Make Project Planning Easier with PSA Software

Project planning can feel like putting together a moving puzzle with how many pieces are involved. It can be challenging to see how to manage the entire project without visibility of the relationship between all required aspects—utilization, financial forecasting, budgeting, staffing, etc.

With that information stored in different systems, you’ll have to pull reports, manually compare numbers, and create a new spreadsheet to put everything in one spot. There can be problems with this process; each system could be in a different time frame, which would lead you to compare different timeframes of information. It also doesn’t help you to easily see changes in how the project is progressing, if you’re on track with the budget, or if you have enough people compared to when you pulled the report.

A manual process like this creates a lot of work, and that’s just for one project. The amount of work grows if you juggle multiple clients with many projects. Ideally, you need software that can help you compare all the various aspects of the project, in one system, in real-time so you’re always making the best decision for the project.

How Most Project Planning Tools Function

Project management tools are typically used for project planning. They track deliverables, timelines, and details related to the project lifecycle that helps them plan what needs to be completed and when.

Two common tools are Kanban boards and Gantt charts. While these tools are helpful for employees to track the tasks related to the project, they aren’t intuitive enough to track the rest of the details of the project—necessary things like utilization, financial forecasting, budget to plan, etc. They help measure the flow of work and keep teams on track with the project deliverables, but when comparing deliverables against budgets, these tools fall short.

Because of that, you’ve got to pull reports and manually crunch numbers to compare these things. This can take a lot of time and staffing, and you’re always a bit behind in knowing where the project is compared to the plan. A better way would be a system that incorporates all these details so you can easily see where you’re at and what actions need to be taken to complete the project on time.

Simplify Project Planning with PSA Software

PSA software does a lot of what project management software can do and then some. PSA's most significant benefit is that it combines the people and financial aspects of the project lifecycle into one place. It can help you quickly view and track utilization, budgeting, forecasts, variance reporting, etc., about specific projects and your business performance overall.

All this information in one single tool makes it easy to access all the relevant information on a project and increases your team's visibility. This decreases decision bottlenecks, accelerates project goals, and provides advanced, real-time reports. An effective project plan helps identify risks and opportunities throughout the project lifecycle. When the plan is well-defined, and your software enables you to keep track of it, it’s easier to see if the project delivers the agreed-upon set of outcomes or when things are getting off track and need to be recalibrated.

PSA will also help you establish a better cadence of both doing the work and looking at the things around the work: financing, identifying risks early, forecasting, variance reporting, clear communication, and ensuring you have the right people to deliver the project. With technology that monitors and measures your progress, you can check in at any time and know how the project is performing. This guarantees you’re providing what you promised to your clients and keeping things on track for your business.

The 5 Necessary Attributes of PSA

Not every PSA is created equal, and you need these five essential features to manage your project planning effectively.

Cross-Disciplined

The most important feature is that the system stores all disciplines related to managing your business. It will house finances, employee utilization, budgets, projects, client information, etc., and allow you to see the relationship between them.

Future Focused

The visibility of future staffing, budgets, and projects will help you build current plans and proactively plan for what’s next. This allows you to project near, mid, and long-term business plans accurately.

Sliceable

Ability to manage multiple projects for a single client and view staffing to see where you may need to move people back and forth where they’re needed. View by client or all projects—but easily be able to view precisely what you’re looking at without irrelevant information cluttering your view. This also allows you to put leaders in charge of their slices of the business or specific projects.

Scalable

The system can store information related to multiple clients, projects, etc., at a time and scale exponentially as your business grows.

Traceable

Quickly see week to week what’s happening and how things are affected if you change the plan. It stores all information from the past so you can compare it to weeks ago and analyze trends over time.

With PSA software that has these five attributes, you can plan projects more efficiently, pivot when things aren’t going to plan, and see how you need to rearrange projects or staffing to deliver to your clients.

The ability to manage your projects more efficiently will free up time to take on more clients and projects. It will also make it easier for you as a business owner to delegate project planning to your leaders, knowing that you can quickly check in on the progress at any time. When you can track projects in relation to your financials, you can see how they impact the amount of staffing, clients, and projects you can take on at any given time.

With all the information at your fingertips, you’ll be more confident in your business decisions instead of guessing that you’re making the right choices. The software you use to manage your business should make your business decisions more effortless, predictable, and straightforward—so you can focus on providing the highest value to your clients and growing your business.