Armed with the promises of better organization, improved task management, and increased team collaboration, you had high hopes when you purchased a project management software system. However, it’s been a couple of months, and your life isn’t perfect yet.

When your project management software is under-utilized, it will not be able to help you do your job to your full ability. When the right project management software is used to its greatest potential, it should greatly improve your work life, and do wonders for keeping your projects on-time and on-budget. Check out these three reasons why you might not be getting the most of your project management software.

1: Not everyone on the team is using the product.

Project management software is a collaborative tool. Just like the projects you’re managing, you can only reap the full rewards from your software if you have everyone on board and working together.

Functions like automatically generated deadline notifications, team calendars, and resource loading reports help everyone stay in the loop regarding project progression. Once all team members are on board, everyone has current access to crucial project information.

In addition, your planning, time, and budget estimates will improve substantially if everyone on your team records their individual workload and schedule information. If you’re the only one receiving daily project notifications or only a couple of team members are submitting their weekly hours, you’re missing out on crucial information that will help you better plan for the future.

When all team members use the project management software, they can see how their day-to-day tasks and assignments contribute to the overall big picture. Additionally, with project message boards, team members have an avenue for real-time communication that stays in one place for easy organization and referencing.

2: You’re not involving project clients.

Mutual support from important stakeholders, clients, upper management, and your project team helps you get the most from your project management software. By gaining buy-in from clients, you can give them access to your project information through the software, which will increase their comfort level and confidence in your team and the project’s progression. They can have up-to-date access to the latest project reports, and 24/7 access to information from the team members they need on project message boards. This allows clients to directly input new task requests and changes into the project, and see automatically how that will impact the overall project schedule; this should ultimately keep scope creep at bay.

When clients stay informed about the project status updates via the software, it can replace the need for monthly meet-ups. Overall, project surprises are minimized, and everyone walks away feeling more confident and informed regarding the other parties’ work and requests.

3: You didn’t customize the PM software to your company’s needs.

A good project management vendor will take the time to individualize your project management software, so you can start benefiting from the software the moment it is implemented. There is no use reinventing the wheel when it comes to project management software. If you are spending more time working around certain software features to make it perform the way you want, you are missing the time-saving and monetary benefits of a customized project management tool.

Vanessa Fiorido is a Marketing Specialist for Easy Projects, a project management software tool used in over 50 countries around the world. To find out more about project management software, and how it can benefit your team, visit www.easyprojects.net.