Tag: Project Management

Remedies for Failed Project Management

Written by David Miller on August 23, 2017. Posted in Articles. 5 Comments on Remedies for Failed Project Management

Project management can fail for numerous reasons, but the consequences are always the same – wasted time and resources, dissatisfied clients, and a devastating blow to your reputation as a project manager.

Nevertheless, failed projects provide valuable opportunities for the professional growth and development. Also, maybe it is a sign that you should start using some project tracking software.

If you have recently experienced a failed project or you are just wondering what to do if a project fails. Then read this article as it packs information that you may find useful. We have provided few actions that you can take once the project fails in order to prevent it from happening in the future.

Assess the Situation

Projects management doesn’t fail on its own. It includes certain actions from managers and other team members side as well who are involved in a project and caused an impact in the progress of a project. Before you can decide which remedy to apply, you have to identify the cause for project management failure. You can start by examining each stage that took place before the failure occurred. If you don’t have project phases and the paperwork to track past progress then there are chances to notice the first sign of getting an error due to poor project planning, structure, and mismanagement.

If you don’t have a good project plan, there is no point to wonder why your project failed. A project plan serves as a roadmap for you and your team members that they must follow. Without it, you can easily get lost in everyday tasks and dependencies and lose track of assets and time. In such cases, it is really important that an individual esp. A project manager should work on the project planning skills.

It may be valuable for you to know that most sophisticated, simple project management software come with project management templates that are easy and ready to use. You can even make your own plan and store it for future reference. In just a few clicks, you will be able to invite different people and make them start working on various tasks by ensuring defined deadlines and following work breakdown structure.

Remedy for Losing Crucial Pieces of Information

Paperwork and project management have to work well, as they are cogs of a well-oiled machine. The paperwork is of the utmost importance for a project management success. As the project goes on, these papers may get lost and you may be deprived of very important information which can be crucial for management efforts. This happens very often in organizations who use email as a document storing system.

Maybe you are not familiar with cloud technology and simple project management software which is a cloud based tool for handling different projects. The main benefit of using cloud based technology comes from centralized storage. All of the documentation is stored in one place. With the ability to track every change and to appoint access rights to every person in your team. Hence, you will never experience a project failure due to the lost paperwork.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

Remedy for Poor Communication

Poor communication has taken down empires, so don’t get surprised if your project management failed because you didn’t see the SMS from your employee. The one who notified you that he is not going to finish his task, who was actually the first member of the task dependency chain assigned to a task at topmost priority. Then, remember the time has come to leverage new technologies and to enable your team to communicate efficiently.

There are numerous tools online that can bring your team together on one communication channel. Even project management software solutions have a communication feature which allows managers to communicate with their teams in the real time. Notifications systems are utilized so that nobody misses an important message regarding the task they are working on.

Since the technology is cloud based and mobile ready, you can manage the projects wherever you are and from any device at any location just by using your hands.

Remedy for Inefficient Project Tracking

In order to succeed as a project manager, you have to be able to track the project as it progresses in real time. Inefficient project tracking limits your reaction time, which may have devastating effects on your project. With the ability to track the project with just one glance, you will become more agile and nothing will surprise you.

Today, it is almost impossible to consider managing a project without project tracking software at your disposal. Project tracking tools have a very simple user interface which utilizes charts, colors, progress bars, and time tracking tools to help project, task, and team managers remain as efficient as possible.

Any unplanned change which occurs during project progression can easily be seen and addressed immediately by using project management software so the project remains on the track. Furthermore, you will have access to the history of project management by archiving it. So, you may come back and address those issues which you don’t want to repeat again.

Remedy for Poor Contingency Plans

On very rare occasions, the project will go smoothly, as planned. A project plan is very important for project management success, but contingency plans are also a must have. This is why you should always have a sit down with your managers and examine your project and every task independently, and ask as many “What if” questions, and then provide as many “Then I will” answers to them.

Look at contingency plans as project management’s insurance plans. The more detailed, the better. When you are backed up with all that information and actionable knowledge, you won’t experience panic when something goes wrong. In the end, remember, proactive project managers have higher project success rates than reactive ones.

As you can see, failed projects are not such a bad thing. So, if you are cooperating with a reasonable client, you can always provide a remedy for it and bring the project back on its feet. Anyway, now you already know what can be done in the scenarios we have covered in this article, so now I guess you easily find a solution for all of them. If this topic interests you, feel free to look for more information on popular project management forums where managers share their experience first hand.

