When team members can’t quickly determine a project’s status, they waste time hunting for answers—time they should spend working on the project itself. And without a single source of truth, there’s no guarantee the status they find will even be accurate, leading to missed deadlines and frustrated stakeholders.
In part one of this series, we explored simple solutions to combat this chaos and identified three signs your team might be ready for project management (PM) software.
But what does it actually take to implement PM software? And more importantly, is your team really ready for that investment?
The Cost of DIY Project Management
How does this play out in real life? Let’s look at an example. One of RTE’s long-time clients has a large, complex content marketing program. We produce weekly articles, biweekly newsletters, several long reports a year, and a lot of supporting content, such as shorter blog posts and short videos. The workflow has at least seven steps before a piece of content is moved on to a design or web-development team. Our editorial team includes a VP, a director, a senior editor, six assigning editors, many writers, the RTE editing team, two production editors, and a project manager.
That’s a lot to manage! This would be a good situation for a PM tool. Unfortunately, the client has declined to implement a full-featured tool. Instead, we’ve put together a suite of solutions:
- SharePoint for file storage and sharing
- A complex spreadsheet for project tracking
- Slack for project communication and tracking
- Calendar and Slack channel for team schedules
- Zoom
It works, but everything is a manual process. The project manager must update each row in the spreadsheet and each project channel in Slack weekly to keep us organized. When a piece of content is ready for production, it has to be manually sent to another team. With a full project management tool, updates could be automated, files kept within one system, and outside teams alerted when a piece of content was ready for them.
Making Your Decision: Where Do You Stand?
Before you either spend months evaluating PM software or dismiss the idea entirely, take a moment to assess where your team actually stands. Use these questions to gauge whether it’s time to explore PM software:
- Have simple solutions stopped working for your team?
- Does your team meet the complexity thresholds (high volume, multiple workflow steps, significant coordination needs)?
- Do you have leadership support and buy-in for implementing new systems?
- Can you dedicate someone to own and maintain the system?
- Are your projects long term and stable enough to justify the investment?
If you answered yes to 4–5 questions: You’re ready for PM software. The investment of time and money will pay off in reduced chaos, improved efficiency, and happier team members. Start researching options that fit your team’s specific needs. I’ll cover how to evaluate and choose the right tool in a future post.
If you answered yes to 2–3 questions: You’re in the middle ground. Before jumping into PM software, try combining several of the simpler solutions above. Give this system two or three months, and then reassess. You may find these tools are enough. If not, you’ll have a clearer picture of what PM software features you truly need.
If you answered yes to 0–1 questions: Stick with simple tools for now. Focus on implementing one or two of the basic solutions, such as starting with workflow documentation and regular check-ins. These foundations will serve you well whether you eventually adopt PM software or not.
Remember: There’s no shame in any of these outcomes. A small team managing straightforward projects doesn’t need the same infrastructure as a large team juggling complex, multistage workflows. The goal isn’t to have the most sophisticated system, it’s to have the right system for your team’s needs.
The real win is moving from chaos to clarity, whether that means creating a simple folder structure or implementing enterprise PM software. What matters is that your team can focus on the editorial work that matters instead of scrambling to figure out where projects stand.
Use the questions above to assess your situation honestly, and choose a path that makes sense for your team right now. You can always level up later as your needs grow.
