5 ways project management tools can help you prioritize effective communication.

Monday morning has arrived. After your strategy meetings, you're eager to hear about your team's progress on the project they began working on the previous week. 

But instead, you get a case of;

I didn’t think I was supposed to be doing this. That was Daniel’s job.

Or,

I thought Jessica was in charge of social media.

As someone who has a brand, or works within a team, this might not be an out-of-the-ordinary experience for you and as a result of that, you are now the definition of tired. 

Project.co did some research and found that a whopping 68% of people have complained that they have wasted time due to communication issues within the organization.

In that same survey, it was found that 12% of people lost customers to their competitors owing to—you guessed it—poor communication. 

Today, many organizations believe that once they incorporate any project management tool into their processes, they have magically solved every problem imaginable. However, the contrary is the case; especially when you key into just any project management tool that lacks most of what you need to aid success in your organization.

In this article, I will explain why it is important to prioritize effective communication and how project management tools can supplement your intention to prioritize communication. 

How project management and communication are related to each other

Let me paint you a picture: you and your team are managing a project and everyone is working towards achieving the objectives that have been laid out. 

You have a lot of people working on different tasks that are all intertwined, so the question of how well things are coordinated frequently rises. 

This is where effective communication comes into play. You’d be surprised by just how much talking about things can do for your team and the quality of their project management. 

To improve the quality of their project management, everyone needs to lay their respective plans down, talk about the snags they might face here and there, and make sure everyone is sure of what exactly they are supposed to be doing. 

So, look at it like this, effective communication is the oil that keeps project management running smoothly and effectively. 

So imagine a project management tool that prioritizes communication as much as they prioritize task management and Gantt charts.

Why is it important to prioritize communication when picking a project management tool?

You don’t have to be Einstein to know the reason good and effective communication is important in project management, but here are some itemized reasons prioritizing communication when picking a project management tool is a great idea:

1. It reduces the stress levels of your team members

Imagine using a project management tool where you can only input projects’ proposed start and end dates and nothing else. And then, the way you communicate is through a platform like Slack where you might have to be going back and forth between your project management tool and your communication tool for reference. Over time, you may begin to question why you even have the project management tool in the first place, seeing as it seems to be creating even more stress for your team members.

Now imagine using a project management tool that prioritizes communication in the sense that you can not only add proposed start and end dates for your projects and manage your tasks but you can also actually communicate on the platform. You can ask about the progress of the tasks on the tool, you can communicate problems right there on the tool, you can brainstorm on the tool itself with regards to whatever project, and so on. Think of the great things that does for your team members' stress levels. Everyone knows where to go for a timely response to a problem, everyone is assured of what everyone else is doing on the project, and all they are left to worry about is just plain getting their jobs done. 

2. It prevents avoidable mistakes

When everyone is well aware of every other person’s responsibilities, it reduces the chances of avoidable mistakes and increases the chances of a well-done project. Nobody is making duplicate reports, no one is misled about what their roles are, and everything is just a well-oiled machine. 

3. It streamlines the workflow of team members

When everything is timely and effectively communicated, work becomes clearer. Everyone would know the process of what they are supposed to be doing, and this will reduce the occurrence of redundant questions and save the time of everyone involved in the project.

4. It builds trust and fosters teamwork between coworkers

Effective communication suggests that everything be laid bare for everyone to be aware of and discuss. This includes laying bare the plans, and the documents involved in a project, highlighting the next steps, seeking help from coworkers where necessary, and so on. Over time, actions like these build trust and form a closeness between coworkers that might not have neem there before.

See also: 6 project management tools that can make your content marketing top-notch

5 ways project management tools can help you prioritize effective communication

Here are five ways project management tools can help you prioritize effective communication: 

1. Real-time collaboration

90% of remote workers say that video conferencing increases the connection they feel to their work and coworkers. 

When you incorporate a project management tool that allows for real-time collaboration through video conferencing, and whiteboards, live chats, and so on, it allows your team members to communicate and work together on tasks regardless of where everyone else might be. A tool like Miro helps with this kind of collaboration with their whiteboards and the ability of the app to integrate with communication tools like Slack and Zoom.

2. Task management

Teams have reported a 30% increase in productivity as a result of using task management software/features. 

When you incorporate the use of project management tools that take task management a step further by not only allowing team members to add a proposed start and end date for various projects, but also allowing for teams to assign tasks, set deadlines for these tasks, and track the progress of these tasks. 

A tool like Drogo with its task management features like the ability to assign tasks, track the progress of these tasks, and set deadlines helps teams work together seamlessly while maintaining open and transparent communication. 

Drogo has a dashboard that provides an informed view of all ongoing projects, relevant messages regarding the project, and a quick way to reach the chat feature that helps team members communicate efficiently, share files, discuss ideas, and provide feedback in real-time, making it easier to manage tasks undertaken and stay on top of deadlines.

3. Centralized communication

Good project management tools ensure that every form of communication regarding projects being carried out is done in one place as opposed to a back-and-forth email communication. 

Drogo for example, has a comment feature that allows team members to comment their concerns under a task they may have added and even tag their fellow team members to important responsibilities that need their attention. The chat feature also allows team members to talk in clear terms about their progress on their projects and where they hit snags during their work. 

What this means this means is that teams can reference old messages from one source if at all they need information that has been passed before. This saves time.

4. Time tracking

This is a feature of good project management tools that help team members track how long they spend on a task or an overall project. This feature helps team members identify areas where they are spending too much or too little time, and help them focus on being more productive in the areas that matter. 

5. Reporting and analysis

Apart from manually tracking how much time it takes to finish a task, project management tools also help with automated reports and analysis. Using a project management tool lets team members track progress and identify potential issues without having to do much except—you guessed it—communicate. This is because the automated reports are running on the information fed to the tool and letting you know how your work is reflecting on the overall project. 

There you have it! These are 5 ways good project management tools can help you prioritize communication in your workplace. From real-time collaboration to task management to centralized communication, time tracking, and reporting and analysis.

Wrapping up

As I earlier stated, communication is the oil that keeps the machine that is project management in the workplace, going. Without it, the quality of your team’s project management would be down in the dumps and unimpactful. This is why it is important to seek project management tools that like you, prioritize communication. It makes completing your project, more likely than if you do not prioritize communication at all. 

Drogo is one of the most effective tools when it comes to prioritizing communication in project management. It is a bold claim, but we suggest trying it out before you knock it.