Is your agency project management software too feature rich and complex?
By Jodie Byass
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The internet ? no training required?
Think about it for a moment, you use the interne
t every day to do some amazing things. You check your email (probably too often), search for and locate almost anything, book flights and holidays to anywhere in the world, buy and sell any product you need, watch and listen to literally anything you want. But how did you get to this point?How much training were you required to take before you were let loose on the web? The answer is almost certainly none. And yet look at what you can achieve with no training. The power at your fingertips is staggering. So why is it that this feeling of empowerment is often missing when using agency project management software supposedly designed to help you to be more productive?
A tale of two internet users ? the ?personal? you Vs the ?work? you
Contrast the ?personal? you who manages to get things done on the internet so easily, with the ?work? you, who often struggles to come to grips with your agency project management software. Imagine how much more productive you could be at work if the software you had to use were more intuitive, simple and straightforward. Why is it that agency project management software demands such a high level of training and prior knowledge before you can begin to feel comfortable using it?
So why is agency project management software different from everything else?
There are of course many reasons why in-house systems evolve to become so complex and difficult to use by their target audience. The importance of having a simple user interface is often overlooked in favour of offering more features. The system grows over the years as more functionality is added while few features are removed. The end result is a agency management software with features and functionality for all departments all on display at the same time. Without comprehensive training or explanation, there is little chance staff can use the system easily.
Complex systems require in-house support staff to manage, troubleshoot and train users. It?s a self-perpetuating cycle. Once you?ve committed and invested in this cycle, it?s hard to break free.
Cloud based agency management software and creative approval workflow solutions, however, can provide all the functionality you need in a simple dashboard style front end, providing solutions to many of your in-house problems.
But can a cloud based agency management software really be simple and powerful at the same time?
Without doubt, the answer is yes. The secret, of course, is finding the balance between the powerful feature set of the system and how much of this you choose to display to end users.
Join us next week, when our guest blogger Dave Ewers reviews admation ? is less really more?