AUTOMATION IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Project management is always challenging, in an increasingly competitive environment where customers are constantly demanding for deliveries, less time and efficiency of operations, automation has been an ally of companies. At its core, automation is about solving a problem and reducing error by reliably offloading manual work done by a human to a machine. The goal is to reduce time-consuming,  repetitive, and routine work, and to maximize the repeatability and predictability of results.
By automating work that is tedious and repetitive, you’re freeing up time for work that can’t be automated like: innovation and creativity.
In the case of automation in Project Management, there are a whole lot of potential advantages it can offer, including:

• Offloading of routine tasks
• Scalability
• Improved risk assessment and mitigation capabilities
• Opportunities for efficiency gains
• More effective communication

1. 1. Offload routine tasks: Any software that can automate certain project management processes will lessen the burden of many repetitive-but-important tasks. Things such as tracking time, updating and submitting estimates, managing resources, reporting, tracking changes and quality control can all be handled by project management automation software. This, in turn, frees the project manager and their team to focus on other, more productive tasks.
   2. Automation provides scalability: When a project management team is relieved of the burden of managing many of its routine tasks, it frees up capacity to take on more projects and deliver greater output back to their organization. Further, though, automation in project management also provides technical scalability. As the number and complexity of projects increases, automation can help ensure the various systems involved in delivering the project are connected and sharing information as needed, this helps scale output.
   3. Improved risk assessment and mitigation capabilities: As it turns out, humans aren’t great at accurately estimating probabilistic risks, especially when multiple probabilities are compounded together. Software that helps to automate project forecasting and budgeting is much more effective at this. It can mine data from past projects in order to more accurately predict potential risks and roadblocks in future projects. Not only does this make a project run more efficiently; it can also greatly improve the stakeholder management process by allowing the project manager to more accurately set expectations.
   4.  Automation can create and identify opportunities for efficiency gains: Software that can track what each member of the project team is working on, while that may seem a little too similar to Big Brother, allows the project teams to identify areas where time is being lost, as well as to dig into why that might be the case. The application can then make suggestions as to how the process could be improved going forward. Such optimization suggestions could include positioning each member of a project team to work on the tasks at which they most excel, they could also include scheduling adjustments and ways to minimize overtime. Such software can also act as an early warning monitor, alerting project managers when a workstream is showing signs of going off-timeline or over-budget.

•  Project management automation can facilitate more effective communication: Project management automation software can greatly improve communication efficiency on a project management team. By centralizing and automating status reports, a project manager can easily gauge the progress of each workstream of a project. The same application can more easily surface, bring visibility to, and facilitate iteration on ideas from the team.

 
Will automation replace humans in project management? Likely not, at least, not anytime soon. While software can perform and automate many tasks and analyses much more efficiently than people can, it can’t easily assess the human element of project management. Software can’t report on team morale, for example, nor can it help team members improve upon their weaknesses (though it can help identify those weaknesses), stakeholder management, conflict resolution, strategy & innovation etc.

Written by Adejumoke Akinrele.