorities of your clients and all of your stakeholder projects. Use these project management tools when you need to clarify what is to be accomplished for them.

This way, you can ensure to maintain the quality of time, cost, or quality of your project when the unexpected happens. For example, the speed level of the team decreased so that the schedule was pushed back, or the scarcity of materials caused the project budget to change. Because it is used to clarify project priorities, create this Triple Constraint through special discussions with stakeholders.

4. Project Risk Plan

Have you prepared risk management for problems that may arise during the project? Often underestimated, the project risk plan turns out to have a vital function in supporting the overall success of the project.

Every project will of course have its own risks. Unfortunately, this risk is generally not known with certainty, neither its occurrence nor the exact time of its arrival. However, if it is not anticipated well from the start, it is not impossible that this risk will bring bigger problems in the future. It’s not necessarily about the “negative risks” that arise, but also the missing “positive risks” that can increase the value of your project. In this scenario, it is necessary to do something called project risk management. Risk management since the project planning stage will bring you a sense of security and readiness when the identified risks actually occur.

Risk management has an important role in the success of a project. Through good project risk management, we can identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) in our projects. In addition, there are several other reasons why risk management is important for a project:

-Help us avoid big, uncontrollable problems in the future.

-Help us find new opportunities (positive risk) that are profitable.

-Increase the sense of responsibility and the value of accountability.

-Optimizing project budgets due to more controlled expenses.

-Increase the chances of project success.

5. Good Project Management System

An organization might run two, three, or perhaps even up to a dozen projects in close proximity. This certainly will not be easy without a good and proper project management system in place. Of the many existing project management tools, using a digital integrated system such as project management software is one that will bring many benefits to the success of your project.

Some of the many benefits of project management software are:

a) Improved Planning and Scheduling

Project planning and scheduling is one of the most important aspects of project management, and this is made easier through project management software. The reason is, the project management software will make it easier for you and your team in planning, scheduling, resource allocation, automatic reporting, and performance evaluation. All of this can happen if the project management software that you choose provides features that are compatible and in accordance with the operational needs of your project.

b) Team Collaboration Gets Better

A project certainly consists of many department members who handle different work units. Due to their respective responsibilities and busy schedules, it is sometimes difficult to bring the entire team together in a meeting to simply discuss progress and bottlenecks during the project. This problem will then consciously or unknowingly result in disruption of team communication so that project resources are wasted.

Based on this problem, project management software offer convenience in improving team communication and creating better collaboration. How, by opening up opportunities for you and your team to easily access work schedules, job lists, progress status, obstacles, approval notifications, to reporting evidence only through your smartphone. In addition, the notification feature that is useful for alerting deadlines and errors in projects will also be very useful in improving the quality of work. All of these jobs can be accessed easily without having to adjust the schedule of face-to-face meetings that are protracted and time-consuming.

c) Easier Document Access Through Integrated Cloud

When it comes to projects, you will definitely not be separated from the shadow of a mountain of report documents. Not to mention the various problems that arise from this printed document such as lost, scattered, damaged, to repeated printing. Just imagining it already seems complicated and wasteful of budget, right?

However, this will not happen if you use project management software that has an online integrated cloud. With this feature, you no longer need to print hundreds of confusing project documents. Stakeholders and team members can access project documents more easily, securely, and quickly!

d) Budget Absorption is More Controlled and Transparent

Launching from Chrone, 85% of projects experienced a budget overrun from the initial planning (cost overrun). However, through the features provided by the right project management software, the risk of cost overrun can be minimized. This is because the right project management software can make project managers perform RAB planning, cost control, and budget reporting in real-time and transparently. Some of the indicators that consume the budget, such as transportation, repetitive document insertion, and the number of workers used can be made up to 100% efficient by project management software. Sounds great, right?

e) Delegate Tasks Easily

Another benefit of project management software is the ease of delegating tasks to team members. Previously, the problem that often arose in projects was ambiguity in determining the work of members which often changed or unbalanced. Through project management applications, project managers can more easily manage the division of tasks for members. In addition, the members will no longer be confused in knowing what their current and future jobs are and the completion deadlines.

f) Increased Productivity and Acceleration of Project Completion

Of all the benefits that have been described above, the main advantages of project management software then boil down to this one point: productivity and efficiency. This can happen because all details of work units and status along with project progress reports are easier to access. The flow of decision-making for errors can also be carried out more quickly.

Tomps, All-in-One Professional Project Management Solution!

Of the many project management applications available, Tomps is one of the best for your professional project management. Why?

This is because Tomps comes with various smart project management features that help you manage projects end-to-end. You can do all the work from the Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling, to Closing stages more easily in Tomps digital system. Some of our strategic features include:

✔ Project Scheduling, Planner, and Completion

✔ Project Tracking 

✔ Project Cost

✔ Project Appraisal

✔ Document & Evidence Repository

✔ Unlimited Cloud

✔ Role Access Management

✔ Vendors Performance Report

✔ Automatic Project Reports

✔ Gantt Chart & S-Curve

✔ Geo-Map Tagging & Visualization

✔ API Integration

✔ Customization-Friendly