Complex Systems of Project Management for Small and Medium Business

Recently many small and medium sized companies have faced some problems with organizing and implementing project management systems on their enterprises.

Problem 1: Choice

Modern software products existing at the market are aimed mainly at big and medium sized companies that can afford buying and maintaining complex project management systems.

Small and medium companies have to choose from a great number of cheaper systems aimed at the organization of project management in one specific department or several departments (accounting, logistics, human resource, etc.).

Using several similar systems, which very often don’t cover all business processes of the whole enterprise, simultaneously can cause problems of the interaction between departments in the course of project realization and can considerably increase the cost of the system usage.

Moreover, in most cases the absence of the general project management information center at the enterprise may result in negative consequences: delays, violating deadlines, exceeding the agreed budget, inappropriate execution of the assigned tasks, etc.

Problem 2: Adaptation

Another serious problem of organizing and implementing project management systems at the enterprises is the complexity of adapting to different project methodologies of various systems.

The problem of adaptation is determined by a set of internal and external factors.

Among the external factors one can single out the orientation on the business models which are not typical for the company’s ways of conducting business. In some cases only parts, modules, or individual tools of such systems can be used.

Among the internal reasons one can single out the lack of enough qualification of managers in small companies who don’t apply even half of the options of the project management system installed at the enterprise.

Problem 3: Integration

Another serious problem that companies can face while choosing task management software solution for their purposes is the correlation between aims and tasks of the given company with the functions and possibilities of the system.

Professional (specialized) systems present a wide set of specialized functions and options but require more time for implementing and training, more resources on maintenance and requires higher qualification of users.

On the other hand, less complicated universal systems provide relatively small basic functional for project management and, at the same time, they don’t require big time and financial efforts for implementing and maintaining as well as big experience and special skills from users.

Looking for the golden mean between these two aspects is vital for small and medium enterprises conducting a few simultaneous projects as well as big companies being parts of corporate structures and developing many various projects at a time.

Problem 4: Technical Support

The situation is aggravated by the fact that small enterprises can’t afford to have their own IT infrastructure (IT department).

In this respect it can be difficult for them to support internal management systems intended for organizing team work while developing and supporting their products, planning and task tracking, generating reports, and managing other business processes.

At present the most well-known and popular project management systems are the following: Atlassian JIRA, Redmine, Comindware, Trac. All these systems have advantages and disadvantages. But an overview of those is a matter of another post.