Lack of visibility is one of the top frustrations reported by IT project managers. Can you relate? Managing projects in scattered tools like spreadsheets and task management tools, without visibility, inevitably leads to increased project failure, wasted money and time, disjointed teams, and a world of frustration. But there are things you can start doing now to get visibility like you've never seen before.

1. 3 Ways to Increase Visibility Into IT Projects
DEATH TO SPREADSHEETS

2. WHY VISIBILITY MATTERS TO
ENTERPRISE IT TEAMS

3. WHY VISIBILITY MATTERS TO ENTERPRISE IT TEAMS
• Often have shifting business needs and demanding
stakeholders
• Teams heavily rely on data management and need to be able
to track and provide hard numbers and facts with little notice
• Expected to comply with industry standards, which requires
lots of documentation and auditing
• IT projects have low success rates if there‟s no way to identify
a failing project early

4. WHY VISIBILITY MATTERS TO ENTERPRISE IT TEAMS
• IT teams receive tons of new project requests daily
• Sensitive time, budget, and scope constraints that need to be
monitored accurately and regularly
• IT teams rarely have enough resources and thus must use
what resources they do have wisely

5. 5 MAIN REASONS ENTERPRISE
IT PROJECTS LACK VISIBILITY

6. 1. USING TOO MANY TOOLS
Most enterprise IT departments The Result:
employ multiple tools to manage
different stages of a project: • Spreadsheet wars (my
spreadsheet is better than
• Spreadsheets yours)
• MS project (complex • Scattered/varying project
on-prem tools) information
• Light task management tools • Wasted time gathering and
• White boards/sticky notes entering data manually
• Google docs/doc sharing • Difficulty keeping the team on
tools, etc. presentations the same page

7. 2. TEAM MEMBERS USING DIFFERENT TOOLS
When each team member uses his/her own tool(s) to organize
their work (i.e. task management apps, personal spreadsheets or
Google docs, etc.), you end up with:
• Islands of project data
• Important updates getting lost in translation
• Everyone with different information
• An un-synced IT team

8. 3. DOING TOO MANY THINGS MANUALLY
Manual processes are a direct result of using too many (and
different) tools. Scattered updates and project data means:
• Manually having to keep schedules and spreadsheets up-to-date
• Wasted man hours from manual data entry
• Unnecessary frustration
• Only being able to „hope‟ that your manual reports are accurate
• Increased difficulty giving team members, executives, and stakeholders
the visibility they each need

9. 4. LITTLE-TO-NO COLLABORATION
There are so many IT teams working in silos (especially
distributed teams) because they have no real way to
collaborate on their IT projects. (And no, email is NOT a
collaboration tool.)
The Result?
• Inability to assess where dependencies lie
• Increase in unproductive, time-sucking meetings
• Spending too much time in long email chains just to figure out
what‟s going on

10. 5. LITTLE-TO-NO
ACCOUNTABILITY
Many IT teams have no real system in place to help team
members take ownership of their work or be held accountable for
the work they do.
The Result?
• Excessive finger pointing
• Procrastination
• Vague updates like “I‟m 80% done.”
• Team members are disengaged with their work
• No visibility into what anyone else is working on

11. THE ULTIMATE RESULTS OF NO VISIBILITY
• Increased project failure (over budget, past due, scope creep)
• Wasted money
• Wasted time
• Wasted resources
• Disjointed teams (nobody on the same page)
• Difficulty proving IT team‟s value
• Loss of years off your life from increased stress, frustration,
and caffeine intake

12. 3 WAYS TO GET BETTER
VISIBILITY INTO YOUR IT
PROJECTS

13. 1. ESTABLISH A CENTRAL SOURCE FOR PROJECT
INFORMATION
How?
1. Consolidate. If there‟s not one tool that can help you manage every
stage of a project, then at least use the least amount of tools possible.
Cut out excess.
2. Share. Make sure everyone on your team has access to the tool(s) you
do decide to use. And the more collaborative those tools, the better.
(Look for commenting/feedback functions, editing rights, etc.)
3. Sync. Get all team members using the same tools and following the
same processes for managing their work.

14. 1. ESTABLISH A CENTRAL SOURCE FOR PROJECT
INFORMATION
The Result?
• The entire IT team has access and visibility
• Decreased manual processes
• All project updates, data, documentation, and tasks live in one place
• Everyone stays on the same page
• Increased communication

15. 2. BECOME MORE COLLABORATIVE
How?
1. Embrace social. 83% of project managers agree that social media and
enterprise collaboration tools can or do improve the way they manage
projects. Use social media tools to your benefit and incorporate them to
make projects more collaborative.
2. Talk face-to-face. Working on a distributed team? That‟s what Skype,
Google+ Hangouts, Facebook video chats, FaceTime, etc. are for. Even
if you can‟t be there in person, include your entire team in meetings
using the tools available to you.
3. Include the team. Spend time brainstorming together with your team.
Include them in the project planning process.

16. 2. BECOME MORE COLLABORATIVE
The Result?
• Save time gathering, compiling, and reporting
• Data is easy to access and readily available
• Updates come with conversational context
• Eliminate unnecessary email chains and status meetings
• Communication and visibility happens in real-time, in one place

17. 3. INVEST IN INDIVIDUAL AND TEAM
ACCOUNTABILITY
How?
Make everyone‟s responsibilities and commitments visible to the
entire team.
1. Use social/collaboration tools
2. Collaborative task/project management tools
3. Google docs
4. Be creative – is there a better way?

18. 3. INVEST IN INDIVIDUAL AND TEAM
ACCOUNTABILITY
The Result?
• Decreased finger pointing
• Team members will hold each other accountable
• Increased commitment to IT projects from team members
• Everyone is more engaged in their work

19. ABOUT AtTASK ENTERPRISE
WORK MANAGEMENT
SOFTWARE

20. AtTask solves the visibility problem by providing
enterprise IT teams with the following:

21. 1. A SINGLE TOOL THAT COVERS THE END-TO-END IT
WORK LIFECYCLE
• With AtTask, you get one tool to manage every phase of your IT projects, from
initial request through to completion. It‟s a central location for all your project
and non-project work available to all team members and stakeholders.

22. 2. A UNIFIED SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT TOOL
• AtTask is an intuitive work management solution with an easy-to-use social
media-inspired interface that enables collaboration, the gathering of real-time
contextual updates, increased visibility, and accountability for all team
members.

23. 3. TRUSTABLE VISIBILITY FOR EVERY LEVEL OF THE
ORGANIZATION
• AtTask delivers real context in real-time that equips senior managers, project
managers, team members and stakeholders with project and work data they
can be confident in.

24. USING AtTASK
Using AtTask can help you save time, save money, manage resources
more efficiently, catch troubled projects early-on, collaborate, get real
context, keep all your data in one place, eliminate excess tools, keep
everyone informed, appease your stakeholders, create/deliver reports
quickly and easily, prove your team‟s value, and ultimately, get visibility at
all levels that everyone can trust.
Visit www.attask.com/it-pmo for more information and
to view a free demo.