Common project management challenges and tips to overcome them

Project management is often a big dilemma for organizations, irrespective of the employee size or the wide range of clients they serve. The primary reason behind this is that managing projects isn’t an easy task and lack of automation in the project management software being used. 

While many organizations have been using Excel sheets and various other project manual project management tools for decades, their effectiveness has decreased. But that’s not for long. According to project management statistics in 2022, with a CAGR of 10.67%, the PM software market is estimated to reach $9.81 billion in 2026. 

There’s no denying that COVID-19 and remote work gave a major boost to the project management software category. Hence, we witnessed automated platforms for project management taking off in 2020. Yet, there are still a few challenges that organizations face when it comes to managing projects in a remote or hybrid working environment. Let’s find out all about them and how they could be solved. 

Project management challenges faced by organizations 

1. Lack of communication 

The success of a project depends heavily on effective communication between the various stakeholders throughout the various phases. Therefore, organizations must have clear communication channels to ensure that all employees are participating in the process. However, since every employee works differently, the communication is usually siloed across various channels, and that leads to people having incomplete details.

Such miscommunication also affects teamwork, which brings chances of project failure. The elaborative effects of lack of communication are project delays, quality disputes, etc. 

How to solve communication issues

Organizations should integrate project management tools for the managers to ensure that they are able to communicate easily. Such tools make it simpler for managers and team members to do their jobs and provide increased project transparency and team responsibility. For example, some PM software includes simple-to-understand contextual comments, @mentions, and priority assignment capabilities to ensure that the team members easily transition from manual to automated project management.  There are tools like Flow that allow one-on-one chatting between team members too.

Besides integrating comprehensive software, it is also important for team members to avoid misunderstandings. This can be done by organizing regular catch-up and updating meetings weekly. 

2. Budgeting issues for a project management software

Most project managers believe that financial issues are one of the main obstacles ahead of good project management. Budgeting issues kill half of the prospects that could be implemented with project management over tools. And it is only due to these issues that organizations use cheap tools with minimal features or none. 

But the real question is, will the lack of an automated management system solve any problem? Shouldn’t one be thinking long-term?

How to deal with budgeting issues

It is imperative to follow a thorough budgeting process and consider reasonable points to prevent cost overruns. In addition, project management software is available in various price ranges, depending on the employee size and features. So, there must be a concrete discussion over the features your projects would need, and which provider could offer them at the best price. Sometimes, the hidden cost is higher than the cost you may incur, i.e. not using a project management software or using a half-baked tool could have deeper financial losses than shelling out for such platforms in the first place. 

3. Skills mismatch 

You would want your organization to provide an ideal working atmosphere for your team and the project manager. So, it’s important for your managers to assign tasks to the team depending on the specific talent. For example, not all employees could be expert technicians, or some would be more creative than others. So, it is very important to match the tasks with the skills to ensure quality assurance for the projects that are being worked on. 

However, the problem with manual project management tools is that a high frequency of projects and regular changes in managers reset the team’s understanding level. Plus, it takes expertise to understand what talents and skills are necessary for certain activities to match skills-to-project requirements the best. 

How to overcome skills mismatch issues

Project management tools evaluate the workforce regularly and create reports on performances and delivery timelines. This helps determine whether every employee has been assigned tasks matching their skills. It also provides insights into how long employees are taking to accomplish their tasks. 

4. Steep / impractical deadlines

What a lot of organizations fail to implement is realistic and acceptable deadlines. However, setting up unrealistic deadlines and TATs to meet bosses’ or client expectations is common, leading to two very crucial problems 

• Employee turnover
• Quality dip

Moreover, setting up impractical deadlines reduce the overall target achievement in terms of projects completed and the time taken to complete them over time. On the other hand, setting steep deadlines is a well-known and documented method of over-promising.   

An experienced project manager is aware of the strengths and limitations of the teams, as well as what they can produce in a given time frame. Therefore, they should look to negotiate realistic timeframes without being in a hurry to finish the assignment. 

How to solve impractical deadline issues

The first solution is that realistic timelines must be addressed throughout the planning stage. Next, segregate the project into manageable pieces and allow each employee enough time to complete it to establish a reasonable deadline. 

Make each estimate based on the knowledge of previously finished work. You can set realistic deadlines with the help of good project management software.

5. Poor risk management

An essential component of project management is anticipating probable events and creating backup plans based on them. Since so many factors can lead to failure or sub-par project quality, managers should have foresight in such situations.

How to resolve risk management issues

Every project manager’s responsibility is to develop backup plans that the team can deploy if things start to go haywire. The future blips can be identified and minimized with the use of risk management in project management software. Hence, setting up a backup plan is crucial to ensure that the project gets finished no matter what. 

Conclusion

Irrespective of the challenges, there is just one solution to modern-day team management – the use of comprehensive project management software. However, with the growth of the PM software market, the saturation over non-impactful tools is high. 

So, it is essential to have complete research of the solutions you need and the kind of tools available in the market. For example, you could try Flow, one of the most comprehensive project management software that aims to increase productivity, enhance the remote workforce, and build better communication. 

Try it today!