Rescuing A Project, Part One

Written by Stephan Bals on August 16, 2017. Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on Rescuing A Project, Part One

“How do you go about saving a project that has gone bad?”. I get this question a couple of times a year. And yes, it is true.

Over the years I have been active in the areas of management, business improvement/business change, project management and program management, and I have indeed been called in to take over on projects (and programs) that had gone bad. And I have built a bit of reputation for turning bad projects in to “successful projects” if not at least “projects that went from bad to having delivered (most of the) benefits”. It is also true that over the years I have devised ideas on how to start and push towards a project and program recovery.

Since the question has been put to me so many times over the years I decided to write an article about it and post it here to give some insight in to the world of Rescue Project Management or at least to give a view on how Project Rescue could be approached from a real-life-practice-experience .

The way I have written this article is so that I have tried to give you an angle of view on the different parties involved. I hope it works out for you as the reader.

Before you start reading this article, I need to tell you up front: I am a very strong believer that there is no project without a sound business case. And that goes especially for a program. Before any project (or program) is started, there should be a clear business case which relates in a clear way to the strategy of your company or organization. If you don’t have a business case, my advice is: start nothing. Having a business case will – at the very least – help you and all your stakeholders and decision makers do a lot of work without a lot of politics. And PLEASE: make it a business case that sticks. If it does not have figures but a lot of loose statements, throw it out and (again) kill the project.

I once had a manager who, when asked how he his business case had been built, looked me in the eye, smiled and walked away laughing. In short: do not go to work without a business case.

Another thing I firmly believe in is this: yes, your Project Rescue Manager should have extensive experience in project management. But this is not the only thing he/she needs to have. He or she needs to on the one side “fit in with your organization” for say 50% but at the same time needs to stand out or “be a bit different” from your kind of employees and culture. This is because the Project Rescue Manager that will come do his/her thing for you will need to fit in, understand your business on a high level, but should not adhere to ways of thinking and doing and behaving as you expect from your “standard employees”.

He/She is there to generate movement and result(s). And generation of movement, or call it change, is not done by adding more of the same…
So do not just draw up a list of competencies and skills he/she should possess like you do with lots of standard job descriptions and profiles. Project Rescue Management is not a standard job. It never will be however much people want to make it sound or look easy for whatever reasons or motives.

Project Rescue Management: Think Before You Act

To start with there are several considerations that must be taken in to account when initiating a Project Rescue. Starting from the point of view that you have built a business case for your project but it still has gone wrong, then think about the following:

Not every project is recoverable, nor should we want to recover certain projects that went wrong; simply continuing with doing what has already gone wrong just so someone can say “we did that one” and claim a + on their annual appraisal can cost too much and may possibly deliver fewer or no benefits at all to all others involved;
On the other hand, certain projects are a “must do”; for example, if you are an insurance company and you need to do a project to meet regulatory/legal obligations then this is a “must do”-project; the risk of not doing that project could mean – worst case – having to close a business line if not – disastrous case – having to close your company doors;
When you do decide to start a Project Rescue, stakeholders and especially decision
makers need to understand that in Project Rescue the aim is no longer to “finish on time”, the aim is to finish the project within a reasonable (renewed) time line whilst at the same time a readjusted but reasonable/acceptable level of benefits can still be achieved for all interested parties such as stakeholders, business users, department heads and other parties expecting to receive a benefit; You will not get everything you wanted anymore; decide what is still acceptable and go for that or kill the project and accept your losses.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

Next to these key points you need to understand, again before you start your Project Rescue, there are two golden rules. These golden rules can never be forgotten and should even be registered in the mandate you will write down and agree upon with your Project Rescue Manager:

