Home
Project Management

7 Reasons Why Project Management Software Doesn't Scale

May 10, 2021
Post Masthead

Project Management Software

It is both exciting and challenging when a business reaches the next phase of growth. It is exciting to see the team expand and revenue grow, but it can be challenging to figure out how to your processes and systems will keep up.

Scaling a business is all about reaching a stage where you can support and enable growth in the company, so you don’t feel like you are being held back. Having the right team, technology, processes, systems, and partners also helps.

Project management is crucial for business growth. It brings order to chaos; it establishes accountability and governance; and it keeps the engine running. However, your project management software is also key to scaling. However, project management software isn’t always designed to scale.

In this article, we will explore the top reasons why project management software doesn’t scale, and what you can do about it.

Reasons Why Project Management Software Doesn’t Scale

## Project Management Software

If your project management software is working wonders for you and your team right now, that’s great! But think about if your business were to triple in size. Will your current software be able to handle triple the volume? Maybe, maybe not.

You’ve probably already thought about whether your business can withstand major growth, but can your software keep up?

Here are some things to consider when thinking about what your business needs to scale:

  • Larger customer base or client pool to communicate with more regularly
  • Larger volume of project and tasks
  • Additional team member or users who need access to systems
  • Additional reports that need to be created, processed, and shared
  • More conversations and meetings related to the production pipeline

If the project management software you are using isn’t going to scale with your business, then it could be time to search for alternate options. Otherwise, you’ll be scrambling for a solution at the last minute.

Here are some red flags that tell you that it might be time to cut your losses and move to another solution.

1. To-Do Lists Aren’t Personalized for Each User

This isn’t necessarily a big deal for small teams. However, when expanding your team, this can turn into a larger issue. Automated lists in superior software ensure a team is productive and aware of what they are responsibile for and when, and what parts they play in the project and in the organization as a whole.

2. Varying User Permissions Levels

As businesses grow and expand, having different levels of permissions when accessing software will add a layer of security. It’s important to define different user roles in software—ranging from reviewers to administrative staff—and your software should allow you to do so.

3. Only One Way to Work

Unfortunately, many project management software solutions only allow one way to operate. For example, one project management system might only users to create and track tasks using linear to-do lists, when the team might benefit from more visual workflows.

In another example, a manager might want to see a Gantt chart or timeline of an in-depth, highly-complex project, whereas executive leadership might just want to see a high-level view of what a team is working on, and when they can expect deliverables. Many project managment tools only offer one or the other, and project leaders and managers can end up spending a ton of time figuring out how to get one system to show all stakeholders what they need to see. It’s exhausting…

A good rule of thumb? Your project management system should blend to the way that you and your team work, not the other way around.

4. Lacks the “Big-Picture” View

Does your project management software currently provide a clear, big-picture view of everything in production? If there is, great. If not, then you’re going to eventually end up finding that you will waste a lot of time trying to manually create a report as well as manually update the status of each project. As your team and the project workfload increases, this can easily eat up an entire day.

The right software should give you a simple way to see the status of every project as well as key milestones and deadlines, allowing you to take action to keep things moving through the pipeline. Bottlenecks can add time to a project, especially if the project manager isn’t aware they exist.

5. Organizing Projects Should Get Easier, Not Harder

It will be clear when your company expands that your project management software almost becomes more difficult to use rather than easier… Your software should provide you with a way to organize your projects according to the methodologies and techniques that you prefer. Is there no option to separate by department? By client? This is going to make it much harder for your team to see what they need to see.

For example, you might have all projects for one client in one place so they can easily be located. This makes it easier to keep things organized as you bring on more clients.

6. No Project Templates

When you have a small team and projects are coming in at a slower or somewhat inconsistent pace, adding project-related data and information into a system probably doesn’t eat up that much time in the grand scheme of things.

However, once you have additional clients and projects, this is no longer efficient. Project management software without the ability to create templates only exacerbates the issue.

Creating and setting up new projects is a process that should easily be set on “autopilot”. By having a list of core project templates available, setting up a new project should take minutes if not seconds, not hours.

7. Lacks Comprehensive Support

Have you ever tried to reach out to the support team for your favorite project management software? Some are great at getting back to you quickly while others might leave you high and dry for hours or even days. If you have a question (and there will be more of them with a larger business), waiting a day to get an answer can be completely untenable.

If you are investing in project management software for your growing business, be sure that your software comes with a level of support that will meet the needs of your growing team. Quick response times, online and offline resources, and an onboarding plan are a few things that should be included.

Don’t Settle for Project Management Software That Doesn’t Scale

## Project Management Software

All in all, project management software can fall short in many ways for a growing business. As you think about your growing and scaling your business, don’t forget about your current tools and systems. They need to agile enough to grow with you. If they don’t, or if they show any of the “red flags” we outlined above, it may be time to move on.

Scale your business easily with Rindle. Rindle is not only easy to setup and use, but it is designed with all the innovative features and level of agility that are crucial for your business’ growth. Get in touch with us today to learn more.