One new way of looking at project management tools - AirSaas
Because management is not just a Gantt, AirSaas offers a project management tool that simplifies your reporting, governance and project communication
Because management is not just a Gantt, AirSaas offers a project management tool that simplifies your reporting, governance and project communication
Project management tools make it possible to give visibility to managers and to offer them the ability to effectively prioritize projects according to the potential benefits for the company.
AirSaas does not require any setup: import your Excel and start using the tool. No training required, the tool can be used by your project team from day one.
The price should not be an obstacle to your productivity. Take advantage of a free trial period and then pay for a subscription based on the number of users.
AirSaas makes you gain visibility and makes your teams more productive regardless of the size of your IT department. Don't wait until you're overwhelmed to equip yourself.
A good project is a well-prepared project. However, 90% of the framing sheets are incomplete. On AirSaaS, we guide your employees in filling out the information that is essential for a good framework.
The framework sheets are dynamic and collaborative. Your teams can iterate together until the project is validated.
Not all projects are created equal. As a business partner, you must propose a method for managing IT projects according to key indicators.
AirSaas offers a filterable view with all consolidated information to make informed decisions.
You are at the center of attention and must keep business managers and your management informed of the progress of projects. To do this, we created automated flash reports.
In one click, generate a report (.ppt, .pdf, url) with project progress details, points of attention and all up-to-date indicators.
Nothing escapes you thanks to the timeline view. Take to the skies and enjoy an overview of all current projects and their associated milestones.
Drag and drop the elements and test new arrangements according to the availability of the stakeholders and the urgency of the projects.
Start now with an effective project flash report solution
The main frictions come from the lack of understanding of the set of constraints of the IT department and from taking into account the expectations of businesses. Bringing stakeholders together in a steering committee, around a dashboard displaying key indicators, improves the understanding of what can be done and in what time frame.
A clear and shared decision workflow helps to improve understanding by providing transparency.
And finally, communicating on a regular basis about the progress, the problems encountered and the successes of the steps helps to reduce the frustrations and the impatience of the people in need. Less friction allows your team to move forward more calmly.
The main factors for project failure are poor framing that leads to time and cost overruns, and the lack of adoption by end users (internal or external customers). To do this, AirSaas streamlines collaboration between IT and businesses. Projects are better prepared in advance. You remain agile throughout the project lifecycle to maximize employee engagement and end customer adoption.
The implementation of a communication plan is beneficial for all companies and increases the performance of CIOs. Intended for Comex members and business managers, it has the advantage of reducing frustration, valuing IT teams, and training all managers in methods that work. Good communication to monitor progress is all the more important with remote operation. The automatic flash report is your best ally!
Start now with an effective project flash report solution
There are different types of project management, which do not serve the same objectives. However, it is not uncommon for there to be confusion, especially between those that allow the management of a project, and those that aim to simplify the management of a project portfolio.
Project management tools facilitate the management of the various aspects of a single project. They make it possible to support the project manager or the steering committee on a range of tasks. They allow you to:
These tools will facilitate the planning of not one, but all of a company's projects.
Small businesses that have only a few projects do not necessarily need tools to manage project portfolios. But as they grow, projects multiply, until global and organized management of all projects takes up an enormous amount of time for each project manager or steering committee: this is a sign that such a tool must surely be invested in such a tool.
A project portfolio management tool makes it possible to:
We can see that project management tools already existed on the market as early as 1980, but that similar new tools have continued to be developed in the meantime.
Another fact to note: while, in recent years, these software programs have tended to meet the needs of single project management but also project portfolios, this has not always been the case. Some of them were originally created to deal with only one of these two issues.
Problem targeted at the date of creation
As can be seen on the graph, most project portfolio management tools were first created in order to meet the need to manage a single project. It was only over the years that these were completed to allow several projects to be carried out simultaneously in an optimal manner.
However, it should be noted that some software such as Planview had made the decision to focus their solution on the management of project portfolios as soon as they were created, and that other tools such as Sciforma or Ganttic immediately answered both problems: single project management, and project portfolio management!
The overwhelming majority of project management tools now deal with these two issues as soon as they are created: there is a need to simplify decision-making between the various actors, whether at the scale of a single project, or at the more global level of the project portfolio.
While they have similarities in the objectives they aim for, project management tools can have quite different functionalities. The origin of these differences is twofold: according to the need that the tool was first designed to meet, but also according to the vision of project management that they promote.
Start now with an effective project flash report solution
There are several reasons why project management software can offer a variety of functionalities: the way in which it was originally developed has an influence, but their functionalities also depend on the vision of project management that they promote. But why do several visions of project management coexist in CIOs?
While the IT department has for many years been mostly reserved for a technical role, it is more and more likely to help its company achieve its business objectives. She must no longer content herself with ensuring the smooth running of the run, but must also get closer to the various jobs in her organization to understand their difficulties and be in a position to provide them with adapted solutions.
The needs of CIOs in terms of project management tools have therefore evolved a lot. Indeed, an IT department will not need the same functionalities depending on whether it aims to monitor projects focused on technology and to manage IT incidents or if it wishes to structure a collaborative approach in order to fully understand the needs that businesses feel on a daily basis.
With the rise of the weight of digital technology for organizations, CIOs can bring value to their business in multiple ways. For example, by automating business processes, the IT department allows company employees to optimize their working time and thus be more competitive. Another aspect on which the IT department can support a company is the improvement of its business model: digital technology offers new opportunities that can bring a lot from a business point of view. The ways for a CIO to help his business are now multiple: in his interview for CIO Revolution, Pierre Raschi tells how a CIO was able to help a butcher shop build a new clientele.
The importance that digital technology has grown in recent years has therefore had the consequence of changing the nature of the missions that the IT department is entrusted with. And these new missions are not carried out in the same way, which leads the IT department to have new expectations in terms of project management tools!
