Well, nobody can give a certain answer in the above questions, but based on the huge number of companies that already use Cloud Project Management it seems that it is not just one more temporary solution in the business software world.

Lani Gregory from Bright Pattern Inc. seems to agree , as she believes that every business living in a multi-channel world has to deal with a complete information overload (e-mail, phones, texts, Social Media, tasks etc.), so if they want to keep up they have to choose Cloud Technology for project tracking which leads to higher customer satisfaction and productivity.

Furthermore, the traditional Cloud Project Management tools worked perfectly for big projects, but what happens with the smaller ones? Cloud is also a solution in such cases, as Cloud tools can be used to support any kind of project, no matter the complexity or size. They are flexible, simple and easy to use, says Brent Frei, executive chairman and co-founder of Smartsheet. Still wondering why to choose Cloud?

If yes, Victoria Kartunova from Bitrix24 mentioned two more Cloud features that will make Cloud Project Management stronger and stronger: “social and collaborative”. Project management in general seems to becoming less vertical and that really helps the Cloud PM dominance as it has all the potential to incorporate this tendency.  Victoria also mentioned the Mobile Device power, “as instant access to the Cloud via any mobile will lead to more sustained collaboration on the projects”.

Integration with other popular Cloud applications is one more feature that really helps in the right way, as Project Management is not longer a stand-alone branch with stand-alone solutions, according to Victoria . Thus, complex solutions like CRM Project Management or Business Intelligence with Project Management will totally be the number one option for any kind and size of business. Brent Frei also agrees with that, as people expect project management tools to work with the Cloud apps they already use, such as Dropbox, Google Apps etc.

John Penland is also a Cloud fan especially when it comes to collaboration, as he believes that the change that Cloud Technology has brought to Project Management has helped people work together. “Cloud PM allows customers, vendors and contractors to quickly and easily create workflows and collaborate regardless of their location”. All data can be linked with processes, people and tasks, driving business forward and enhancing teamwork online.

Cloud PM seems to be undoubtedly the winner and a one-way road for any kind of business who wants to enter the Project Management word. Maybe we are unable to predict how Cloud PM will look like in five years from now, but we can be sure that it will still rule our everyday enterprise collaboration.

The post The Future Of Cloud Project Management appeared first on Comidor Low-code Automation Platform.

It actually took him 8 years from that emotional departure (1485) to the glorious arrival back to Europe (1493): Travel from Genoa to Lisbon to beg the King John II for support, fail, go back home to find sponsors in Genoa and Venice, fail once more, visit the court of King Henry VII in England and fail again, lobby for 2 years next to the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabel I, handle provocateurs, unexpectedly succeed to get the funds, organize a small fleet, sail to the unknown, fight mutinies, survive unpredictable weather conditions, discover mysterious new lands, approach the local “indios” and, last but not least, find your way back home across the Atlantic. What a project that was!

Not many of us (certainly not me!) would have the courage to run Columbus’s project those days. But let’s imagine that America is still unknown and you are the brave explorer of the 21^st century. How difficult would it be to use today’s means to complete that astonishing feature? Lots of difficult projects are nowadays getting accomplished using a cloud project management software. Let’s put History in the hands of your favorite collaboration software: Comidor!

First of all, you send an email to the Portuguese PM and arrange a meeting with him for tomorrow noon. Then, you book a flight from Genoa to Lisbon and before leaving to the airport you assign a task to your mother “please, prepare me a nice dinner for tomorrow night, arriverdeci mama”. Unfortunately, due to the Portuguese economic crisis, the meeting fails and you fly back to Italy disappointed (sum: 2 days). You kick-off an email campaign with the title “sponsor my trip”; for better results you filtered your contacts to include only Genoa and Venice businessmen.

You upload a brochure of your idea and attach it in the emails. No results again (sum: 3 days), you are in despair! You create an issue “No funds yet!” and assign it to your financial auditor Mr. Vespucci. He is on holidays these days, so you send him also a notification message: “Dear Amerigo, I need help, no one wants to fund me, I need money to book tickets to UK”! He replies back with a comment: “No worries, I booked you economy tickets to Stansted airport for tomorrow afternoon; also a meeting with David Cameron and a group of businessmen”. You keep a note: “Not to forget: I owe Amerigo a huge favor!” So, you visit the City in pursue of an agreement with some white-collared golden boys working in blue-chip companies. In the meantime, you prepare a demo video “My expedition to the unknown” and you embed the video in Comidor’s wiki pages, to present it in the meeting with the PM. But, that same night, the English football team is …bitten by Luis Suarez’s skills and as you checked in embedded Twitter trends: #OldAlbion #NationalDayOff.

Your meeting is postponed due to the day-off, so you change your destination to Madrid (sum: 4 days). You are so disappointed, this is your last chance; you fly to Madrid. You create a project“Operation: Torro Rosso” and you design a structured Gantt Chart. You create a custom report “Marketing companies in Madrid”and you run it in Comidor map visualization (embedded Google Maps). You get 4 results, and luckily one of your Spanish friends is working quite near to your Hotel. You visit him and you pay him for a small Google campaign titled: “Help los Conquistadores”.

Of course, you declare this financial expense in Comidor and you link it with the project. In a weird twist of fate, that same day, after 40 years of reign, the Spanish monarch decided to quit the throne. The wife of the new King was surfing in the El Pais website to read the breaking news and there she saw your amazing Google Ad. So, she arranged a meeting for you with the new King for the next day (sum: 5 days). The new King, worried about the financials of his country, decided to grant you the money you were asking for your trip (sum: 6 days). You are so happy that you set-up an event and invite your Spanish friends in a night party in Plaza Mayor (sum: 7 days).

You buy a water plane and fly over the Atlantic. In less than 10 hours you are over the first coasts of the New World. You land the plane, open your tablet, connect to the Comidor Cloud, open the Calendar and type: “Dear Calendar, I found the East Indies. I name this beach: Amerigo…”

Sum: 8 days.

The post Explore your Opportunities with a cloud Project Management software appeared first on Comidor Low-code Automation Platform.

Well, it was nice and productive but not so therapeutic, at least for me. We walk over the desired goodies, you know all the basic stuff such as requirements, milestones, burndown charts, agile collaboration, kanban boards, Gantt charts etc. And then it hit me! The client start telling me her “war” stories from past projects that were causing problems not during but after their completion and delivery. Usually, the total absence of problems during project’s execution is a strong indication that:

1. There is no problem with the project manager
2. There is no problem with the project’s execution per se.

So where was the problem? As it turned out the majority of issues had to do with traceability. Traceability of development costs, mails, invoices, travel expenses, tasks, productivity etc. The company had strict ISO procedures to follow, and the quality department where giving hard time to PMs for keeping project’s related costs and communications in a neat and well organized manner.

So, instead of discussing about various features for an online project management tool, we start arguing how a project manager can be assisted in managing the project’s documentation. To use a project management tool (cloud or not) that is not able to do proper project tracking and log every action that is performed inside the project’s scope (along with the action’s derivatives) is unacceptable. That is if you consider yourself a project manager at least…

Actually that need (to be able to log and document all project activities in an automatic, transparent and traceable manner) is behind the recent trend that most of the online project management tool vendors follow. That is to couple the traditional PM features with strong true enterprise collaboration functionality capable of handling and linking all projects communications, costs, resources spent etc. and powerful Business intelligence tools that can export interesting reports.

Simply put, managers should be able to focus on the managerial aspect and the tool should do the “boring” stuff behind the scenes. This is what make project and quality managers happy.

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