Honesty and openness is the number 1 golden rule; Project Rescue Managers do not have the easiest of jobs; by the time they come in faith in the project will most of the time already have sunk to levels below any workable level and communications will have deteriorated sometimes to the level of non-existence; trust will need to be rebuilt on all levels due to annoyed teams (angry team members may even have left the proverbial building) and frustrated managers and customers; to achieve any possible chance for success honesty is the key; if you want your project to continue failing then by all means keep your hidden agenda’s hidden, but do not expect your Project Rescue Manager to be successful in any way if this person cannot be fully and directly honest with you nor if you are not willing to be fully and directly honest with him/her; In any case: do not fire your Project Rescue Manager when he/she gets a lot of heat put on him/her shortly after starting his/her job; if this happens consider a) all the trouble you have gone through to find the right person and b)who (as in “individual” or “group of individuals”) is putting all this heat on the Project Rescue Manager and why is this happening?, the answers might be interesting to look in to;
Choose your Project Rescue Manager wisely; choosing a Project Manager who is already an employee within your company may be a good option since this person knows your company, its culture, the people, the processes, the internal politics; on the other hand, if the selected Project Manager has no success in the end it will almost automatically mean his career-death at your organization (something which will no doubt come to her/his mind on being invited to take the position of Project Rescue Manager); on the other hand again when you seek an external Project Rescue Manager this person may not know your Company, its culture, its politics, et cetera; The first type of candidate may fear for his career the second may not know enough about your company;
You probably see that selecting your Project Rescue Manager can easily turn in to a political debate – which the most influential (group of) stakeholder(s) or decision maker(s) will probably win, even when the selected Project Rescue Manager is then not necessarily the best person for the job – and since time is ticking and money is burning away, political debates need to be kept to a minimum. Selection of your Project Rescue Manager needs to be as swift as possible when and if you decide on starting a Rescue Mission.
One can move aside this discussion, make the discussion more objective if we take a number of personality traits and skills of the Project Rescue Manager in mind. Mr. H. Kerzner, Ph.D., is a worldwide authority who gives us a clear view on what we need to feel and have in a Rescue Project Manager. I take the liberty to quote from his book “Project Management Metrics, KPI’s and Dashboards” (Publish. John Wiley & Sons, 2013(C), ISBN 978-1-118-52466-4, page and applaud Mr. Kerzner for pointing out these items so clearly:

Strong political courage and political savvy
A willingness to be totally honest when attacking and reporting the critical issues
Tenacity to succeed even if it requires a change in resources
Understanding that effective recovery is based upon information, not emotions
Ability to deal with stress, personally and with the team

From my side I would like to add that there are of course additional traits and skills one needs in the Project Rescue Manager. Some of these are for example:

People management skills
extremely direct communication skills at all levels, even up to the board room level
the ability to assist decision makers and stakeholders on deciding “what do we really want at the end”, meaning making people decide on “must have” and not on “nice to see a little red star blinking at the bottom of the screen” when there is no need for that “nice to have” or “must have for a good reason but later on the roadmap will do”; at this point don’t necessarily think “minimum viable product” since you might then have a product that does not do what is needed in the end and for which no one will want to pay; ask simply “what do we need done now! ”
analytical skills of project situation and elements
business case building and managing/analysis skills
strong and longtime project management skills
knowledge and especially experience in working with one or more project management methodologies

You as the audience to this article will no doubt have your own list from which items can be added. Please do. But keep the list effective. Too long a list is likely to achieve paralysis by analysis.

But it is not only the Project Rescue Manager that needs certain traits and skills. The same traits and skills should be available in decision makers and key stakeholders to the project. Plan, do, check and act as likeminded people if you want to make your project rescue a success. Quid pro quo!

Once you have shortlisted your possible candidates, you and your selection board will preferably have a maximum of two candidates left. And this is where the real work starts.

END OF PART ONE

In part two of this article I will start explaining to you the steps in a project rescue process.

Thank you for your time and attention. If you have any comments or questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to me at [email protected]

Copyright Notice
The content of this article and the ideas, suggestions, process descriptions are the intellectual property of the author. Nothing in this article may be used, stored, printed, distributed, changed in any way without the written consent of the author. (C 2017)
Special Copyright Notice
Where applicable, information on other authors and their intellectual property have been added to the article. We inform you again that re-use of their materials and intellectual property is prohibited without their consent.

6 Questions on the Path to Financially Justified Projects: Developing Cash Flow Models – Part 3

Written by Bill Kay, MSOL, PMP on August 15, 2017. Posted in Articles. 6 Comments on 6 Questions on the Path to Financially Justified Projects: Developing Cash Flow Models – Part 3

Click here to read Part 1 and Part 2 of this 3 part Series.

What is the hurdle rate your company uses?

No company has an unlimited source of funds from which to execute its strategy. It stands to reason that with limited funds available, those projects funneled through the selection criteria must be profitable if the organization is to achieve its intended strategy. This limitation imposes upon the organization the need to make thoughtful, calculated decisions concerning what projects receive funding approval. A key component of this decision process is a company’s selection of their expected/required rate of return, or the “hurdle rate” that must be achieved to make projects a worthwhile investment in their particular business setting.

