In our last blog post on project management tools, we reviewed one of the findings from a study conducted by Software Advice, in their latest report.  That report stated that 60% of the prospective buyers are using manual methods[1].  We should not just disparage those companies that choose to go the manual route. Finding a tool that will work is a non-trivial activity.  These tools can be complicated and require training and can have a rather shallow learning curve; that is it takes a long time to gain a small measure of mastery over the tool.

Besides understanding your project management problem that you are working to solve, there can be complications associated with company politics.  I have seen these political disagreements derail any chance of quickly identifying possible tool candidates and work to assess the capabilities.

The study also goes on to rank the top reasons the first time buyers are looking at project management tools.  The top three are[2]:

1. Need to organize
2. Automate / streamline process
3. Increase transparency

These three areas tell us something also.  Automating is not possible without tools.  It can be eliminated, maybe, but it cannot be automated.  Transparency is interesting also. we will take that discussion in our next post.