[00:00:00.000] - Chris
In this episode of Great Practices, I'm talking with Nicole Patrangilo, a project management consultant who specializes in translating complex business needs and project management methodologies into seamless technological solutions. Listen in as Nicole talks about the differences between project management and PPM tools, the symptoms that you need one or the other, and the process for choosing the right tool. Hint, it starts with just one question. Nicole also covers the non-negotiables and nice-to-haves when it comes to features and helps us avoid the common mistakes that she's seen over the years. Plus, we'll put to rest the age-old question, is Excel a real project management tool?
[00:00:49.500] - Narrator
It's hard to say when something is a best practice, but it's much easier to know when something is a great practice. And that's what this podcast is all about. Interviews with PMO and project management leaders who, through years of trial and error, have discovered their own great practices and are now sharing their insights with you. Now, sit back and enjoy the conversation as Chris Kopp uncovers another great practice in this episode.
[00:01:18.690] - Chris
We'd like to welcome you to another episode of Great Practices, and listening to our conversation with Nicole Patrangilo, a project management consultant who is no stranger to translating complex business and project management methodologies into seamless technological solutions. What are we going to be discussing today? Well, we're going to be doing a deep dive into project and portfolio management tools, and more specifically, the selection process of making sure that you have what works for you. Project managers and PMO leaders, we can find ourselves caught in the, If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, a approach to our tool selection. Or, worse yet, we could allow vendors who only have a hammer to sell, misunderstanding that the need that we're trying to fill is that we need to drive a stake into a railroad track on one extreme to gently wanting to put a thumb tack into a bulletin board to hold up a piece of paper on the other extreme. What's the consequences of such thinking, of just being rareroaded into just this one tool type type of thinking. Well, think about Blockbuster, movie rentals. The hammer they wielded was that people wanted to come into physical video rental stores.
[00:02:39.980] - Chris
They missed the fact that the nail had changed from people renting movies in brick and mortar locations to renting them online. Yet, they continued to swing their hammer violently right into bankruptcy because they failed to embrace streaming. Well, after today's episode, you can stop swinging your hammer wildly, hoping that you hit a nail somewhere along the way and strategically make the best selection of a PPM tool for your company. We're going to do that with our guest, Nicole Petrangelo. Nicole, welcome to Great Practices.
[00:03:14.550] - Nicole
Thanks so much.
[00:03:16.530] - Chris
Nicole, we're going to start off with just obviously you telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do and what your background and all of this is.
[00:03:25.330] - Nicole
I'm Nicole. I am a project management consultant. And I specialize in implementing project management software. So for the past about four years now, I've been working with no code project management tools. So this includes things like Asana, ClickUp, monday. Com, even Airtable, relational database tools. That's been my bread and butter since around 2020, post-pandemic. I realized I started getting into the project management industry as a project manager myself, and started working with companies who didn't have a project management solution or needed to improve the one that they already had. I moved away from being an actual PM myself and more into working on the software side of things.
[00:04:17.140] - Chris
Finding the right tool for these clients and these customers then, right? Exactly. Just making sure that that hammer is just right. What is your definition of a PPM tool? What does that look like to you?
[00:04:31.480] - Nicole
I think this is a really interesting one, and I think there maybe are multiple definitions to this. I think you have your project management tools, and then you have your true PPM tools. I think there's a bit of a difference between the two. First, project management tools are tools that really specialize in managing your tasks and your project schedule, making sure people are assigned, making sure each task has a status, and people are collaborating within that project plan and getting the work done. That's what I would classify as a project management tool. That includes things like Asana, Monday, some of the tools that I mentioned before. Then we have our true PPM tools that encompass the portfolio side of things. And many of those tools, the ones that I mentioned, don't necessarily have that capacity. But the portfolio management tool is a true PPM tool I think allows you to dive in to more of the high-level strategy behind projects, allows you to create a process for intaking new project requests. There's usually an element of resource management, so you can see what resources you have available, make sure you're allocating them in a way that makes sense, and then also tying projects and portfolios and programs to higher-level organizational goals.
