Future of Project Management Software: Clarizen

In my series called “Future of Project Management Software” I am talking with Project Management software vendors about their view of the future. This time a conversation with Avinoam Nowogrodski, CEO and Co-Founder of Clarizen.

1. What do you think project management software will look like in 5-10 years?

The future of project management is about moving from “project planning” to “project implementation,” where true cross team participation is at the core of the project from beginning to end.

When a team collaborates on completing tasks and works together to achieve a common goal, the interaction with each other encompasses all aspects of real collaboration: the creation of joint objectives; the alignment of these objectives towards a final product; the act of resolving joint problems; the creation of shared knowledge databases; the improvement of the entire process based on past experiences; and the ability to be transparent and assign accountability. This is the future of project management.

2. What are the technologies that will drive the software?

Technologies that relate to the “cloud,” or SaaS, approach will be the dominating forces behind taking project management from its current role as a planning tool to its future role as a project implementation tool.

Technologies that enable connectivity between the enterprise and the cloud will enable the user to have one single interface for all tasks and projects, rather than having to switch between various tools to get the job done.

Tasks which require collaboration and team participation, such as meetings, discussions and decision making, will take advantage of mobile and conferencing technologies within their existing SaaS project management applications. This technology will streamline these activities and enable the collaboration across the entire team that is needed in order to complete each task in the project.

3. How do you think tools will support proper communication between mobile, multi-cultural teams?

People need the ability to update, report progress and access information regarding their work from various locations around the world.

Enabling team collaboration between various systems using mobile devices, conferencing solutions and instant messaging technologies supports the vision of global participation in a project, without limiting participation and implementation due to physical distance.

4. How do you think tools will build a sense of community?

People working together on a project have inherent shared interests and need to share information, IP, knowledge, skills experience and the communication process in order to achieve the goals of the project.

People who have shared interests are the basis of any community, and those who work together using an online SaaS project management tool come together to create something new – community-based project management. This process ensures that all common information, IP, knowledge, skills and experience is saved and can be used in the future by the same community to streamline similar projects in the future and increase productivity, shortening the time to market for all future projects.

5. How do you think tools will keep the team focused on the overall goal?

The SaaS-based project management tool creates clarity on shared objectives of a project, as well as a shared knowledge of the assigned responsibilities for each task.

The fact that the solution is available online and is transparent to all who are involved means that change is easily managed, giving flexibility and accountability to the project management and implementation process that has never before been experienced.

6. How will decisions be supported (about features, about allocation of resources)?

The dynamics of business means that we must respond to change as quickly and as efficiently as possible. The decisions made must be responsive to the immediate needs of the project; and the process in which these decisions are made must be flexible in order to accommodate for a constantly changing business environment.

This environment dictates that the decision making capabilities move away from centralized command and control, and move towards distributing the decision-making capabilities to the team in the field.

In order to do this, the team in the field must have full and transparent access to all the information so that the decision can be made quickly and efficiently, while at the same time taking into consideration all the related dependencies.

Clarizen’s SaaS solution is built to provide the infrastructure for such decision making capabilities to take place on an ongoing basis by all members of the team, not just the project manager.

7. What makes your current product different than other Project Management Software?

First, Clarizen’s product is unique in that our focus has always been on creating team participation across all areas and phases of the project execution and implementation.

We empower the team to go beyond the planning stages, and implement the project in a systematic way that enables learning and knowledge sharing between team members, between project managers and clients and between two separate companies working together on common projects.

This is actually the second concept that makes Clarizen unique from other SaaS project management solutions – our product enables collaboration not only between teams working inside the same company, but also in teams where the resources are dispersed between two or more companies. These distributed teams have common objectives and goals, share joint milestones and tasks, are dependent on each other for various parts of the project and all work together to achieve the end goals by using the Clarizen solution, but are still able to work completely independently from each other in all other areas.

This vision of true team collaboration is at the core of Clarizen’s SaaS project management product, and will continue to drive all future releases and product features.