According to a recent industry survey, 90% of IT leaders plan to fast-track their digital transformations to remain agile and resilient in today’s rapidly changing marketplace. Currently, 63% have already accelerated those efforts.
Your organization may have digitized its processes long ago, or you didn’t do so until recently due to the pandemic. Maybe you’re still on the path to digitalization. Regardless of where you are in your digital journey, one thing is certain: the way you manage future projects will never be the same.
Today, we’re exploring how digital transformation is changing project management, especially ERP project management. What changes should you expect and how can you prepare your team?
ERP Selection & Implementation Case Study
How Digital Transformation is Changing Project Management
As your organization invests in new digital tools, they will naturally affect the way you do business. Specifically, integrating this technology across your enterprise can impact your project management workflows.
Here are a few considerations to keep in mind as you move forward:
1. New Tools to Consider
In your quest to keep pace with competitors, it might be tempting to invest in all the latest and greatest digital project management tools. However, placing too much emphasis on simply filling your technology quotient could stretch your budget thin.
Moreover, using the wrong systems could slow your teams down, affecting both morale and productivity.
Not sure where to dedicate your focus? Start by checking out tools that utilize artificial intelligence (AI) and automation. These tools can help streamline and simplify project management processes, with benefits that include:
- More efficient resource management
- Fewer project risks
- Easier task organization and prioritization
As you compare your options, it’s important to do your research and choose only the digital tools that will benefit your teams the most. Automation is a solid bet, as it can help everyone stay on-task and facilitate better follow-up and reporting.
2. Easier Asynchronous Cross-Team Communication
It’s no secret that monthly meetings and e-mail aren’t exactly ideal for real-time communication. This is where collaborative digital tools, such as the work management functions in an ERP system, can make a difference.
With the right platform in place, project stakeholders can communicate and collaborate on all aspects of a given project. This includes:
- Organizing and managing dashboards
- Assigning tasks
- Approving project assets
This way, team members can work within and between departments, continually sharing documents and data. This frees them from menial tasks and allows them to focus more on strategy.
3. More Results-Focused Workflows
Until now, ERP project managers dedicated much of their day to task-based processing. However, with automated workflows and easier task coordination, they can shift their focus.
Moving forward, project managers can take a more active role in company strategy, making sure each project aligns with the organization’s strategic goals. With a few clicks, they can easily set goals, track deliverables, and manage team interactions.
This all means that project teams can focus more on results and less on day-by-day tasks.
4. Greater Emphasis on Change Management
With so many new tools at their disposal, ERP project teams will need to remain agile and flexible, ready to adapt and adjust their processes as required.
While some of these team members might be eager to embrace the changes, others might be a little hesitant. To mitigate change resistance, we recommend prioritizing organizational change management.
Although this is a different context than an ERP implementation, changes imposed on project managers can instill the same fears.
5. More Detailed Project Analytics
How does your department currently measure the success rates of your projects?
Digital tools, including ERP solutions, can help you take a more granular look at every project aspect, so you can make more informed decisions and forecasts. Thanks to detailed reporting functions and fully-digital workflows, you can easily identify project patterns and trends, while improving project outcomes.
In fact, almost every aspect of projects can now be quantified using advanced analytics. In addition to predicting outcomes, you can use real-time cost and labor reports to stay on track and on budget for ongoing projects.
At the same time, built-in AI and business intelligence functions allow project leaders to leverage these insights in new ways.
6. Uptick in Remote Project Teams
Before 2020, around 43% of the U.S. employees worked from home at least part of the time. Now, 82% of businesses in the country are deploying some type of remote work strategy.
This change was made possible primarily because digital platforms have become more sophisticated and streamlined.
This isn’t without its challenges, though. For digital project leaders, this means tackling new challenges, such as time zone differences and employee inclusivity. It also means transitioning from a deliverable-based, nuts-and-bolts focus to one that’s more widespread and all-encompassing.
Digitizing Project Management Now and in the Future
While digitalization has long been a priority for future-focused business leaders, it’s recently become more of a priority for project managers – whether by choice or necessity.
As your ERP project team looks to embrace automation and other digital strategies, it’s important to understand the implications of the change. How will it alter your approach to project planning? ERP selection? Post go-live?
To learn more about ERP project management or building an internal project team, contact our ERP consultants below.