[00:05:56.060] - Nicole
So I think there's two separate definitions to this full world of PPM software.
[00:06:02.630] - Chris
Yeah, no, that's a really good delineation between the two because it's like the project management tools. I mean, that is like you are on the street using that as far as the day-to-day management of your projects. I mean, you're just fighting it out and battling it out there on the front line. But the PPM tools, it's more of the bigger picture, and more of the tying it into strategies and being able to see how does this fit into the future and where they I want to go. So I think that's a really good explanation there. Does Excel count? I always hear Excel, a lot of people still use Excel. Does that account as a project management tool or a PPM tool in any of this?
[00:06:42.690] - Nicole
I personally would say no. I know people use Excel to manage projects, and you can do that, of course. But I don't think it classifies as a true PPM tool because it lacks collaboration. Within a true PPM tool, you can comment on things and engage with team members and tag team members so they receive notifications. It just allows you to include communication throughout your project in one central place. Excel doesn't really have capabilities for that. I think that's just one example of something that Excel lacks that a true PPM tool would give to you or provide for you.
[00:07:23.670] - Chris
Maybe if you are doing a scrappy down and dirty, just a one, you're the one person that's driving this thing and you need your list of tasks or whatever. Excel might work for that, right? But when you go beyond that, I do like the fact that that delineation is it's about the collaboration and it's about working together and commenting and keeping all everything in that one place there. That's a really That's a good differentiation there about why it's not necessarily a PM tool then. But surprisingly, a lot of people do use that, don't they? Definitely. Now, you say you've worked with a number of companies over the years in selecting and refining and defining what they're going to need. What are some of the symptoms that you've seen when companies need either a PM tool or a PPM tool? What are some of those things that you're looking for that say, Oh, yeah, they've got a situation or they got some issues here?
[00:08:14.400] - Nicole
At the core, I think there's a few really simple things. The first one is just lack of visibility in general. If you're working with a team and you have no idea what you're supposed to be working on, you have no concept of what your team members working on or what the organization as a whole is trying to achieve. So I think just a lack of visibility of what's really happening. Also a lack of accountability. So maybe you're having team meetings, You come up with a list of action items following that meeting. It all goes into a Google Doc, but no one really knows who's doing what, when it's due, things like that. And that's something that right off the bat, a project management tool can help you sort that out immediately. Also, lack of prioritization. This can be on the task level, whether maybe you're a manager assigning tasks to one of your team members, and they're like, I don't know what I should be prioritizing because I have no concept of that. At the task level, all the way up to what projects you should be working on. That would be another huge one.
[00:09:24.960] - Nicole
Those are the top three that I would say. There's, of course, some others, but But those are really big red flags.
[00:09:32.900] - Chris
Huge. If you get into a company and people don't know what the company is doing, what they're supposed to be doing, or what's important in any of this, there's a problem. It seems like that would be a perfect candidate for needing one of these tools there.
[00:09:48.500] - Nicole
Absolutely. It seems so basic, but there's so many people that do lack in those areas. That's such an easy fix, implementing one of these quick and easy project management tools that you can get up and running in a day's time.
[00:10:03.880] - Chris
But you know what? You say it sounds basic, but it sounds basic to people like you and people like our listeners. Here's the thing, is that people that run companies and they start companies, they're founders, they're innovators, they're salespeople, they're driven, they're technicians. And this may not be just as natural to them. It's like they could say, Well, sales is easy, but understanding the fact that they need, how do you get things done once it gets into the organization? That's a skill set that doesn't come easily to everybody. I think that's why that is so important. Just bring this to everybody's attention there when you're working with them. Now, what will a PPM tool help you to do? You talked about a lack of visibility, a lack of accountability, a lack of prioritization. What are some of the things that this is going to help you to do?