To make it worthwhile, project investment returns always need to be higher than the cost of capital. The WACC (percentage) represents the cost of capital and is used most often as the hurdle rate, but not always. If used as the hurdle rate to make and evaluate investment decisions, the WACC would represent the minimum required rate-of-return at which a company produces value for its investors. The WACC is appropriately used as the hurdle rate if you are confident the promised future cash flows will be received.

Many finance professionals assume that the historical WACC is automatically the correct discount rate with which to assess a prospective project’s NPV. This assumption is the company’s WACC should not extend to all projects. What matters most is the relative risk profile of the specific project under consideration, and its ability to generate net free cash flow that is certain.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

While risky projects may provide leapfrog advantages to an organization, overall risk increases and financial certainty fades, as future cash flow estimates are likely to be flawed (e.g. high probability of cost overruns). When project risk is higher than the company’s existing complement of average or typical undertakings as reflected in its historical WACC, a project risk premium should be added to the company’s cost of capital. This provides a hurdle rate equal to the company’s cost of capital plus the project’s risk premium.

This protective measure employed by the company compensates for accepting the added risk by requiring a risk-adjusted rate of return. The profitability expressed by the NPV calculation is lowered and the chance of accepting the project is also lowered. Evaluating alternatives by requiring a higher rate tilts results in favor of selecting profitable projects, while eliminating from consideration marginally profitable projects. The inevitable tradeoff here is between realizing an “opportunity loss” versus realizing a “real loss.” In the latter situation, there is a real economic loss and the company is shedding value.

Risk premiums can vary from less than one percent to several percentage points; and inversely, especially-low-risk projects may warrant a downward adjustment in the WACC to account for the risk differential. Establishing the hurdle rate(s) has more to do with careful reflection and forward-looking vision than a finance department formula. Influencing factors, assumptions, or judgments might include the economic horizon, competitive forces, industry conditions, type of financing anticipated, risk tolerance (obviously a major factor), faith in the accuracy of the estimates, and the company’s overall situation (e.g., cash position/liquidly).

Conclusion

Always consult your finance department or CFO on these important questions and any appropriate method(s) or guidelines specified within your organization. Armed with this knowledge, you are likely to build cash flow models your superiors will take seriously. Furthermore, it will demonstrate your understanding and initiative, meaning you will likely earn considerable credibility with that department (or other key decision makers) which, incidentally, may ultimately have final word or control the purse strings on your current or future project.

Achieving Management Commitment for Project Success

Written by Randall Englund on August 14, 2017. Posted in Articles. 2 Comments on Achieving Management Commitment for Project Success

Ask, Are You Getting the Support You Need on Your Projects? The answer most likely is, probably NOT!

Projects need upper manager/sponsor support to be successful. This point seems to surface everywhere we turn—project manager testimonials, Pulse of the Profession reports, Chaos reports, personal experiences, etc. Is it true, or is it anecdotal?

Colleague Alfonso Bucero and I decided to conduct experiments to prove or disprove the research hypothesis that upper management support is crucial to project success. He had already accumulated much data from literature searches in his PhD studies. All seemed to support that correlation exists between upper management support and project success.

Our experiments were conducted in multiple seminars during Project Management Institute SeminarsWorld. We asked participants, coming from multiple industries and geographies, to pick a topic of concern to them, a current state that could be subjected to force field analysis. Each table was free to select their own topic. Craft a description of a current state. Then identify forces that drove movement towards a better state or restrained that movement. Likewise, identify forces that would make for, or prevent moving towards, a worse state.

The concept being employed is that a steady state equilibrium exists—forces in positive or negative directions balance each other. A next step in developing action plans is to increase positive and decrease negative forces, thereby improving the situation. Even small changes make a difference. Multiple small changes in force vectors, combined with a few large changes, become the basis for a solid change management plan.

Results

Repeatedly, almost every group picked a deficiency relating to upper management support! The graphic shows a sample of flip chart results. This pattern repeats itself world-wide during these exercises. Upper managers do not recognize, understand, appreciate, and/or support the project management process.

Frustration is rampant among project managers trying to execute projects where management support is non-existent or less than desired. Suitable resources are not allocated in a timely manner, people are pulled off projects for other work, changes to requirements appear randomly, decisions and conflicts take forever to get resolved, project prioritization and selection are mysterious processes, with minimal linkage to any strategy, whether that strategy is directed or evolves. Negative politics prevail. These are just a few areas plaguing project, program, and portfolio management professionals trying to do their best work.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

Research Findings

Project success or failure often depends on how well the project sponsor communicates and establishes a relationship with the project manager, the customer, and other project stakeholders during project life cycles.Project sponsors often do not understand their roles and responsibilities for the project. In some situations, this occurs because nobody explains their responsibilities to them. Those circumstances generate many communication and execution problems.

