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An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, or so the old and tired adage goes. Yet this small piece of advice, when ignored, has been the failing of many a company, to the tune of billions of dollars. Firms and organizations looking for a quick and easy solution to the myriad challenges faced by modern business have failed to simply pause, reflect, and take the time necessary to formulate a measured response to a changing industry. By way of contrast, business leaders that are have the restraint and foresight to recognize potential pitfalls and major problems in advance will save their people from disaster more often than not.
While company after company will complain of challenges and hardships they face on a day-to-day basis, few will take the time to plan ahead in order to avoid these road bumps in the first place. Planning deliberately–whether through use of cloud-based project management software or other internal solutions–is essential to your thriving in the modern marketplace. Furthermore, utilizing modern collaboration software so as to cooperatively analyze and cull any relevant data should be a key method of your project management philosophy. While generating spreadsheets in Microsoft Project is great and sometimes necessary, the data is only as good as it is available to those who need to get eyes on it.
Are you using online document management structures to make sure your plans to avoid common pitfalls are sound? Even though cloud software has been continually proving its utility over the past five years, many companies still choose to ignore the benefits of these programs over traditional software like MS Project or Office. Getting up to date with modern online-centric services like WorkZone, Smartsheet, or Basecamp is absolutely critical to spreading pertinent data to all departments of your company. Isolated data will do you no good in your endeavors to plan for the worst.
While it can certainly be tempting to fall head over heels for whatever the current hot business trend or shiny new technology happens to be, resist the urge to leap before you look. The very best companies will approach all new opportunities circumspectly, ensuring that all new methods they adapt and business objectives they elect to pursue are rock-solid. Ultimately, planning is the very best way to recognize and avoid disaster in your industry.
Does your organization need help managing projects more effectively? Check out WorkZone web-based project management software and collaboration tools.
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This article originally appeared on the WorkZone Project Management Software blog.