Simplifying the complexities of project management
How Completix brings project management back to basics with Handsontable
Overview
No one ever said project management was easy. To successfully deliver on time, a project manager (PM) has to get everything - and everyone - to work as a well-oiled machine. But the complexities of managing a project can make that difficult. And very often, a PM isn't managing a project but juggling multiple projects.
Then there are the project management office (PMO) processes that need to be followed and documentation that needs to be filled out.
Experience with business struggles
Andrew Paraninfo, founder and CEO of Completix, understands these challenges as well as anyone. As a practicing project manager for over 25 years across industries and company sizes, he's seen businesses struggle with the same problems over and over. A ton of lost productivity, miscommunication, and delivery mistakes that could have been easily prevented.
Challenge
Both project managers and project management offices face a difficult adversary - disorganized data. Especially when there are multiple ongoing projects. A lack of data consolidation creates a trickle-down effect that impacts many other aspects of work, all the way to the end results.
Dealing with scattered information
For example, imagine you're a PM taking on a new project. Before you get started, you'd like to review the information created by your PMO on the project management process. Not a problem if the information is where it's supposed to be. But what if it's not there? Or you don't immediately remember where it is? Then again, maybe it's in some obscure SharePoint site that nobody you ask seems to know the link to.
And what if you work in the PMO and want to update that information across several projects? It has to get published, people have to be notified, and project managers have to remember there's a new way of doing things. Without a single place to keep it all, a lot of time is wasted, and it gets complicated to have a process that everyone has to follow.
As a project manager, it's also much harder to create reports when information is all over the place. This is when handling multiple projects really sucks up a lot of your time. Management wants to see where you are every couple of weeks, and you have to ask your teams for the status reports for everything. The more you have to ask, the less you actually work.
Impact of disconnected tools
Throughout his two-plus decades of experience, Andrew has seen companies face these and other challenges. To try to organize data and improve efficiency, these companies often turned to online project management software. Andrew's had the chance to work with quite a few apps: Asana, Monday, Smartsheet, Planview, and ServiceNow, among others.
But while the solutions did provide certain benefits, none of them fully covered the whole project management lifecycle and project portfolio. Companies typically responded by using several disconnected tools, so in the end, there was still no centralized source of information.
The result: Project managers still had to collect data from different sources, and PMOs still didn't have access to an overview of multiple projects.
Solution
Seeing all of this happen time after time, Andrew and his team went to work on finding a solution. They eventually recognized the challenges boiled down to the same thing - inconsistency. The lack of a repeatable process was leading to a lack of repeatable results. And the final effects were delayed projects and wasted money.
But like an illness that's hard to diagnose because it produces a variety of symptoms, the Completix team saw that the companies they were working with were generally unaware that the lack of consistency was at the heart of their difficulties. So Completix set out to fix the problem.
Their idea was to build a holistic solution accessible to PMs, PMOs, and everyone in between. They wanted to help make project management simpler and more effective.
Teaming up with Handsontable
Completix started with a basic premise: every project needs a plan, and every plan needs a schedule. And since they were looking to create a tool similar to MS Project, they needed a spreadsheet-like framework. But with all the functionality that the app would require, Andrew knew that they couldn't spend time building such a framework. So he started searching for one instead.
He found a few candidates, put them through a test, and Handsontable came out on top. Here's why he chose this JavaScript data grid:
- Excel-like familiarity and behavior
- Customizable functionality
- Ability to custom render cells, indent text, and navigate using the arrow buttons after text entry
- Desktop app feel
Handsontable worked for me from a user perspective. Then it worked as a tool that can fulfill the actual business need.
The support and partnership Andrew felt from the Handsontable team sealed the deal. As he puts it, "With your team, I can actually discuss what I need. I prefer having a personal relationship because I know that if I need something, I can talk to someone. Whereas with other places, they tell you to send an email, and then you never hear from them. So I prefer this kind of situation."
Efficient project management
Overall, Handsontable helped Completix create a collaborative, single-platform system that:
- Solves the problem of having too many tools and scattered data
- Allows PMOs to create comprehensive and repeatable processes
- Allows PMs to manage the full project management lifecycle
- Helps make sure projects are consistent and on time
And even if the PMO needs to change a process, they can do it directly in the app. The new template then automatically flows through all the projects. So the project managers are always up to date, and repeatable processes are guaranteed. That, Andrew says, is the key to everything.
Result
Using Completix simplifies workflows for different groups of users. Project teams can use the tool on a daily basis to:
- Enhance collaboration
- Handle complex projects
- Manage multiple projects more easily
- Allow for seamless project takeover
Completix's customers like that they can find everything they need in one place. When they want to integrate the app with another useful solution, they appreciate that the Completix team can customize the platform to fit their needs.
Handsontable's value to Completix, from both an app and a business perspective, cannot be overstated. According to Andrew, it's the backbone of the app: "It starts with a grid because any project starts with a plan, and a plan without a grid, from a project perspective, is not a plan." He adds that they've saved a great deal of time and effort by implementing something that's ready to go out of the box.