[00:10:52.880] - Nicole
Along with those things, it'll help you more easily build out your project plans. In doing that, you You can build out your tasks, you can assign things, you can allot statuses to things, you can even create dependencies between things, so you know what needs to happen before something else can happen. And then in building that out, That information can really easily feed into dashboards and reports that are just a part of the tool. So that's something that can really easily happen. I mentioned project requests earlier. Many of these tools have forms that you can easily bake into your project plans and things like that. So you can intake requests really easily, and everything's just there and contained in one central location. Also, tracking project budgets and resources, that's such a huge one. And budgets can be allocated to all of your projects at the task level or at the project level. So you can have a really good eye on those things. Again, collaboration with team members directly through the tool, linking tasks and projects and programs and portfolios, all the different levels of work to your higher level goals as a company, as a team.
[00:12:10.250] - Nicole
Those are just a handful of things that you can really easily set up.
[00:12:14.220] - Chris
It just sounds like such a beautiful place to be in order to get there. It just sounds so wonderful to be able to pull all this together. But here's the deal with any of this is that Where would you even begin to know? I mean, you rattle off this whole long list of things that it can do. But how do you even begin to understand what it is that you need it to do or what it needs to do for your organization? What's the process for choosing or even starting that process of choosing a tool?
[00:12:47.950] - Nicole
You're totally right. This is an area that stumps a lot of people, and it is really hard because there are so many tools to choose from. And I feel like every day I'm hearing about a new tool that just came out and this new AI feature that this tool has. And there's so much new information coming at us, even me, who I feel like I feel like I know a lot about these tools, but every day I'm learning more and I'm hearing about new things on the market. So it can be very overwhelming for sure. And so I guess where I recommend a lot of people starting is just asking yourself and some trusted team members the question, what's not working right now? Because you probably know something's not working if you're a tool. So talking about, where are those gaps? Is it communication, collaboration? Is it accountability? No one really knows what they're supposed to do, so things aren't getting done or they're not getting done in a timely manner, figuring out where your pain points are, making a list of those, and then those can really easily convert into things that you're going to need out of your new tool.
[00:13:57.230] - Chris
Yeah. Oh, that's a great approach. It's just making a Identify the gaps. Again, it sounds easy when you say it, but it is a great place to start. To your point, you're right. It's just like, I mean, sometimes I'll go to what is it, Capterra, just to compare the different packages of different types of software that I'm looking for. It's overwhelming about what is possible out there. But if you just are zeroing in and you could say, These are the gaps that are most important to me to fill, that is a great place to start. Now, there's going to be a baseline of what every tool needs to have. What are some of the non-negotiables that every PPM or project management tool must have from your perspective?
[00:14:42.130] - Nicole
This is a really good one. The first thing, I think, and I actually read an article about this this morning, is a lot of organizations are using different tools, or maybe the same tool, but in very different ways across their organization. I think when you are choosing a tool, you want to make sure it the ability to bring everything together into one solution to create one unified source of truth. I know that's easier said than done, but I think if you can find a tool that has that capability, I mean, that's That's the number one non-negotiable for me. I think some element of resource management, even if that's just assigning people tasks and allocating an estimated effort to that task, so you can see how many hours people are allotted to work, things like that. You have some concept of what your team members are doing, how much time that's going to take. I think that's an essential. I think ability to track financials is really essential. Obviously, tracking progress across your tasks as individual entities and projects, programs as we level up. I think, in my opinion, a non-negotiable is templates So using project templates, task templates, having some standardized ways of working so you're not constantly reinventing the wheel every time you create a new project, and also the ability to create automated workflows.
[00:16:16.370] - Nicole
So just things that reduce manual effort for you and your team. I think that's the huge benefit of why we use software is so we don't have to constantly do manual data entry every time. Anything you can do to reduce that, I think, is a non-negotiable for sure.
[00:16:34.730] - Chris
Yeah. No, that's a great. That is a great list. I'm going to go back to that first one that you said because you are so right. It's like, oh, great. Another tool that comes in that operates in a non-integrated silo way that is just another source of truth to go wrong and just another variation on what the truth is. And unless that can integrate into what What else is going on? You are exactly right. That is a non-negotiable because otherwise, it's just going to be another tool that either gets orphaned or just doesn't get used or has incorrect information, and you're dead in the water as far as that goes. Now, what are some of the nice to haves? You got to have those things you mentioned, the resource management, tracking financials, templates, automated workflows. What are some of the nice to have that just would be the icing on the cake?
