Ahh, the perfect project management system.

It waves a magic wand and all your company’s tasks and projects are organized. It takes into account the availability of each member of the company and other resources needed. It lets everyone know what is due when, and can produce a schedule that is accurate to the day. Most important, it adapts to all the changes to strategy, project enhancements, client delays, new tasks, and new business that invariably make even the the most perfectly planned schedule obsolete before the weekend arrives.

Too good to be true? In a word, yes.

Sales Renewal recently invested in LiquidPlanner, a very powerful PM program, and, although we diligently tried to make it work for several months, its full potential was always just out of grasp. But then we had that “aha” moment, and things began to click.

Here are the four secrets we now know:

1 The schedule doesn’t update itself. Even though I might know when my task is complete, unless I check off “Done” next to that task, LiquidPlanner does not. This means it’s still waiting to schedule the next task.

2 New projects – or even tasks! – don’t add themselves. No project management system is a mind reader, so if there is a new task, or a new project, a human has to add it.

3 The program can only pester so much. Yellow warnings, red alerts, emails and on-screen notifications are all great for highlighting scheduling issues. But without a human in charge, that’s often all it is – a way to highlight a problem. Whether at the task, project, or sub-project level (and this can vary by project complexity!), a human has to take responsibility for using those warnings to follow up and get the project back on track.

4 The program has to accommodate multiple work styles. I may not always agree with how a particular project is structured, or how the tasks are broken down, but as long as basic structural guidelines are followed and tasks are assigned correctly, it is up to the person in charge of the project or task to set it up so it works for them.

Our Quest for the Perfect Project Management Program

When we were starting out, “project management” meant keeping a “to do” list with the tools we had on hand – mainly Outlook tasks, a spiral notebook, and occasional attempt at Microsoft Project. The work always got done, and done well, but nothing we tried seemed to be quite the right tool for guiding us through the process.

As our client list and company roster grew, it became clear that we needed a better way to maximize our efficiency and consolidate our hodgepodge of management tools. Our Director of Build Services took 23 online PM programs for a test drive before presenting her top 10 to the rest of us to take for a spin. Sales Renewal sales people, marketers, SEO experts, writers, and engineers tested the programs, and a clear winner – LiquidPlanner – emerged.

We invested time in setting up folders, tasks, appointments and tracking features for all our clients and projects. We watched the video how-tos and spent weekly meetings discussing structure and best practices. Then, because our work was all set up, we were good to go.

Well, not quite. Before the first day was done, the schedule was out of date.

The Magic Wand

We saw so much potential in LiquidPlanner and knew its magic wand capabilities were well within our grasp, so we were fully committed to making this work. Sure, there was internal resistance at the beginning, and many of us still use Outlook tasks, white boards, spiral notebooks and other ways to manage our own time. But since discovering and embracing the four “secrets”, we are now able to manage workloads, create realistic schedules and plan for future projects with relative ease.

We’d love to hear what works for managing your company’s projects and resources scheduling – let us know in the Comments below. In the meantime, gotta go check that “Done” box…