Most organizations try to improve project success rates through developing project practitioner’s skills, project methodologies, project procedures, thus transforming organizations to project based organizations. Since project success or failure is not entirely within the control of the project manager or the project team, executives need to be involved, too.

Organizations have environmental issues, such as organizational changes, resource constraints, strategic changes or regulations, and they may influence the progress and outcomes of projects. This is why executive support needs to be included in any quest to improve project success rates.

Empirical evidence shows that there is a relationship between how well the sponsor supports project management in an organization and project success. This research identifies that the variables Commitment, Believes, and Rewards are the most significant variables which affect project success. These results provide insights into senior managers regarding the role of the sponsor in organizations to contribute to project success. Project sponsors should especially focus on commitment, belief and rewards. Even when several project sponsor role definitions exist, this research has demonstrated that commitment, believe in, and being rewarded are three key factors that contribute to project success. This outcome adds to knowledge about desired behaviors from sponsors in organizations.

Theoretically, the findings contribute to the growing body of executive sponsorship and organizational project management literature. In the field of strategic management, the findings provide material to stimulate discussion on the advantages of executive project sponsorship oversight for strategic initiatives and the investment in project management in terms of long range organizational strategy. The findings also open the door to explore the question as to whether or not project sponsor role is a strategic competency that deserves continued investment.

An implication for executives is to explore the role of excellence in project sponsorship, moving from poor sponsor performance to higher levels of maturity. Where project managers contribute to better performance on project based work, achieving additional higher levels of support from sponsors for project, program, and project teams can vastly improve project success rates.

Given the generally poor results from many projects currently, significant improvement may occur when sponsors up their involvement. This can happen by demonstrating increased commitment to each project selected via a project portfolio management process, participating in project start-up events, and active sustained involvement throughout project life cycles. More verbal gestures sharing their beliefs about why projects are important and how they contribute to strategic goals would help. Setting up rewards and recognition for work accomplished may range from simple thank-yous to more elaborate bonuses. Large scale initiatives are not required to apply these insights. Many of these changes may occur by modification of behaviors, driven by increased awareness about how they impact project success.

References that Help

View a video that asks “Are your project tittering on thin edges, ready to collapse? You are not alone. Many projects fail to deliver desired out or do not complete at all. Perhaps management commitment—or lack thereof—is a cause…?”

Conduct a quick assessment using a Sponsor Evaluation Survey. A database of cumulative averages is available to compare personal results with people in other organizations. For areas where you score high, what action steps can you do to reinforce, leverage, educate, coach, and expand the practices that led to that high score? Look for opportunities to share these best practices with others.

For areas where you score low, what action steps can you propose to do differently or discover practices that will improve your score? Seek inputs from others who scored higher in these areas.

The benchmark scores help determine where you are compared to others. Use the data and action plans to communicate with others about the need and means to build upon strengths and improve sponsorship in your organization. Data is especially meaningful to capture attention from stakeholders in data-driven environments.
Convene a book study group using Project Sponsorship: A Manager’s Guide to Achieving Management Commitment, 2nd Ed. Engage in dialogue to help select, train, and develop project sponsors.

15 Little Known Tools for Project Managers, that may Suit Team Needs Perfectly

Written by Asya Karapetyan on August 9, 2017. Posted in Articles. 6 Comments on 15 Little Known Tools for Project Managers, that may Suit Team Needs Perfectly

Today a huge line-up of apps is available for managing projects. You can find absolutely any software suitable for company and team needs.

The problem is, of course, knowing which program to choose. In this article I am not going to cover such well known and sophisticated software as Microsoft Visio, Gantt Pro, Jira and others. But let’s take a look at some less well known apps for project managers. Although they may be unknown to you, some have great features and may suit your team perfectly.

1. Redbooth – an online PM program available on any platform. The service is especially convenient for developers because it allows you to track bugs, plan activities and projects, manage resources and assign tasks to colleagues, set deadlines and monitor project expenditure as well as share files. It also can be synchronized with Gmail, Google Drive and Outlook.

Pros: simple and user-friendly interface; tags and chats; ability to create reports and integrate with other services.
Cons: no possibility for prioritizing tasks; does not show billing percentages upon task completion.

2. Easy Redmine – Open Source software for planning and managing large projects with extensions for resource management, finance, CRM, etc.

