Future of Work Management Checklist

Identifying your project challenges

Looking for the right modern project management tools to help you increase efficiency and productivity across your business? To better understand the state of project management in 2023, we conducted our Future of Work Management Report.

The report reveals the responses of 8,000 employees across a wide range of industries, roles and markets, identifying the most common project management challenges faced by most organisations – day-to-day project management, tools & resources, and scalable processes.

The findings of the report have been used to create this checklist, a series of questions designed to identify your organisation’s current project management challenges, and the right Smartsheet solutions to address them effectively.

1. Day-to-Day Project Work

The day-to-day project work is what makes the project work. While planning and deadlines are still critical pieces of the puzzle, daily “middle work” – the work that happens day in and day out as teams work to complete a project, and the way in which it’s carried out is what determines project success.

Consider the following questions to determine if you’re effectively managing middle work.

Does your company typically overstaff or understaff projects?

44% of APAC employees report their company typically either over or understaff projects.

The work employees do every day is the lifeblood of any business and ultimately what drives revenue. Over or under utilising employees can lead to mismanagement, resulting in missed deadlines, increased stress and low team morale.

Low morale, in turn, has been proven to directly correlate with an overall decrease in business productivity, competitiveness in the market and profitability.

Do you have the right people running your project teams?

83% of employees say projects are often or always managed by people without a project management title or role
77% say they took on a project management role outside of their job description in order to fill a resourcing gap

Many employees are capable of managing project work but lack the skills to manage it effectively. Trained project managers have the expertise to not only solve problems quickly but also foresee potential issues and risks. By overseeing processes, budgets, and deadlines, project managers enable teams to focus on what really matters: the work.

Do your project teams feel overwhelmed by deadlines?

85% of employees feel overwhelmed by deadlines

Mismanagement can lead to duplicated, irrelevant work, and sharing of incorrect information, resulting in overwhelmed teams just fixing issues, rather than progressing the project.

Automated task lists, reminders and a dedicated project manager overseeing team deadlines and workflow can help address mismanagement.

Struggling with middle work?

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2. The Right Tools & Resources

Most project teams recognise they need the right tools and resources to be successful - however, there seems to be a huge disconnect between senior leaders and the ones actually doing the work with regards to what adequate project support really looks like.

Consider the following questions to determine if your business provides adequate tools and resources for you to perform your day-to-day project work.

How does your approach to project management impact employee work-life balance and morale?

85% say their company’s approach helps work life balance

Well-run projects create improved work relationships, both among colleagues (47%) and leaders (44%).

Improving middle work has been shown to make employees feel more satisfied, less stressed, and in better control of their work.

Achieving this requires a substantial shift, from fixating on deadlines to running projects more smoothly, by putting more focus on the steps and resources needed to do so.

How many applications do your teams use?

37% believe their company uses either too many or not enough PM applications

Not providing enough applications can leave teams struggling to complete tasks, while too many applications can lead to teams working through unnecessary processes.

This is a missed opportunity for organisations of all industries and sizes, who can realise time, money, and resource savings by implementing project management software.

Do your teams have enough tools to work effectively?

73% of project teams anticipate being asked to do more with fewer resources
Just 43% believe their company is investing in enough tools to address common challenges

Project management software, designed to alleviate employee workload by executing specific project tasks, can lead to significant savings in time, money, and resources.

To maximise an organisation’s success in terms of delivering results and improving employee wellbeing, the key is to focus on making day-to-day work smooth as possible.

3. Building on The Right Processes

Projects are only as good as the processes they are built on. We no longer live in a world of one-off projects and must ensure that we implement solutions that provide scalable and repeatable processes.

Consider the following questions to determine if you have the right project management processes in place.

How does a lack of automation currently impact your business?

47% of employees say sharing updates or tasks is a mostly or completely manual process
61% of employees say they do not receive regular updates

Even an efficient process can require a lot of manual effort. Project management software can automate certain tasks, reminders, and updates, allowing teams to focus on deeper, more impactful work.

What negative consequences do your teams face as a result of a lack of automation?

90% of employees report working more hours, duplicating work, and missing deadlines

Delays and team frustration are a common result of miscommunication due to a lack of automated reminders and tasks leaving team members with an unclear overview of the project.

Do your project teams share learnings to better manage projects?

85% of employees say accessing project learnings is a challenge
35% say that project learnings are not shared across project teams

Teams become better by learning from other projects and refining processes so they become efficient, repeatable, and scalable.

Reliable access to past project data enables teams to identify what isn’t working and take steps to improve processes to ensure long-term efficiency and success.

Dealing with inefficient processes?

See how Smartsheet can help

Empower your teams to work better with Smartsheet

The Smartsheet Future of Work Management Report proves companies who allocate more time, resources and support to improving ‘middle work’ are more likely to better optimise their project management and improve team morale. Employees feel more satisfied, less stressed and in control of their work tasks and contributions when they feel properly supported.

To accomplish this, companies can turn to project management software. Smartsheet solutions are designed to help alleviate team workloads by performing specific project tasks in a structured, consistent manner. Investing in the right digital tools has been proven to create significant savings in time, money, resources and work life balance.

Adopting this process mindset rather than a project mindset, and investing in the right tools to optimise and automate processes to manage middle work more effectively, results in companies that are much better equipped for today’s continuous, integrated and more collaborative project work.

With Smartsheet, you can empower your project teams to work better, together. Our unified platform provides the flexible tools, scalable processes, easy software integrations and resources to effectively overcome the three key challenges of effective project management.

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