Technology is an integral part of many project teams’ daily workflows. Even if your group already has a strong technology base, consider these additional use cases designed to keep your project budget under control.
1: Automation
The ability to automate rote and repetitive tasks is a big benefit of many technology platforms. Look at your day-to-day activities for anything that could transition into an automated process.
- Updating budget line items
- Tracking communications and requests
- Following up on past-due deliveries, invoices, or payments
You may also find automation opportunities that reduce your reliance on contract or temporary support, such as data entry and document management.
Utilized in the right areas, automation enables you to better control your project spending. Not only will you ensure your budget information is always current when you aren’t waiting for someone to find the time to update it, you’ll also have more time available to put toward higher-value tasks that keep your project moving ahead.
2: Real-time data access for team members and project stakeholders
Many traditional processes rely on a look-back model for budgeting purposes. But knowing what your expenditures were several months ago isn’t nearly as useful as knowing what you’ve spent this week. Only with real-time information at hand can your team make the necessary adjustments to stay in budget and avoid unexpected overages. Everyone can be confident they’re working off the most current information and any line items or functional areas that are approaching their budget thresholds will be alerted well in advance.
Rather than build and maintain your own systems to deliver this real-time access, you may choose to partner with a project management consultancy that offers this capability as part of its service.
3: Data analytics
With the wide variety of powerful data analytics solutions available across the marketplace today, project teams can choose the technologies that suit their particular needs. Consider some of the areas where analytics may be able to deliver valuable insight and uncover new opportunities for cost efficiencies:
- Risk management
- Quality control
- Resource allocations and consumption
- Historical budget trends and overage drivers
Project teams often invest huge amounts of time unpacking and analyzing project metrics and other information. With data analytics capabilities at your disposal, you can redirect those efforts to more strategically important activities while also learning more about where you can trim expenses and improve project outcomes.
4: Cloud services
In many cases, the use of cloud technology can save money over the long term by reducing the need for hardware and maintenance costs to support your project team. These expenses can become especially burdensome if your group is expanding or stakeholders are dispersed across multiple regions and connectivity must extend to many different locations.
You may also find that cloud services enable you to quickly scale up your project management operations at key times—when multiple projects overlap and your need for bandwidth or niche capabilities exceeds your normal usage, for example. You can then return to your usual recurring expense level when the workloads stabilize.
5: Remote work functionality
Now that more people are accustomed to working from home, project teams are increasingly able to utilize remote technologies to control project costs.
- Minimize vendors’ onsite fees by opting for virtual visits when possible.
- Reduce travel expenditures with online training and e-learning options.
You can also eliminate other inefficiencies with the features that underpin remote work technology. Digital communications keep transition time between meetings to a minimum, and events—from open houses to executive-level presentations—can often occur through virtual channels with less expense.
PMAlliance, Inc uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project portfolio management.