Since the turn of the previous decade, business leaders and project managers had been actively engaged in a complete overhaul of how companies go about taking a campaign from conception through to completion.
Endless rounds of emails and copious amounts of spreadsheets has meant that for many, the process of project management has become an arduous procedure.
Evidently project management was an activity that needed a technological intervention. Which in the early 2010s is exactly what it got, several startups and technology firms got to work developing platforms that would come to revolutionise the way projects were managed.
Take, for instance, Trello, initially released in 2011 but would only have its stable release towards the back end of 2019. Over this time Trello grew to house vital project management applications such as resource allocation, in-app budget management and content calendar and task creation. Actions that may sound simple, but with companies staking their productivity on it, something Trello needed to get very right. As of 2017 they were acquired by Atlassian for $425 million, and as of October 2019, has over 50 million users.
Another great example of project management platforms is Basecamp. Similarly developed throughout the early 2010s, Basecamp integrated a whole host of valuable features into one platform that allows teams to talk via ‘Message Boards’, instantly transfer files and documents (goodbye ‘Attach File’) and track jobs within set timeframes.
I’d also be failing as a ‘Techie’ if I didn’t mention the flagship Monday.com which as of July last year, is valued at $1.9bn. Like Trello and Basecamp it excels in allowing for remote workplace collaboration on any number of projects, but its web-based platform, as opposed to app-based, means that as long as your colleagues have internet they have Monday.com with them and with it, the entirety of their project portfolio.
These platforms are all highly reviewed in the sector but do slightly differ between capacity and pricing, so it’s crucial that when business and team leaders look to bring one of these systems in, they do their due diligence to ensure the platform they use is best suited for their company size and fits within their budgets.
So, what does the future hold for the way that businesses run their projects?
We’ve seen a dramatic uptake in these platforms that the future truly is in the “all-in-one” options. That said, there will be teething problems from both sides of the spectrum, from those providing these technologies as well as the business/employees who will take time to learn the ins and outs of them.
In terms of the technological advances, you imagine that developers will work to encompass more aspects of team management and the integration of other apps (we’ve already seen how platforms like Slack are capable of hosting Outlook within its interface).
These developers and app creators will be the first to say that they’ve not reinvented the wheel with the likes of Trello and Monday.com. Still as we boot up our laptops each morning and turn to our respective project management apps, it does make you wonder… how did we ever manage to get anything done before?
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