[00:17:33.660] - Nicole
In my experience, some of the tools have this, some of them don't. A built-in documents feature. Of course, that's a nice to have. Definitely not a non-negotiable, but I do think if you're in a lot of meetings, taking notes a lot, if there's a document feature, you can really easily convert action items into real tasks and things like that. So it makes things a little bit easier. I also I think raid logs are nice to haves. I'm a little conflicted about this one, and I'm calling them a nice to have because a lot of the tools that I use and love don't have that feature built in. You do have the ability to have those on the side and link them to projects within your tool using Google Docs or Microsoft, whatever you're using for your document management. I'm saying that's a nice to have.
[00:18:27.370] - Chris
What are you meaning by raid log? What is What's your definition of that?
[00:18:32.500] - Nicole
Documenting risks, issues, actions, and decisions associated with your projects. A lot of people do want that or want to track that, and a lot of people don't. That's why, again, I think it's nice to have because it's not a standard thing, at least from what I see.
[00:18:51.990] - Chris
Yeah, but it is a good audit trail, almost, on some of the decisions that were made along the way there. Yeah, that's good. What else?
[00:18:59.340] - Nicole
Status reports as well. Again, same premise as with the raid logs. Some of these tools have a status report option built in. It's like you press a button, a status report gets generated, you can update it, things like that. But some tools don't. Again, you can just have your own document outside of the tool that houses that, and you can connect it to your project. For that reason, I say it's a nice to have, but it's always nice when things live within your tool, of course.
[00:19:29.700] - Chris
There There was a conversation we had yesterday, actually, about the amount of time that project managers spend translating from what's in a tool and converting it into a PowerPoint as far as the presentation and everything like that. The number is staggering when you think about the amount of time that it takes. But in order to have that in one place, push a button, you get that source of truth, and it's real-time. That's the other thing that's beautiful, is it's changing as the project is changing there. Now, when you think about these tools, you had mentioned Monday and Asana and all these different tools at the beginning. Are there any different classifications or families of tools out there? Is it small, medium, large? Is there ones that are perfect for IT, ones that are perfect for marketing, ones that may be for legal? Are they broken down that way? Or what have you seen as far as your experience there?
[00:20:26.700] - Nicole
Yeah, that's a really interesting one because I don't think this is a formally defined anywhere. I was actually curious about this. I was looking up blogs and articles, trying to see what other people were saying about this. It's a really different interpretation across the board. I think this is mine. I think, going back to your first question or one of your first questions about defining these tools. I think one categorization is, is it a project management tool or is it a PPM tool? That's one categorization. I think along with that comes becomes the small, medium, large. I think if it's just a task management solution, it's probably on the smaller side because it doesn't get into those more high-level concepts. But then if it truly is a PPM solution that can help you intake projects, help you categorize them, help you prioritize them, link them to goals and higher-level objectives, then I think that would be a large classified tool. So I think those go hand in hand. But then in terms of departments, I don't think there's a hard and fast classification for it. But for example, a lot of people think of Asana as a marketing tool.
[00:21:41.070] - Nicole
It's really good for marketing teams, marketing organizations or agencies. That's not, of course, the only type of team or organization that uses Asana, but I think people that are in the marketing realm gravitate towards Asana naturally. Whereas ClickUp and Jira ClickUp are more for technical teams. Clickup has a really good sprints feature. Of course, a lot of technical teams are really into that. Clickup maybe veers more that direction. But I don't think those are hard and fast rules. I think ultimately it comes down to as a user, what resonates the most with you and what are you actually going to use on a daily basis? I think that's the most important thing.
[00:22:27.470] - Chris
I can almost see some semblance a matrix coming into play here. I like that you got PM column, you got PPM column, and then over to the left, you got the rows or small, medium, large, which ones would fit into each one of those. Then, go back to your question or your answer earlier about where would you even start? What are the weaknesses? What are the gaps? What are the challenges that you're having? Start plugging that in into that matrix and seeing where that all fits in. There'll be some themes that develop out of that. It's really a good approach as far as how to break that down. Now, when you've seen these implemented from beginning to end, and you've seen the selection process, and you've seen the choices made, then you've seen them actually up and running, what mistakes have you seen throughout those processes, and how could you avoid some of those?