Pros: the software can be installed on your own server; great for serving big teams
Cons: no general visualization for projects; inconvenient navigation; planning design sprints quickly is not possible

3. Freedcamp service – an organized workspace for immediate viewing of the whole project, billing and assigning tasks with the use of “stickers” and a calendar. Freedcamp provides add-ons for CRM, preparation of invoices, bug tracking, and creating wiki pages.

Pros: ability to prioritize tasks; convenient tabs to separate different projects; easy to use; fast with responsive customer support.
Cons: no ability to view progress and percentage completion of tasks.

4. Merlin – software to create Gantt charts for Mac with the ability to monitor costs and project budget.

Pros: software can be installed on your own server.
Cons: no unique features; low mobility; available for macOS users only.

5. Zoho Projects – a project management program that allows you to plan your project in collaboration with team members; also to create and assign tasks, monitor updates, export reports and analyze their effectiveness, commenting and discussing the challenges while obtaining a summary of discussions for each task.

Pros: except for Zoho Projects, you can also use Zoho Mail, Zoho CRM, Zoho documents, depending on the your company’s needs.
Cons: too many features make the software too complicated; slow file download.

6. VSDX Annotator – an application to view and annotate Visio files on Mac. While Microsoft Visio is widely used by project managers, there is a problem when Mac users want to view vsd, vsdx and vdx files. VSDX Annotator helps to solve this problem and provides the possibility of annotating files, exporting in PDF and even saving back in .vsdx for editing the files later in Visio.

Pros: high resolution when displaying huge Visio files; wide range of annotation tools; easy to use; low price
Cons: no possibility for editing files; no version for iOS devices.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

7. Podio – an application that allows you to work on projects simultaneously with the team as well as manage projects or tasks for storing and sharing files. The application can be used as a CRM system or as an intranet in which team members can share ideas.

Pros: flexibility and customization with most products; ability to assign resources and track numbers (budget, expenses, etc.)
Cons: inconvenient for navigation.

8. Wrike – a unified system for working on projects with extensive functional features. It allows you to assign roles and create a workspace for each department to formulate and discuss problems, monitor their status and progress, share files, display project tasks on Gantt charts and receive weekly reports.

Pros: suitable for both large and small teams; possibility of creating separate folders for different projects.
Cons: with so many branched in multi-level projects the user could get lost in the navigation.

9. Acunote – a task manager app for developers, which allows planning sprints, making tasks in the backlog, assigning tasks to team members, putting up estimates, following up on task implementation, and even performing a Review of codes.

Pros: one of the most popular and reliable SaaS solutions to manage your tasks, with instant notification and the possibility of analyzing your efficiency.
Cons: with no mobile applications or optimization, UX/UI is far from being user-friendly.

10. Insightly – a CRM system and project management tool with integration with Gmail, Google Apps, Outlook 2013 and Office365. It allows you to quickly manage tasks and monitor the status of marketing and sales.

Pros: simple and friendly interface; easy to set up; has iOS application.
Cons: suitable only for tasks involving customer relations.

11. SprintGround – a task manager supported by Agile/Scrum. It allows planning sprints and releases, tracking progress of projects, reporting bugs and requesting new features based on user feedback.

Pros: free for small businesses; optimized for Agile.
Cons: no synchronization with Mail or Cloud services.

12. ISETIA – a project management service that combines the Kanban board, a hierarchical structure of tasks, with Gantt charts. It allows users to share documents and files in the system.

Pros: simple interface; ability to visualize data in various forms.
Cons: seems to lack service support.

13. eXo Platform – a service that connects all employees, developers and customers. It is a kind of combination of all communication channels, from the intranet, mailboxes to social networking and blogs.

Pros: an impressive extended functionality.
Cons: can be difficult to initiate this service; frequently hangs.

14. RunMyProcess – the service is not only focused on app integrity and integration but also interfaces with other services. Its main aim is to build your own solutions, connecting with services already in use and communications channels.

Pros: convenient, especially for those who cannot find a service that meets all the needs of a team or company.
Cons: despite its apparent simplicity of use, creating applications based on RunMyProcess could be time consuming.

15. Smartsheet – one of the first services for project management on the market. It allows you to create Gantt charts for your projects, open tasks and assign them to project stakeholders, set deadlines, monitor implementation progress, attach files and carry out numerous other functions.

Pros: a serious tool for project management, which should be considered as a long-term investment for your company.
Cons: unsuitable for small teams; slow tech support; take too much time to learn to work with the program.