Covid-19 Affect on the Project Management Space

Covid-19 significantly affects the workspace in many ways. Several years before 2020’s  pandemic, the number of people working remotely was already steadily increasing. But, when it came to managing projects, people were still relying on in-person meetings for holding discussions, solving problems, and assigning responsibilities. While working remotely from time to time, complicated operations were still being managed at the office. With Covid-19, that isn’t an option for most businesses.

The new normal forces employees to keep  meeting deadlines and focus on their task list while working remote. Project managers and team leaders are in different locations trying to come up with a plan, struggling to share it. Upper-level management is in other locations, trying to keep the business running while having limited visibility with unlimited doubts working through the  challenges in setting priorities under the new circumstances. 

These difficulties are not surprising; the management  stratum  is already a great challenge when sitting in the same office, and the complexities only increased under the current distance-working conditions. Now organisations are trying to find ways to work more efficiently from remote locations. According to a report published by McKinsey in Q3 (see the full report here), 85% of companies have accelerated digitalisation due to Covid-19 as part of their effort to deal with the global pandemic. This statistic is not an estimation, but a result of a survey they conducted among 800 CEO’s who were describing the reality of their business adaptations. 

While digitisation acceleration is a positive trend that helps with the new normal, it is not necessarily benefiting management visibility. The exponential increase in digitalisation brings better productivity and collaboration but is also bringing a digital mountain and tons of tickets, messages, and tasks that help hinder the view of the path forward. The bigger the challenge and the stronger the digital trend, the greater the management visibility gap being created. The ability to control priorities and longer- term plans become more difficult. 

What is the Right Approach to Deal with These Challenges?

At Proggio, we believe that we can bring your management visibility and collaboration to where you want and need it, without adversely impacting the great productivity being achieved from afar. We have been talking about remote project management and collaboration for several years now, and it is only being accelerated by Covid-19. We provide a solution for successful management visibility, priority setting, and timeline collaboration wherever people are working and without disrupting productivity levels. Through our solutions, project planning and tracking, resources management, risk assessment, and budget management are added to the existing agility and productivity of organisations.

Proggio is positioned specifically to connect digitalisation with management visibility. One can view it as a magic quadrant, where digitalisation is on one angle and management visibility on the other. Office applications are a great example for classic productivity tools. In examining them from a digitalisation perspective, there are many task management and communication management solutions available in the market that are great in increasing team efficiency but contribute less to management. And Gantt based solutions like MS Project were great for management visibility in the 90’s but failed to move forward into the digitalisation era. 

For several years now, Proggio has been part of the digitalisation trend while providing great management value. This is the unique way Proggio approaches your challenges and provides a comprehensive solution for you.

How Does Proggio Resolve This New Normal Challenge?

To resolve the challenge of the new normal, we need to approach its root problem,  which starts from a simple fact: people have no common ground to work with. In a way, they are not only in social distancing, but also remotely disconnected. A team member sitting at home and looking at a task table is not sharing the same view of the project manager preparing a Gantt chart or an Excel Gantt chart. And neither one is using the slide presented to the CEO. These are different visual languages that are difficult  to connect.

Moreover, these views are not based on the same source of information. Each one is showing a different picture based on different data. A task being updated in the task management system is not showing up anywhere in the Gantt diagram, and definitely not being updated to the slide that management is looking at. This scenario will most likely put both team members and project managers in doubt, as to whether they’re each looking at the relevant and accurate set of information. No wonder companies are finding it hard to keep the business running smoothly under the pandemic circumstances. 

Proggio was designed to help cross functional teams within organizations eliminate doubt, while adjusting to the new normal of working remote. 

With unique visuals, shared information, and intelligent logic, Proggio brings everyone around the same table, even if they are not actually sitting at the same table. This is the Proggio patent; we have a unique data set that is presented with a clear and visual diagram called “ProjectMap™”. It allows different people to  see different views, and react while using  views and action center that work for them. No matter what view they are looking at, they are actually seeing exactly the same data. The way the solution works, changes made to tasks by employees working from home are reflected immediately in the management view. Changes to project timelines are immediately reflected in the task list. And so forth

The different layers in Proggio are always connected. The interface is clear, modern and very intuitive to use. Employees can review the timeline and understand the way certain tasks will impact the project. Managers can  access the employee task board, be sure priorities are set correctly and progress is reported.

People are physically distanced, but remotely connected.

Proggio is trusted by companies across the globe, with more companies added every day to our satisfied user list. We always listen to our customers. Your  needs and interests are reflected in our solutions which are designed around your  feedback. 

Try Proggio now and see how it can help you deal with the new normal of remote working.