[00:23:20.750] - Nicole
Okay, so I think the main mistake that I've seen before, and this isn't even really involved in the technology itself, It is realizing that implementing a PPM tool truly is a full business change. It's not just, Here's a tool that we're now using. You really need to devote time to your change management, working with team members to understand the change, understand the reason behind the change, understand how the change is going to impact them, and make sure that they have the tools and things that they need to use the system in the way it's meant to be used. So I think that's the biggest one. It's not simply like, Okay, we have our licenses for this tool. Here we go. It's a real change for your full organization, and that needs to be realized.
[00:24:13.090] - Chris
So you're saying people are not just standing in line, just dying to jump onto this new tool that's been implemented, right? Is that what I'm hearing?
[00:24:22.960] - Nicole
Oh, I wish. I wish it were that easy.
[00:24:25.110] - Chris
And change the way that they're doing things, change the comfort, maybe even the ambiguity or being able to hide a little bit. You're saying they're not standing in line to jump on board with this new process. Yeah. No, that's a good point. It is not just the tool, but it is the change management that needs to come around that. The bottom line is you've got to package it and position it what's in it for them, because that's what they're going to be asking is, What's in it for me? Why should I even do this? Why is this going to be beneficial for me to do and help me do my job?
[00:24:58.860] - Nicole
Yeah, totally. A lot of money goes into these projects. To implement any software, it's costly for an organization. You want to make sure it's going to be worth your while. I worked with organizations implementing this new shiny tool, and months later, I check in with them. They're not using it, or they've sunsetted that tool, they're on to the next. I'm like, Okay, that just didn't seem like a... You didn't put the time time and effort into really making sure that your organization was going to adopt that.
[00:25:36.290] - Chris
Yeah, exactly. It is beyond just the tool. It is really the entire ecosystem that's going to be working within there. Nicole, if you were to leave our guests with one great piece of advice about PPMs or project management tools, what would that be?
[00:25:54.200] - Nicole
I guess I'm probably going to reiterate a little bit what I just said, but not only are you investing in the new technology that you're implementing, the new project management software, but you're investing in the people that are going to use that tool. So again, making sure that they have the necessary training, signing them up for 2-3 tutorials or demos, facilitating that internally or hiring someone to facilitate that for you, ensuring that they have support and they have a go-to person as they start using it. So just making sure that they feel good about the change because there's no way that a PPM solution in and of itself is going to solve your problems. You need to have the people backing you.
[00:26:44.270] - Chris
Bring them along on the journey. They may not be involved in all the decision-making process and all of that type of deal, but keep them informed, keep them involved, get their opinions on what's going to work, what's not going to work. Like you're saying, you'll get that much more buy-in through that entire process there. Well, Nicole, we really appreciate you being on today. If somebody wanted to reach out to you, wanted to talk more about some of these excellent insights and great practices that you brought to the table today, what's the best way to contact you?
[00:27:16.290] - Nicole
Probably LinkedIn. Connect with me and shoot me a message. I'm on LinkedIn all the time, so that's probably the best way to initially get in touch.
[00:27:24.120] - Chris
Okay, sounds good. Well, we'll make sure that we include your LinkedIn profile in the show notes and look forward to talking to you soon. Thanks, Nicole.
[00:27:32.980] - Nicole
Awesome. Thank you.
[00:27:36.730] - Chris
Well, that was another great episode of Great Practices, and we certainly do appreciate Nicole joining us today. What were some of the great practices and insights that came from today's episode? Well, first of all, I liked her definition and delineation between what's a project management tool and what's a project portfolio management or a PPM tool. Now, project management tool specializes in tasks, in schedules, in assigning resource, in status, and collaboration. It's really where the rubber meets the road when it comes to managing projects. A PPM tool really then focuses on high-level strategy, a process for intaking new project requests, resource management and allocation, tying projects to portfolios, and ultimately a portfolio to company strategy, strategy and just really seeing the big picture of things. Where project management tool is on the front line, a PPM tool is much more broad and strategic in nature. What were some of the symptoms that she outlined that companies will experience that says, Yeah, it's time for a project management or a PPM tool. Well, she showed three of them, or talked about three of them. First of all was a lack of visibility in general. You don't know what you're working on, let alone what anybody else is working on within the company.