The two developments described above have the consequence of transforming the way in which the IT department must collaborate with the businesses of its company. If we take the example of an IT department focused on technology, one of its priorities will be to ensure the smooth running of the run so that no employee has to suffer from purely technical problems. But if the IT department aims to bring value to its company from a business point of view, it must give itself the means to communicate regularly with the professions in order to understand how it could help them achieve their business goals. However, structuring such collaboration is not easy, especially when the various departments are not used to working together.
An IT department that aims to control the behaviors of its employees to avoid negatively affecting the IS will not at all need the same type of project management tool as one that aims to establish a strong dialogue with businesses in order to bring them value in their core business.
To materialize a typical ideal of these two opposing visions of the role of a CIO, it is possible to do so on the basis of these Maslow pyramids:
We have seen that project management tools do not all offer the same functionalities. The best way to find the ideal tool to acquire is therefore to ask yourself about your vision of project management: what are my expectations and objectives, and more than that, what is the place that is expected of the IT department in my company?
First of all, it should be noted that project portfolio management tools can have many different functionalities that make it possible in particular to:
But more than drawing up a list of the functionalities that these programs can include, it is interesting to note that differences in styles between more structural tools exist.
Not all project management tools aim to meet the same number of needs. While some (such as ERP software) aspire to meet all the needs of CIOs, other tools prefer to specialize in one or more of the functionalities traditionally offered by project portfolio management tools.
Each of these two types of tools has advantages and disadvantages. A complete ERP makes it possible to centralize all actions on the same software, but has the disadvantage of being complex to evolve: in fact, these solutions are not very flexible and their upgrade is slow and expensive.
Conversely, a specialized project management tool has the disadvantage of not offering as many functionalities, but offers other advantages: it is faster to implement, and makes it possible to reduce the exchange cost as the company evolves.
Again, there is no ideal solution: it all depends on your vision of the role of the CIO and the expectations you have of your project portfolio management tools. Some CIOs prefer to acquire heavy software that meets all of their current needs, while others choose to be able to install and uninstall solutions quickly and at a reduced cost, according to the evolution of their business needs.
Many CIOs who have remained mainly focused on technology are content to communicate with businesses through the traditional channels that are used in their company.
However, when the IT department wishes to establish stronger collaboration with its employees, and to be able to exchange regularly and in a structured manner, it will be in its best interest to acquire a project portfolio management tool that offers a space for collaborative exchange. Thus, reporting is simplified, information is organized and the involvement of businesses is facilitated.
Some project management tools have been developed with the aim of offering a particularly intuitive interface to their users. This type of tool is ideal when you want to structure a collaborative approach between the IT department and less technical profiles. Indeed, inviting professionals to work on the same software that is used by IT teams can discourage them and strongly hinder their involvement.
Thus, tools that rely on UX simplify collaboration between business profiles and technical profiles by offering an interface that can be quickly understood by all stakeholders, while maximizing the overall adoption rate of the software.
Every tool necessarily has a more or less advanced methodology. The adequacy between the methodology supported by a tool and that already in place in the company that uses it is a key factor in the adoption rate of this software by employees.
Indeed, the intrinsic methodology of your tool must correspond to your work processes, your objectives and your vision of project management. Otherwise, each of your employees will have to redouble their efforts to take control of the software and use it, which will necessarily reduce its adoption rate and therefore its impact on the company.
It is therefore necessary to question the practices implemented in your IT department before choosing the project management tool most suited to existing processes and thus maximize its influence on your employees.
While it is preferable to adapt your choice of tool to the methodology already in place in the company, it should be noted that you can also use a project management tool as a lever to stimulate changes in existing work habits. Indeed, the company's culture is the result of its environment - an environment that includes the software you use! By changing the tools of your employees, you will therefore be able to influence the culture of the company, but also on its working methods.
However, while project management tools are relevant levers for bringing your employees towards a change in practices, their impact should not be overestimated. Indeed, simply investing in a new tool is not enough to revolutionize practices that have been in place for several years.
Two conditions are essential to maximize the impact of the tool. First, you must support the implementation of the tool with guidelines and instructions that go in the same direction as the change you want to create. But the methodology used by the tool must also not be too far from the one that currently exists in your company, because completely transforming practices is complicated and can only be done over a long period of time.
In conclusion: the ideal is therefore to direct your choice towards a tool with a methodology similar to that which is already in place in your company, or at least to the one you would like to install.
AirSaaS is a fairly lightweight PPM that is not intended to be an all-in-one software, but includes most of the key features that an IT department needs to ensure the execution of its projects.
Jira
By integrating JIRA with AirSaaS, you automatically get project progress data into the platform. This allows you to have a global view of all projects and their progress without effort.
Microsoft Teams
AirSaaS is integrated with Microsoft Teams. Automatically, the most important information on ongoing projects is sent to your dedicated Teams communication channels. With this integration, you can easily share the progress of projects with the entire company. If you use other solutions, don't hesitate to let us know!
Our bet: to succeed in involving businesses, the IT department must offer them a tool that they will know how to handle quickly, without friction. We believe that it is not by forcing businesses to work on complex tools that companies will be able to break the logic of silos and structure a close collaboration between business and CIOs.
We pushed the collaborative logic to the end: AirSaaS offers a search engine for solutions (external/internal) accessible to business managers. When a business has a need, it is already looking for solutions on its side without necessarily warning the IT department, which may even find itself dealing with Shadow IT.
Our idea here is to give the IT department the tools to frame these practices and structure their efforts to find a solution by making them understand the technical constraints of the IS.
AirSaaS is a lightweight PPM, which integrates with the existing one, and which uses a strong collaborative methodology in order to involve businesses.