[00:29:02.140] - Chris
That's one very visible symptom. Number two was lack of accountability. We've all been there. You go through these team meetings, you get a list of action items, everybody's just absolutely pumped and stoked about what they're going to do, and then it just falls flat because nobody knows anything that's being followed up on. Nobody's really been assigned any tasks. No dates have been assembled. And next thing you know, you get together for the the next meeting and no progress has been made. And a third symptom was a lack of prioritization. Now, this could be not understanding what the priority is from a task level all the way up to a project level of what is it that's going to come first. If your company is dealing with any of these symptoms, it may be time for a project management or PPM tool. She also discussed what these PPM tools are going to help you to do. Where some of those symptoms, some of those problems, some of those pain points is what you may be experiencing, well, guess what? A PPM tool is going to help resolve those or maybe lessen the pain a little bit.
[00:30:10.340] - Chris
It'll help you build out those project plans, feed into dashboards and reports, track project budgets and resources, collaborate with team members, and just really raise that visibility, accountability, prioritization, all of those problems that people experience that says, Hey, we need to do something differently. That's ultimately what these tools will allow you to do. But where do you even start? I thought this was great. This was the one question that she basically said, When it comes to choosing a tool, start with the question, what's not working? If you've got a problem, it's going to be surfacing. There's a reason why you're looking for a tool. If it's something that is not working, something that's broken, Go ahead and start there. Maybe it is communication and collaboration or accountability. List these pain points and then identify the gaps. That's going to be a really good place to start to identify which tool you're going to need in order to solve those problems. Regardless of which tool that you do end upon, here were some of her non-negotiables that should be in any tool that you consider. Number one, a single source of truth. Number two, some element of resource management.
[00:31:32.640] - Chris
The ability to track financials was her third thing. Number four, ability to track progress across tasks and projects and programs. Number five was templates at a project level and at a task level. Then number six was automated workflows. Those are really non-negotiables from Nicole's perspective when it comes to looking for a tool to solve some of these pain points. Then she went on to talk about some of the nice to haves, maybe a built-in documents feature or a raid log. Somewhere you're able to capture those risks, actions, issues, and decisions, and being able to put all this together into a status report. Think about how much time you could save as a project manager if these status reports were just automatically generated from the tool that you have. I liked her point about the biggest mistake that she's seen, not about the tool, not about the selection process, not about implementing it, but it's been more about the people side of things. Just assuming that everybody's just going to jump on board and going to say, Yes, sign me up for this. It's more a matter of fact that you need to have a change management plan in place in order to transition people from what they're doing now, which may be nothing, or it may be that they're on an old tool or a tool that's not working, over to this new tool.
[00:33:01.550] - Chris
Focus on what's in it for them and what they're going to be able to get out of this. That ultimately tied into a one piece of advice to all of us is don't just invest in the software, invest in the people, whether that's training, tutorials, demos, having internal resources helping them, hiring somebody from the outside to help, making sure that you've got go-to people to support this change. That was great advice it comes to making such a shift in the way that you would manage your projects or your portfolio within your company. A lot of great insight, a lot of great experience that Nicole shared with us today, and we'd like to thank her for being on today. Do you have a great practice that you'd like to share? Well, just go to thepmoleader. Com, click on Explore, Great Practices podcast, and then fill out the form at the bottom of the screen. Someone will get in touch with you shortly. Also, be sure not to miss out on a single episode by subscribing to Great Practices on your favorite podcast platform. If you like what you hear, we've had some great guests over the years now.
[00:34:12.220] - Chris
Be sure to share this with your manager, colleagues, and any others you think would benefit. Thanks again for listening to this episode, and keep putting Great Practices into practice.
